Internet Safety for Kids

What Is Inter­net Safe­ty for Kids?

Inter­net use among kids is per­va­sive — near­ly all U.S. teens (96%) say they use the inter­net every day. It also begins ear­ly. The major­i­ty of par­ents with younger kids (89% with kids ages 5 to 11, 81% with kids ages 3 to 4 and 57% with kids 2 and younger) report that their chil­dren watch YouTube videos. 

Despite its pop­u­lar­i­ty — and its many ben­e­fits — the inter­net can be a dan­ger­ous place for child users. Some online risks include expo­sure to:

• inap­pro­pri­ate content;
• cyber­bul­ly­ing;
• iden­ti­ty theft and pri­va­cy breeches;
• exploita­tion and abuse;
• scams; and
• mis­in­for­ma­tion.

The field of inter­net safe­ty is ded­i­cat­ed to keep­ing users and their online inter­ac­tions safe and secure. Pro­tect­ing child users from harm or mis­use is a team effort — one that involves par­ents, edu­ca­tors, con­tent devel­op­ers, ser­vice providers and the chil­dren them­selves work­ing together.

Suc­cess­ful­ly sup­port­ing inter­net safe­ty for kids involves teach­ing young users and the adults in their lives about the poten­tial risks of tech­nol­o­gy use. It also involves under­stand­ing what safe and respon­si­ble inter­net use looks like and how to iden­ti­fy and avoid unsafe deci­sions and behav­iors online.

Why Is Inter­net Safe­ty Impor­tant for Kids?

Inter­net safe­ty is impor­tant for kids because chil­dren present unique chal­lenges due to ​“their nat­ur­al char­ac­ter­is­tics: inno­cence, curios­i­ty, desire for inde­pen­dence, and fear of pun­ish­ment,” accord­ing to the U.S. Depart­ment of Home­land Security’s Cyber­se­cu­ri­ty and Infra­struc­ture Secu­ri­ty Agency.

Child­hood and ado­les­cence is also a time of great social, behav­ioral and emo­tion­al growth. Explor­ing the online world can be edu­ca­tion­al, enter­tain­ing and a very inter­ac­tive endeav­or. At the same time, the inter­net anonymizes com­mu­ni­ca­tion in many ways, mak­ing it eas­i­er for cyber­bul­ly­ing, preda­to­ry behav­ior and mis­in­for­ma­tion to thrive. 

Adults have a pro­found and ongo­ing role to play in mak­ing the inter­net a safer, health­i­er and more pos­i­tive expe­ri­ence for the chil­dren in their lives. Active­ly mon­i­tor­ing a young per­son­’s online activ­i­ties is a great start. But par­ents and care­givers can do more, like:

• set­ting clear rules for tech­nol­o­gy use;
• enact­ing age-appro­pri­ate con­tent fil­ters and con­trols; and
• con­tin­u­ous­ly edu­cat­ing young users about both the ben­e­fits and the dan­gers of being online.

10 Essen­tial Inter­net Safe­ty Tips for Kids

Pro­mot­ing inter­net safe­ty for kids is more of a learn­ing jour­ney than a one-and-done les­son. Par­ents and care­givers should set clear bound­aries and expec­ta­tions for a young person’s activ­i­ties online. They should also reg­u­lar­ly check in with young users and seek to under­stand the sites, games and con­tacts that they are access­ing online.

The list below shares inter­net safe­ty tips for kids and adults to keep in mind when play­ing, learn­ing and explor­ing online.

1. Be smart about pass­words. Cre­ate pow­er­ful pass­words that can’t be found in a dic­tio­nary (and that incor­po­rate num­bers and spe­cial char­ac­ters). Keep pass­words pri­vate (shar­ing with par­ents is okay!) and change your pass­words regularly.
2. Check your set­tings. Turn all pri­va­cy set­tings on, loca­tion track­ing off and ensure they are set to min­i­mize data collection.
3. Do your research. For par­ents: Check the rec­om­mend­ed age rat­ing before adding new con­tent to a child’s device — try Com­mon Sense Media for apps and ESRB for video games. Read reviews, deter­mine if ads or in-app pur­chas­es are part of the offer and explore demos to see if the con­tent fits with your family’s values.
4. Stop and ask. Young users should imme­di­ate­ly stop and alert an adult if they expe­ri­ence some­thing unusu­al or uncom­fort­able online. Kids should repeat these same steps — stop­ping and secur­ing an adult’s approval before pro­ceed­ing — each time they get asked to pur­chase, upload or down­load con­tent online.
5. Don’t fall for pop-ups. Avoid click­bait quizzes or spe­cial offers, which often try to col­lect per­son­al information.
6. Stay unseen. Keep web­cams cov­ered when not in use. Stick­ing a piece of tape over a device’s cam­era is a cheap and easy way to pre­vent unau­tho­rized viewing.
7. Shrink the inter­net. Use safe search options and parental con­trols to lim­it a child’s expo­sure to inap­pro­pri­ate con­tent and time lim­its to keep screen time in check.
8. Sup­port open surf­ing. Keep tech­nol­o­gy cen­tral­ly locat­ed to ensure a line of sight into a child’s inter­net activities.
9. Social­ize skep­ti­cal­ly. Rec­og­nize the dif­fer­ence between real-life friends and online-only friends. Share what to do if an online-only friend asks for unique per­son­al details, such as a person’s full name, pho­to, mail­ing address or passwords.
10. Pro­tect when prompt­ed. Updat­ing the apps, inter­net browsers and oper­at­ing sys­tems on devices is a must-do move for main­tain­ing good online health.

