I have been browsing these answers for a few days and I'm just dazzled
by the quality of the answers. Here is my question:

57% of parents of online teens worry that their children will be
contacted by strangers via the Net - 25% of parents worry "a lot."
Parents of girls and of younger children worry more than other
parents.

(Pew foundation, The rise of the instant-message generation and the
Internet's impact on friendships and family relationships, June 2001).

However according to a study from the National Cyber Security Alliance
conducted by America Online, only 3% of parents are using any kind of
parental control.

My question relates to this discrepancy. I'm searching for surveys,
polls, market justifications on all sorts that would account for this
difference between the concern of parents and their apparent lack of
remediation (i.e. only 3% install parental control software).

Is this because Parental control software are poorly working, porly
advertised, because they are usually more targeted at controlling the
browsing experience than the communication content, because kids are
more computer savvy than their parents ...?

Any justification is to be considered as long as it is supported by
some kind of hard evidence (survey, demographics etc.). I'm concerned
only by the US market but references from Europe or Japan for
illustrative purpose are welcome.

Thanks!

jm

<Parental Control Software.

Trust.
The overwhelming reason that parental control software is not being
used to a great degree is that parents trust their children to behave
responsibly online. This trust in children is cited in a number of
studies including:
1. Pew Internet & American Life Study.
2. The Parents Advisory Group for the Internet.
3. The Annenburg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.

The Pew report says the main reason that parental care software is not
installed is parental trust. Other techniques of parental control used
are:
1. Monitoring the child?s activity after they have gone online (61%), 
2. Surfing with their children (68%), 
3. Imposing time limits (61%), 
4. Having the computer in a public household room (70%). 

Reasons for not having filters.
http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/reports.asp?Report=36&Section=ReportLevel3&Field=Level3ID&ID=52

The Annenburg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania
study found  that although 79% of parents were aware of filtering
software, only 25% actually used it.
This report also cites trust as a reason that parents do not use
filters. In this survey 54% of parents reported complete trust in
their children online and 35% were somewhat trusting.
http://www.asc.upenn.edu/usr/chunter/copa_testimony/opening_statement.pdf

A survey conducted by the Parents Advisory Group for the Internet
found that 81% of parents trust their children to behave responsibly
online.
http://www.verbosity.net/columns/ebs010518.htm

---------------------------------------------------------

Supervision.

Another reason is that parents prefer to supervise their children
rather than install software.

A survey by Jupiter research found that seven out of ten parents are
present when their children go online. Only 6 percent use filtering
software.
http://www.consumerreports.org/main/content/display_report.jsp?FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=348251&bmUID=1072887668658

A survey by Greenfield online found that parents prefer supervision to
filters. 85% of parents monitored their children.
http://www.parent.net/news/archives/internet.shtml

This survey found that parents prefer supervision to filtering software.
http://www.netfamilynews.org/resourcessurvey99.htm

-------------------------------------------------------
Filtering systems too complex.

A UK survey found that most parents felt that the current technical
tools for controlling their children?s internet use of the internet
were too complex to install and lacked simple age categorisation. They
wanted simple labelling and easy to use filtering systems.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/27301.html
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/0,39020369,2122751,00.htm


-------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Pew study.
A study carried out by Pew Internet & American Life and gives a figure
of 41% of parents that use parental control software. The study that
you quote only survey 120 families whereas the Pew study interviewed a
much larger sample (over 1500 individuals). This figure of 41% appears
to be in line with the Youth Internet Safety Survey which gives a
figure of 38%.

41% use monitoring software.
http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/reports.asp?Report=36&Section=ReportLevel3&Field=Level3ID&ID=52

Rules.
61% of parents of online teens impose time limits on how long children
can stay online.
http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/reports.asp?Report=36&Section=ReportLevel3&Field=Level3ID&ID=48

Checking up.
Most of the teens believed that ?parental monitoring? was preferable to filtering.
61% of parents monitor their children by checking the sites they have
visited after they have gone online.
http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/reports.asp?Report=36&Section=ReportLevel3&Field=Level3ID&ID=49

68% of parents surf with their child.
http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/reports.asp?Report=36&Section=ReportLevel3&Field=Level3ID&ID=50

70% have their computer in a public household space.
http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/reports.asp?Report=36&Section=ReportLevel3&Field=Level3ID&ID=51

Boys and adult content. 15% of teens have lied about their age to gain
access to a website.
http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/reports.asp?Report=36&Section=ReportLevel3&Field=Level3ID&ID=53

Survey sample 2096 adults ?error plus or minus 3 percent.
http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/reports.asp?Report=36&Section=ReportLevel2&Field=Level2ID&ID=226
Survey of 1508 individuals.
http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/reports.asp?Report=36&Section=ReportLevel2&Field=Level2ID&ID=225

The Youth Internet Safety Survey had a sample of 1501 internet using
teens found. It found that 38% used parental control software.
http://www.missingkids.com/en_US/documents/internetsafety_surv.pdf

Pew ? full report.
http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/reports.asp?Report=36&Section=ReportLevel3&Field=Level3ID&ID=52

-------------------------------------------------------------------
I also looked at how parental control software has been reported in the media. 

