via ResearchBuzz Firehose: Nicole Greason for Arizona State University news
In spring 2016, Jessica Swarner, then an Arizona State University junior majoring in political science and journalism, saw an alarming story about a young girl’s use of a messaging app.
According to the story, a 13-year-old girl from Virginia was killed by an 18-year-old man she had met on Kik, a mobile instant messaging app. Her parents had been unaware of their daughter’s use of the app and the dangers that could lurk there.
“It really scared me because I had a younger sister in high school at the time who was using Kik,” said Swarner, who graduated in May 2017 with a bachelor's degree and honors from Barrett, The Honors College at ASU.
Swarner already was doing research on cyberpsychology in a lab at ASU focusing on people’s attachment to their mobile phones, online communities, and cyber security, but when she saw this story, it really hit home. She decided to take her research into the realm of parental supervision of minor children’s Internet use, the safety of mobile apps, and online security.
What she found out is that many parents have little or no knowledge of what their children are doing online. In fact, according to a 2016 National Cyber Security Alliance study, 30 percent of teens said their parents were not aware at all or not very aware of their online activities. The same study showed that 57 percent of parents said they were unaware of what their children were doing online.
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