Parents' social media concerns: 89% fear for their child’s safety online

Social media is at the forefront of many parents’ concerns due to the dangers it repeatedly possesses.

As a result, OnBuy.com were eager to discover how parents of under-17s feel about their child using social media - specifically TikTok, which has recently become an issue for many parents.

After surveying 1,862 parents of under-17’s who use social media, OnBuy found that music based app TikTok worries parents the most, with 84% concerned about their child's habits on the platform.

Other apps that worry parents include Instagram (81%), YouTube (55%) and Snapchat (54%).

A whopping 89% of parents fear for their child’s safety online.

However, 67% still let their child take their phone to bed, where they are unsupervised and unmonitored.

Of the parents surveyed, 39% find it difficult to moderate their child’s screen time and almost 1 in 4 don't monitor their social media usage at all.

Interestingly, 24% are unsure if their child’s social media is on private, while only 64% of parents are certain that their child has a locked/private account.

A total of 92% of parents believe that TikTok needs to do more to make the app safer for children, as only 33% believe their child is safe using the platform.

OnBuy asked parents to rank their biggest fears with their child posting online content and has discovered that they worry most about predators confronting their child through social media.

This is how they ranked:

1.    Predators

2.    Sexual exploitation/Explicit content

3.    Cyberbullying

4.    Dangerous viral challenges

5.    Dangerous propaganda

6.    Virtual coin payment

7.    Animal abuse

Regarding recent trends, 40% of those surveyed worry about the viral ‘skull breaker’ challenge more than any other, followed by the ‘outlet challenge’ (22%) and the ‘fainting/choking challenge’ (19%).

After analysing Google’s search trends, OnBuy discovered that searches for ‘TikTok safe’ are three times higher than they were in June 2019, demonstrating that safety concerns have skyrocketed.

Over time it is evident that parents fear more about TikTok safety than Snapchat; searches regarding TikTok’s safety have overtaken Snapchat and is on the way to passing Twitter.

Log on to: https://www.onbuy.com/ for more information on child safety online.

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