Controling Your Child’s Exposure to Sex and Violence in the Media
Last month, the Kaiser Family Foundation released results from their survey about parent’s concern over sex and media violence. Below are some excerpts from their report:
- Sixty-five percent of parents say they “closely” monitor their children’s media use, while just 18 percent say they “should do more.”
- Parents are confident in monitoring their children’s online activities. They check their children’s Instant Messaging (IM) “buddy lists” (87 percent), review their children’s profiles on social networking sites (82 percent), and look to see what websites they’ve visited (76 percent) after they’ve gone online.
- Parents are still concerned about children’s exposure to inappropriate media content in general. Minority parents express the most concern: African American and Hispanic parents are more likely than Whites to say they are “very concerned” about their children’s exposure to sex, violence and adult language in the media.
From my personal conversations with parents, I concur that most have learned that they need to take a pro-active approach to monitoring their children’s media use. It’s no longer enough to simply limit the amount of television your child watches, but knowing what their online activity is all about, how they’re profiling themselves on networking sites such as MySpace, and checking their web browsing history are all important measures that any concerned parent should do.
I was talking with a colleague of mine this week at an industry trade show. He has two children, ages 5 and 7 and he said that he finds there are so many things to pay attention to that they’ve taken the approach to just pay attention to what they need to do now, and maybe in the next year out. That way, it seems to be all a bit more manageable.
The rest of this report by the Kaiser Family Foundation is quite interesting. The report, Parents, Children and Media: A Kaiser Family Foundation Survey, is a national survey of 1,008 parents of children ages 2-17. The complete report may be viewed online at http://www.kff.org/entmedia/entmedia061907pkg.cfmAdditional findings:
