Kids fox parents on web control

Spend more than double the time online than they think

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19 March 2009 9:32 GMT / By Verity Burns

A new survey has suggested that parents in the UK are completely unaware of the amount of time their children are spending on the Internet.

The report, carried out by Symantec, found that parents think their little lovelies are only online for 18.8 hours a month, when in actual fact it is more like 43.5 hours.

With kids spending more than double the time on the net than their parents thought, British parents were found to be among those with the worst grasp of how long their children are online.

It also seems kids are managing to outsmart their parents on what they're doing on the Internet as well. While 81% of the British parents questioned claimed they new what their children were looking at, 31% of British children said their parents did not.

A total of 20% of the 6427 adults questioned had caught their children looking at unsuitable websites.

But it appears parents aren't completely without a clue. The survey also found that one-third of UK children had their parents as friends on social networking sites, which is certainly one way to keep an eye on what they're up to.