If you have teenagers or children who are near the teen age, it is the most appropriate time to consider installing parental control soft wares to control their access over the internet. Here are some compelling reasons why.
1.) Prevention of access to inappropriate websites or offensive content
According to various studies, children start searching for pornographic websites and web content as early as eleven years of age, and continue at increasing levels within the teenage years. Most children between twelve to fourteen years of age already search for hardcore material.
Internet pornography has been reported to generate billions of dollars. So it is a no- brainer that the world wide web is overflowing with websites featuring it. Parental control soft wares help prevent and restrict access to such sites.
Offensive material may include drug abuse, physical abuse, militant issues, gambling, alcoholism, tobacco, crimes, violence, hate, racism and intolerance. Adults can select these categories to be blocked by the proper control programs.
2.) Prevention of illegal downloading
Your child may be too tech savvy that he or she may probably already know the means of illegally downloading internet files, be it downloading pirated films, pirated music, softwares, programs and others. Parental control programs can also restrict such activities.
3.) Personal Safety
With the growing popularity of social media, social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc. have become important parts of the lives of millions of teenagers. And with this trend comes also the increasing reports of online predation.
Consider the following statistics from the Crimes Against Children Research Center: – one in five US teenagers who regularly log on to the internet said that they have received unwanted sexual solicitation via the web. These solicitations were defined as requests to engage in sexual activities or give personal sexual information.
– 25% of children have been exposed to unwanted pornographic material online
– 75% of children are willing to share personal information about themselves and family
– 77% of the targets for online predators were aged 14 or older. Another 22% were aged 10 to 13
– only approximately 25% of children who encountered a sexual approach or solicitation informed a parent or an adult
– only 1/3 of households with Internet Access are actively protecting their children with filtering or blocking software
It is time to start controlling and monitoring your children’s computer use. It will be a wise decision and action for you.