Lara Piras is a copywriter, researcher, and brand strategist. Considered a youth culture expert, her vast industry knowledge comes from working with some of the industry’s best, including MTV, WGSN, 

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Gen Yers don’t have it easy. This cohort, coined ‘Generation Rent’, faces myriad life challenges such as struggling to get on the property ladder and disposable income taking a hit due to the cost-of-living crisis. In fact, 70% have said the cost-of-living crisis is having both short-term and long-term effects on their financial goals. 

Independent

 This is all happening alongside them struggling through the transition to adulthood due to 

 as a result of hitting life milestones later. For example, the average age of parents in England and Wales in 2020 was 30.7 for women and 33.7 for men. 

Meanwhile, others face milestone anxieties that result in decisions like having children later – the number of women having children after the age of 45 in England and Wales has risen by nearly half in the past decade. 

However, with many Gen Yers entering the world of parenthood – whether late, or not – they are arguably the first generation to at least have some understanding of the online world that their own children are immersing themselves in. Indeed, child safety online has been a recent focus for governments and regulators as a sense of moral panic is occurring due to popular platforms like TikTok failing to protect children’s privacy. In September 2022, it was reported that the short-form video platform could be fined £27 million after an investigation found that the company may have breached UK data protection law, failing to protect children’s data. 

 “The digital challenges for parents are massive in the current era of parenting,” says Gen Y parenting expert Rebecca Pol. “While our parents and their parents had a village to ‘keep an eye on’, our children are exposed to a whole world.” 

Interview with Rebecca Pol conducted by author

Though Gen Y is the original digital-first generation, the shift from MySpace to the metaverse highlights just how much has shifted during their exposure and engagement to the connected world. As a result, many feel as though they can’t keep up. What’s more, the pandemic increased this generation’s reliance on digital lifestyles where parents and grandparents also moved online but so did their children. During 2020, screen time for pleasure increased the most among primary-aged children closely followed by adults. 

The Lancet

 With Gen Y being a generation that is already stretched and stressed, should it be parents or brands that are burdened with the responsibility of keeping kids safe online?

While many Gen Y parents have a headstart on their Boomer equivalents, the digital landscape is constantly shifting – making it hard for even Gen Y parents to keep up with what their kids get up to online. “They feel overwhelmed and seek guidance because parenting on the internet is still a new and abstract thing,” says Pol. 

 This is resulting in many parents feeling drastically disconnected and unable to relate. In fact, two in five parents say they don’t feel confident talking about different tech-related topics with their kids. 

Google

Despite this, tech and children are almost inseparable, with 70% of parents allowing their kids to have smartphones, and 75% providing them with tablets. 

 These high ownership rates are at odds with the 73% of parents who think it is harder to control their children’s digital habits since getting their own screen-based device. 

CHILD

 For many parents, removing their children from the digital world is all but impossible. Despite their fears of more difficult behaviour occurring and even digital addiction, parents are still using kids’ tech as a medium to entertain them, but in turn leaving them open to potentially dangerous exposure to the digital world.

Lea Perić, the founder of educational parental control app 

, believes the digital world is unsafer than the physical world for children. “While ‘safely’ in their room, more dangerous things can happen to children because everything is viral and global, and not so noticeable to parents to see and react to. Parents usually only notice that something is wrong when problems escalate,” she says. 

Interview with Lea Perić conducted by author

 As a result of these fears, parents are increasingly reliant on parental controls to navigate the changing digital landscape for their children. Many have a high awareness of safety-promoting technical tools and controls (91%), and seven in 10 actively use them (70%), mostly tools built into a device’s software (31%). 

Ofcom

“Millennial parents are more aware that old-school methods of parenting don’t work when it comes to screens,” says Perić. 

 She says that simply taking away the privilege of owning or using a device usually creates more problems. Instead, it’s about working with the child so they understand how to use and not overuse tech she says. “Parents nowadays have become more open to solutions like screen-limiting apps that can help them with setting healthy boundaries,” she says. 

Call for increased support for online safety

For parents, there is a growing concern about what their children are doing online, but time pressures mean that they increasingly expect brands and companies to help keep their kids safe. “While offline ‘safety’ is being covered together with childcare and schools, online safety is the task of parents, who are working and don’t have the time to watch every step,” says Pol. 

 As result of being pulled in so many directions, nearly 90% of Gen Y mums would jump at the chance to clone themselves, while 73% feel like they constantly have to put up a strong face for their families’ sakes as they’re feeling stressed or overwhelmed at least five days a week. 

NYPost

This is why time-strapped parents – including the 45.6% of families that have both partners working full time – seek out support from time-saving products, says Pol. 

Catalyst

 “Convenient time-saving products are important for families today as an extra watchdog to protect children online. Keeping kids digitally safe requires another level of awareness as we prepare our children for the ‘real world’, which is now both online and offline,” she says. 

 Hearing these calls, social media platforms are rolling out features to seemingly better protect children online. Largely as a result of these tensions, tech companies are being forced to make changes within their privacy terms and the way their platforms work. Instagram has just rolled out a new AI age-verification tool for UK and EU markets, while a new report from the criminal justice is calling for an official five-star rating system to be implemented in all social media platforms to indicate how safe they are for children – particularly important given the increased awareness that platforms like Instagram have been proven to be harmful to young teen girls’ body image. 

Computing

Crest Advisory

“Having your children gain instant access to information on a global scale and having a media that most often disregards safety, creates a very vigilant energy for parents,” says Pol. “The lack of guidance and support from brands on top of the access to more information about what could harm the child is bringing overwhelm to parents’ nervous systems who are biologically designed to protect their child from harm.” 

 Indeed, some markets are tackling youngsters’ online habits more aggressively. In 2021, China introduced a strict social intervention to limit the amount of time under-18s can spend on video games to three hours a week. Meanwhile, in the US the

 (AAP) recommends ‘consistent time limits’ for children aged six or over, and in the UK, the 

 (CMO) have released official advice on screen time limits.

The pandemic created instant changes in parenting. Parents who previously disallowed or limited screen time had to disregard their mindset temporarily as schools closed and education shifted online. Nearly all children went online in 2021 (99%) and the majority used a mobile phone (72%) or tablet. 

 US kids’ average daily screen use increased by 1.5 times during the pandemic – from a baseline of 162 minutes a day before the pandemic to 246 minutes. 

JAMA Network

“It was one of those times when the experience that children were having, parents were dealing with it themselves at the same time,” says the CEO of the Australian Childhood Foundation, Dr. Joe Tucci, a psychologist and social worker. He says that the lack of control or being able to plan, alongside facing an existential threat, has resulted in parenting becoming “a far more adaptive process”. 

The Guardian

 The experience of heightened tech use during the pandemic impacted parents’ mindsets towards their kids’ engagement. While nearly eight in ten parents agree that the internet has had a positive impact on how their children learned and socialised, they also say the amount of harm their children experienced has increased. According to a report from Internet Matters, UK parents reported a 42% increase in content promoting self-harm or suicide and a 39% increase in the sharing sexual images. 

Internet Matters

, for example, markets tablets to parents that have a child-friendly colourful design as well as great parental controls. What’s more, 97% of tech companies say they’re planning to increase their spending on protecting consumer data, as eight in ten customers say they’re willing to abandon a brand if their data is used without their knowledge. 

Cisco

 “Parents need a tool that can help them teach their kids from early ages how to behave online, how to avoid dangerous situations, and how to use technology more actively instead of being a passive user,” says Perić. 

 Indeed, XOINK – Perić’s parental control app – has a different approach to control via educational gaming features. “We have developed an app with an accent on education, an app that motivates and rewards good screen habits, but most of all it encourages communication between parents and their kids while respecting their own privacy,” she says. 

 As parenting changes in the digital age, families will be looking for ways to encourage healthy relationships with tech, and for increased support from brands.

Parents are worried about what their children are doing online for good reason – more than a third (36%) of children aged eight to 17 have seen something ‘worrying or nasty’ online in the past 12 months. 

