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Ban on Internet use a new punishment
Source: Agencies |
December 18, 2010, Saturday
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Print Edition
No TV for a week, the time-honored punishment for misbehaving children, has been enhanced. Now, parents are also withholding Internet access to punish their kids, further sign that the web has become as important to families as television.
As the two mediums converge, parents are coming to see TV and the Internet in similar ways and are seeking to limit their children's access to both, said a report out this week from the University of Southern California.
The survey from the USC Annenberg Center for the Digital Future found that two-thirds of parents restrict their children's access to TV as punishment, a number that has barely budged over the past 10 years. But the percentage of parents who limit Internet access as a form of punishment has nearly doubled in the last decade.
Among parents surveyed, 57 percent said they withheld web access to punish their children. That is up from 32 percent in 2000.
Michael Gilbert, a senior fellow at the center, said parents are starting to regard TV watching and Internet use as similar things. Even so, parents are still more comfortable with the amount of time children spend on the Internet - 71 percent said it was "just about right" compared with just 51 percent for TV.
Earlier surveys by the center have shown that families are spending less time together than they used to, a decline that has coincided with the explosive growth of social networks in the past few years.
Now, parents are saying Internet access at home is also reducing the time their children spend with their friends. Gilbert called this a worrisome trend, but said the number is still small - 11 percent in 2010 compared with 7 percent in 2000.
"The answer is never about technology. It's always about parental responsibility," Gilbert said.
As the two mediums converge, parents are coming to see TV and the Internet in similar ways and are seeking to limit their children's access to both, said a report out this week from the University of Southern California.
The survey from the USC Annenberg Center for the Digital Future found that two-thirds of parents restrict their children's access to TV as punishment, a number that has barely budged over the past 10 years. But the percentage of parents who limit Internet access as a form of punishment has nearly doubled in the last decade.
Among parents surveyed, 57 percent said they withheld web access to punish their children. That is up from 32 percent in 2000.
Michael Gilbert, a senior fellow at the center, said parents are starting to regard TV watching and Internet use as similar things. Even so, parents are still more comfortable with the amount of time children spend on the Internet - 71 percent said it was "just about right" compared with just 51 percent for TV.
Earlier surveys by the center have shown that families are spending less time together than they used to, a decline that has coincided with the explosive growth of social networks in the past few years.
Now, parents are saying Internet access at home is also reducing the time their children spend with their friends. Gilbert called this a worrisome trend, but said the number is still small - 11 percent in 2010 compared with 7 percent in 2000.
"The answer is never about technology. It's always about parental responsibility," Gilbert said.
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