Providing user perspectives to the next generation of parental controls

Recent studies indicate that early adolescents (i.e., 10-14-year-olds) are accessing online services without an adequate understanding of digital etiquette and risks. Parental control has been proposed as a tool for parents to observe their children’s digital use. However, the literature reveals a decreasing parental control adoption, due to the lack of usability, and insufficient privacy and security controls. Starting from an investigation of barriers or drivers in current solutions, this study explores how next-generation parental controls could facilitate increasing children’s digital competence and cybersecurity awareness. Six semi-structured interviews were conducted with parents of 10–13-year-olds and five experts within various domains of parental control, along with four focus group sessions (N=14) with 11- and 12-year-olds. The results indicate that existing parental control tools are perceived as non-pedagogical and lacking functionalities in increasing children’s digital knowledge and cybersecurity awareness. They provide parents with monitoring possibilities, without granting the children opportunities for self-regulation. This underlines the importance of implementing future parental controls that educate children to become digitally independent, while to an extent allowing parents to maintain control of their children’s digital habits. Overall, the study provides another perspective on the potential use and implications of future parental control by enhancing the significance of such applications and suggesting directions for development.