 Considering this, parents are justified in feeling sceptical about new platforms and technology that they don’t fully understand, and there is an opportunity for brands to step in and provide knowledge and child safety controls. For example, parental control app 

 aims to balance children’s screen time through digital wellbeing software that filters content and apps and sets limits. 

 tracks what children type, which websites they visit, and keeps a record of which programs they use and any screengrabs they take. But this kind of software cannot replace parenting, says Perić. “An app cannot do the parenting for us, it’s just technical support,” she says. 

 We don’t believe that it is good to spy on kids, read their messages, and control them in every aspect of their lives online and offline. After all, kids will always find a ‘backdoor solution’, and make parents feel falsely safe and in charge.” 

 Instead, Perić believes it’s all about educating children and treating them with respect. “Technology is good, it brings great things to our lives, but only if we first and then also our kids, learn how to use it positively.” 

Parents are feeling overwhelmed and left with the burden of policing their children’s habits online. In fact, 94% of parents discussed the rules of online behaviour and digital etiquette with their children but only 50% of those parents actively used parental control apps. 

Kaspersky

 Brands have an opportunity to champion the involvement of real, relatable people in the product or ad development process, while having real parents talk through features using authentic voices. “Brands can help by showing how they handle and protect customer information through authenticity,” says Pol. “If a brand is taking good care of digital data, trust goes up for products as well.” 

 for inspiration, which showcased diverse families and relationships in a dialled-down way that felt natural and not forced. Titled ‘Where there’s love, there’s family,’ the narrator speaks in a calm, neutral voice using inclusive language and messaging.

Providing a network of support for parents and kids

Two-thirds of parents say parenting is harder today than it was 20 years ago, citing technologies like social media and smartphones as top reasons. 

Pew Research

 And it isn’t just parents who are finding safety in tech hard to navigate, it’s children too; when prompted to disclose measures they use to protect themselves online, more than a third of children aged 12 to 17 (35%) use measures which may put them more at risk. This includes a fifth who surf in incognito mode (21%) and 19% who delete their browsing history (19%). 

 Reframing the tone of voice in product messaging and highlighting the value of control products for parents can go a long way in helping people feel supported rather than out of their depth, as well as empowering them to educate their children on the subject. “Brands need to take responsibility for what age their users are and make strict policies about who can use their platforms,” says Perić. 

 “Brands need to lead with integrity. The key is value-driven marketing and products that enable a new way of parenting by creating awareness and finding a way to guide our children in the current digital world,” says Pol. 

 parents say they don’t feel confident talking about different tech-related topics with their kids

consumers say they’re willing to abandon a brand if their data is used without their knowledge

Between 2020 and 2021, UK parents reported a 

 increase in content promoting self-harm or suicide and a 

There’s a cultural and generational divide when it comes to parents being able to relate to their children’s digital engagement

The limitations of parental control apps and high levels of screen time are leaving parents concerned about what their children are doing online

Increased tech use during the pandemic forced parents to reevaluate strict rules around screen time as schooling and socialising shifted entirely online

​​Rebecca Pol is an international marketing and branding specialist with an ultra-niche in Gen Y parents. Her book, 

, was published with the international agency Borgerhoff & Lamberigts after six years of research among Gen Yers with kids. The main message of the book is that marketing towards parents should be inclusive with no gender division because there is no such thing as information that ‘suits’ birthing and non-birthing parents. If we approach all equal, equality can come into sight.

Lea Perić is the founder of tech company Perle Net d.o.o, which has been developing the XOINK app since 2019 – the first educational screen time app for kids. She found her opportunity during her maternity leave when, as a hobby, she started researching how to bring this idea to life.

Global

Home and Relationships

Parenting

Technology

Personal tech

Interview with Rebecca Pol conducted by the author

Interview with Lea Perić conducted by the author

New York Post

The Wall Street Journal 

Pew Research Center

Gen Y parenting underwent a drastic evolution during the pandemic, with kids’ digital engagement hitting an all-time high and parents increasingly concerned about screen time and apps they don’t understand. How can brands help them feel better supported when it comes to child safety controls?

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