Singapore – Singaporean parents are increasingly concerned about their child’s safety on the internet, according to Google’s ‘APAC Kids and Families Online Safety Survey’, which mainly reveals that seeing inappropriate content online is the most experienced online safety issue by Singaporean children, with one in two children having encountered it at least once in the past year.
These findings come at a time where children in Singapore are spending more time online than ever before, with four out of five local children now spending one to six hours online daily for education and entertainment.
Notably, data from the survey suggests that the top three types of inappropriate content reported by parents were misinformation at 55.4%, deceptive ads and spam at 50.7%, and violent content at 48.7%.
However the survey also revealed that Singaporean parents are becoming less confident in discussing online safety with their children. This year’s survey found that only 79% of respondents feel confident in engaging their children on this topic, down from 83% last year.
Factors for this decline in confidence may include difficulty of finding age-appropriate and easy-to-understand examples of online safety issues and the rapidly evolving nature of the online world. In addition, nearly half of the parents surveyed said they struggle to find the right time to talk to their children about online safety.
Despite these gaps, more than half of respondents said they are willing to allow their children to spend more time online and expect to change digital rules for their child’s Internet use as they grow older. This also draws concern as parents are faced with the need to develop new rules – sometimes before even putting the fundamentals in place – which makes the online journeys of children increasingly challenging to manage.
Speaking on the results, Norman Ng, regional operations lead, trust & safety global engagement at Google Singapore, said, “Our survey results highlight the urgent need to make online safety a central part of their conversations at home. We understand that each family’s relationship with technology is unique, and we encourage parents to make good use of tools such as Family Link and Be Internet Awesome to aid their digital parenting.”
“As the saying goes, it takes a village to raise a child. We remain committed in stepping up our efforts in working collaboratively with industry partners and experts to ensure digital literacy remains more accessible for all,” he added.
Lastly, the survey also indicated several suggestions and tools that parents can use to a create safer experience online such as age-appropriate content restrictions via Family Link, blurring graphic content through SafeSearch, child-friendly app settings or versions such as Youtube Kids, and online education and safety resources like The library of Digital Safety Resources and the Be Internet Awesome program.
