Parents are More Concerned on What Their Kids Watch

A recent survey has found that parents are increasingly monitoring what their kids’ watch on TV or the internet.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation's national survey of 1,008 parents of children ages 2-17, a great majority say that they "closely" keep an eye on their children's media use, while only 18 percent say that they "should do more."

"While parents are still concerned about a lot of what they see in the media, most are surprisingly confident that they've got a handle on what their own kids are seeing and doing -- even when it comes to the Internet," the Hollywood Reporter quoted Vicky Rideout, VP and director of Kaiser's Program for the Study of Entertainment Media and Health, as saying.

The survey found that the percentage of parents who say they are "very" worried that their own children are exposed to unsuitable content has gone down, from 67 percent to 51 percent for sexual content, from 62 percent to 46 percent for violence, and from 59 percent to 41 percent for adult language since 1998.

According to the survey, parents exhibited confidence about monitoring their children's online activities. Almost three out of four parents said that they know "a lot" about what their kids are doing online.

Almost 90 percent, whose children take on Internet activities said that they check their children's Instant Messaging "buddy lists," while just over 80 percent said that they assess their children's profiles on social networking sites.

About three-quarters of the parents logged on again to check what sites their children visited. Parents still have major concerns about children's exposure to unsuitable media content on the whole. Two-thirds of them said that they are "very" concerned that children in this country are exposed to too much inappropriate content in the media and a similar proportion supported government regulations to bound TV content during early evening hours.

Minority parents such as Black and Latino parents, were the most concerned. With black and Latino parents more concerned than white parents about sexual content, violence and language, the report, Parents, Children & Media: A Kaiser Family Foundation Survey, comes while congress is getting ready to engage in the issue of violence in the media once again. A hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee is scheduled for June 26.

On June 4, a federal appeals court in New York dismissed the FCC's new policy of punishing the momentary use of the "S-word" and "F-word" on broadcast TV. The ruling has thrown uncertainty in the justification behind government regulation of broadcast content.

Source-ANI
LIN/S