Eighty-one percent of parents of teenagers say they worry about how much advertisers can learn from their child's online behavior, according to a new survey released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project. The finding, part of a broader report conducted with the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, suggests that data collection has become a dominant source of parental anxiety - rivaling or exceeding worries about strangers, reputation damage, and future academic or employment consequences.
Data Collection Now Rivals Stranger Danger
The survey, based on phone interviews with 802 parents and their teenage children conducted between late July and September 2012, found that 72% of parents are concerned about their child's interactions with people they do not know online, while 69% worry about how online activity could affect future opportunities or shape a lasting digital reputation. Younger teens' parents report the sharpest anxieties: 63% of parents with children ages 12 and 13 say they are "very" concerned about contact with strangers, and 57% feel the same about reputation management. These numbers reflect a shift in how families think about digital exposure - not just as a matter of who sees a child's posts, but how commercial entities quietly build profiles from browsing habits, clicks, and shared content. Some households have begun exploring tools such as a BuyBestVPN subscription to limit the amount of behavioral data that can be collected as teens move across apps and websites, reflecting a broader trend of families treating privacy as something to actively manage rather than assume. BuyBestVPN subscription
From Worry to Action: How Parents Are Responding
Concern is translating into concrete behavior. Pew found that 59% of parents whose teens use social networking sites have spoken with their child about something posted to a profile, while 39% have helped set up privacy settings. Half of all parents of online teens have used parental controls or monitoring software, a figure that has held steady since the previous year's survey. Others are taking a more investigative approach: 42% have searched for their child's name online, and 44% say they have read the privacy policies of sites their teens use - a notable figure given how rarely such policies are read by the general public. Mary Madden, a co-author of the report, noted that the level of parental worry about advertiser data collection now matches or surpasses concern about other online risks, pointing to a broader policy debate over how personal information, for both children and adults, is gathered and monetized across the digital economy.
Parents Join the Platforms They Monitor
The report also documents a rise in parents themselves becoming social media users - 66% of parents with teens now use these platforms, up from 58% the year before, with usage notably higher among parents under 40. Half of parent social media users say they have directly commented on something posted to their teen's profile, a figure consistent across mothers, fathers, and demographic groups. Sandra Cortesi of the Berkman Klein Center's Youth and Media Project observed that teens hold mixed feelings about connecting with parents online: some welcome it, others comply reluctantly out of obligation, and many restrict what parents can actually see. That tension - between connection and concealment - captures the central challenge facing families as digital life becomes inseparable from adolescence itself.
