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Today, maintaining a social media profile is a normal and daily practice for millions of people. By signing up for a social media site (SMS), it is possible to connect easily with other people based on affinities, such as interests, hobbies, activities, and shared identities (Longo & Saxena, 2020). According to Statista.com, in 2008, 10% of the US population had a social media profile. In 2019, this number skyrocketed to 79%. At the global level, Datareportal (2021) reports that at the start of the year 2021, there were around 4.33 billion social media users, roughly equivalent to 55 percent of the global population. Statistics show that Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram are the SMSs with the highest number of users, with TikTok also registering rapid growth. On average, 3% of users on Facebook are minors (Smart Insight, 2021). In the first quarter of 2020, Facebook registered 2.6 billion active users. With these figures, it makes sense that the number of minors on this platform is high. However, the more technology progresses, the more parents fall behind their children in knowledge related to SMSs or the internet in general (Hill, 2017). In one study, while 64% of children stated that they know more about the internet than their parents, and 66% of their parents agreed with this statement (Wang et al., 2005). Similar findings are echoed in Baldry et al. (2019) who find that around 50% of adolescents feel that their parents do not have any information about their online activities. This also reflects in the perception of the parents in terms of potentially risky behavior on internet. For instance, Liau et al (2008) find that while around 20% of the surveyed parents thought that their child may be visiting pornographic websites, more than 50% children reported visiting such website. Similar results are reported by Symons et al (2017), suggesting that parents have limited knowledge on children’s online behavior and associated risks. In a generation where children are growing up with digital technologies, it has become a challenge for some parents to understand and cope with the risks that these platforms entail.
The purpose of this study is to understand the perception that parents have about social media risks for their children and to explore the risk mitigation strategies they typically employ. Therefore, the main research question for this study is: How do parent perceive online risks for their minor children and what mitigation strategies do they apply?. The study also seeks to investigate what support do the parents receive from social media platforms or external organizations (e.g., communities, schools, and media) in terms of spreading awareness of these risks. The remainder of the paper is as follows. Section 2 reviews the literature associated with minors’ safety on social media and parents’ reaction to online risk. Research methodology is presented in section 3. This is followed by outlining the findings of this study. Section 5 discusses the findings in view of the literature. Finally, section 6 concludes the papers by noting recommendations, limitations, and future work.