South African children have become more active on the Internet as the national lockdown progresses. Comparing their activity in the first week of January and the last week of March, the overall number of websites visits grew by 200%. This became evident from the analysis of Kaspersky Safe Kids parental control module of Q1 2020. As a response to this trend, the company has offered everyone to use their parental control feature for free for the next three-months.
Children’s activity on the Internet is as important nowadays as their behaviour and social environment outside. This is why it is crucial to help a child to navigate through the information that surrounds them in the web, making sure that the experience is positive. During the worldwide lockdown, children are prone to look for entertainment online more than ever, so this period has shown some important changes in their behaviour that correlated with the increase of activity.
The most definite trend was an increase in the role of music in video content consumption. The share of children that actively use the Internet to look for audio, video and software increased by 15% by the end of Q1. This trend was accompanied by an increase in children’s interest in news resources: throughout Q1 it accounted for around 3% of all website hits. March has also shown a decrease of children’s interest to the e-commerce websites and online shops and video games – the traffic for the former decreased by 4% and the latter by 10% by the end of March.
“Our statistics show that South Africa is not an exception, as all over the world children became more active online since the beginning of the pandemic. We urge parents not to panic – according to our data, the vast majority of children are most interested in socialising online and watching videos and listening to music, rather than in potentially unwanted content or disturbing news. What’s more, their activity online correlates with the adults’ interests during the lockdown: news and video content. If anything, this might be an opportunity to do these things together and bond, rather than worry,” comments Andrey Sidenko, Head of Child Safety at Kaspersky Network.
To help parents protect their children from various Internet threats and unfavourable content, Kaspersky recommends:
- If you know what your child is looking for online, you can offer help and support, but use the information carefully
- Discuss with your child how much time they can spend on social media. Try to persuade your child not to use social media during school lessons or at night.
- Try not to limit your child’s social circle but tell them to take care when choosing friends and acquaintances.
- Use a reliable security software solution, like Kaspersky Total Security. It incorporates Kaspersky Safe Kids and helps to guard your family and private data, plus protect your kids online from cyberthreats and explicit content. In these challenging times, staying safe is the top priority, so Kaspersky is now offering its best multi-device security free for 3 months