The facts on filters is a report that reviews the tests carried out by
major publications. In 1997, Family PC found that 26% of parents used
some form of parental care software. By 2000 a study by the National
Center for Missing and Exploited children found that this figure had
risen to 33%. The Pew Internet and American Life Project reported in
2001 that filtering by parents had risen to 41%.

On average filters have received good reviews in the media. This
report looks at how 26 tests were reported in the media. The IT
related magazines have tended to give good reviews. However Consumer
Reports reported that the filters were ineffective. In March 2001,
Consumer Reports stated ?Filtering Software is not a substitute for
parental supervision. One in five of the sites we tested failed to
block one objectionable site in five.?
http://66.102.11.104/search?q=cache:ur-D2HaJuvcJ:www.n2h2.com/pdf/facts_on_filters_whitepaper.pdf+%22parental+control+software%22+ineffective&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Pdf version.
http://www.n2h2.com/pdf/facts_on_filters_whitepaper.pdf

------------------------------------------------------
I came across some sites that did not recommend the use of parental
control software. Common advice for many sites was to offer
non-technical solutions for protecting children.

The Texas Internet Service Providers Association does not recommend
the use of content censor software. The Texas ISP Association feels
parents can be most effective in protecting their children by spending
time discussing the values and risks of free access to information.
Some parents find blocking and filtering software to be a useful tool
for reducing the risks of objectionable materials coming into the home
via the Internet, while other parents find "censorware" to be
ineffective, offensive, expensive, and disruptive of the essence of
the parent-child bond.
 http://www.tispa.org/info/kinnaman/filtering.htm

The same message is given here.
http://www.pulse.net/filter.shtml



---------------------------------------------
<Additional links:>

<Parents trust internet use.>
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/884909.stm>
<http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2000/03-28nsba.asp>

<An Australian study shows that the policing by parents of children?s
online activity has increased. The use of filtering software has grown
from 21 percent in 2001 to 18 percent. All forms of supervision grew.>
<http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,7517330%5e15306%5e%5enbv%5e,00.html>

<Study ? kids lack net supervision>
<http://www.soc-um.org/article01.html>

<In this survey 82% of parents say that filtering software is necessary.>
<http://sanjose.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2001/05/14/daily33.html>

<Parents ignore online safety for kids.>
<http://www.vnunet.com/News/1142591>


<Search strategy:>

< "parental control software"  study>
<://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=%22parental+control+software%22++study>

<parents "trust their children" internet 2003>
<://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=parents+%22trust+their+children%22+internet+2003>

<"do not use filtering" parents>
<://www.google.com/search?q=%22do+not+use+filtering%22+parents&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&start=20&sa=N>

<"filtering software" survey internet parents supervision>
<://www.google.com/search?q=%22filtering+software%22+survey+internet+parents+supervision&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&start=10&sa=N>

<Hope this helps.>

---

Clarification of Answer by belindalevez-ga on 01 Jan 2004 02:54 PST

<This survey found that most children have personal email accounts and
more than half check email without their parents' guidance. When askec
how important it was to have a parent check email with them, nearly
one in three said it is not important, 21 percent said they don't care
and 16 percent said they don't want their parents to check their
emails with them. In addition 46 percent did not check with their
parents before giving out their personal emails addresses.
http://www.symantec.com/press/2003/n030609a.html

This survey about instant messaging found that 61 percent of parents
were examining their child's computer to find out what they had been
up to.
http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/internet/06/21/teenager.phones.idg/

The full survey can be found here:
The instant message generation.
http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/reports.asp?Report=36&Section=ReportLevel2&Field=Level2ID&ID=189

Many teens manage and play with their online identities.
http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/reports.asp?Report=36&Section=ReportLevel2&Field=Level2ID&ID=190

61% of parents say they have rules about use of the internet but only
37% of children report being subject to any internet time strictures.
61% of parents report checking on their children but only 27% of teens
believe they have been checked on. 68% of parents say they sit with
their children while they are online but just 48% of children can
recall such episodes.
http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/reports.asp?Report=36&Section=ReportLevel2&Field=Level2ID&ID=191>

<Hope this helps.>

Belinda,

Thanks for this great answer. Also if in the course of your reasearch
you were able to gather a few more pointers specific to control
parental vs instant messaging or emails, I would greatlty appreciate.

Happy new year 2004 and thanks for the excellent job!