Read the Cyber­se­cu­ri­ty and Infra­struc­ture Secu­ri­ty Agen­cy’s tips for keep­ing chil­dren safe online

Chil­dren’s Inter­net Safe­ty Web­sites and Tools

Parental con­trols and fil­ters are one way that adults can help kids have healthy, safe and pos­i­tive expe­ri­ences online. These soft­ware tools allow adults to mon­i­tor, fil­ter and lim­it what a child sees and does on the internet.

Some com­pa­nies offer­ing step-by-step instruc­tions on how to use parental con­trols and fil­ters include:

• Apple Screen Time allows adults to set up con­tent and pri­va­cy restric­tions on a child’s iPad or iPhone. In doing so, par­ents can restrict explic­it con­tent, pro­hib­it pur­chas­es and down­loads, adjust pri­va­cy set­tings, lim­it time spent on devices and more.
• Google’s Fam­i­ly Link, which enables par­ents to mon­i­tor a child’s online activ­i­ties, man­age their pri­va­cy set­tings, set time lim­its and more.
• Microsoft’s Fam­i­ly Safe­ty works with the Edge brows­er to set screen time lim­its and mon­i­tor a child’s search­es and web activ­i­ty. It also allows par­ents to track a child’s loca­tion, mon­i­tor their X‑Box set­tings and use con­tent fil­ters to keep search results kid-friendly
• YouTube — used by rough­ly 90% of all Amer­i­can teens, accord­ing to Pew Research Cen­ter — offers two youth-friend­ly con­tent set­tings for par­ents to choose from: Explore (ages 9+) and Explore More (ages 13+). Par­ents of younger users can opt for the YouTube Kids app, which pack­ages videos three ways — for view­ers 4 and under, ages 5 to 8 and ages 9 to 12.
• ScreenSense is a non­prof­it devot­ed to ​“help­ing par­ents and schools teach healthy tech use to chil­dren.” The orga­ni­za­tion offers a com­pre­hen­sive review of the parental con­trols avail­able across a range of com­mu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels — from inter­net brows­ing to video stream­ing, social media plat­forms to gam­ing con­soles and more.

Inter­net Safe­ty Rules for Kids: Set­ting Guidelines

The sci­ence on ado­les­cent brain devel­op­ment indi­cates that young people’s brains are still chang­ing and matur­ing well into adult­hood. As a result, young peo­ple are more reac­tive to social and emo­tion­al fac­tors and are more like­ly to act impul­sive­ly and engage in risky behav­iors when com­pared to indi­vid­u­als with ful­ly devel­oped brains.

Sci­en­tists have also warned that time spent on social media can neg­a­tive­ly impact a child’s men­tal well-being. For exam­ple: Numer­ous stud­ies have linked high­er lev­els of social media use among ado­les­cents to adverse out­comes, includ­ing increased lev­els of anx­i­ety, depres­sion and dis­rupt­ed sleep.

These find­ings under­score why it is so impor­tant for par­ents and adults to set clear expec­ta­tions and rules for young inter­net users. ScreenSense shares four ways that fam­i­lies can sup­port safe and healthy tech­nol­o­gy use at home.

This advice includes:

1. Lim­it­ing tech­nol­o­gy use. Clear­ly define when and where it’s okay for kids to use tech­nol­o­gy dur­ing the week and which sce­nar­ios require a child to pow­er down and be screen-free. Sam­ple ques­tions par­ents might ask include: Are screens allowed at bed­time? While play­ing with friends? At restau­rants? Before home­work? Dur­ing the school week?
2. Steer­ing chil­dren toward good online con­tent. Put parental con­trols to use, and check age rec­om­men­da­tions before giv­ing a kid access to a new game or app. Com­mon Sense Media rec­om­mends the min­i­mum age for using var­i­ous social net­work­ing tools, such as Tik­Tok and Insta­gram (at least 15 years old) and Snapchat and Mes­sen­ger (at least 16 years old). 
3. Pro­tect­ing your family’s offline activ­i­ties. Time online quick­ly snow­balls from min­utes to hours to long swaths of a day. To min­i­mize mind­less scrolling, iden­ti­fy the screen-free activ­i­ties that your fam­i­ly enjoys most and sched­ule these expe­ri­ences into your day or week. Be sure to plan for some new activ­i­ties and inter­ests for your fam­i­ly or child to try, too.
4. Keep­ing the lines of com­mu­ni­ca­tion open. As chil­dren grow, their needs and desires as inter­net users also change. To sup­port young peo­ple on this jour­ney, par­ents should strive to be flex­i­ble, approach­able and informed every step of the way. Adults should expect to evolve bound­aries that are out­dat­ed or inef­fec­tive and be pre­pared to enact con­se­quences when­ev­er rules are bro­ken or bent.