Enhancing Online Safety for Underage Children

Social media has greatly affected society as we know it today, most especially to the teenagers and children under the age of 10, termed as ‘underage children’. Which requires a comprehensive understanding of its effects and risks. This study focuses on what parents think about their children’s usage of social media applications. By surveying parents, we aimed to learn more about their beliefs, concerns and how they manage their children’s online activities and experiences. Our research identified a significant gap between parental awareness and their children’s online experiences. This lack of understanding is concerning because social media platforms are ubiquitous. Many parents lack a thorough understanding of the potential risks and challenges their underage children encounter in this digital environment. Additionally, existing safety measures, even within supposedly child-safe platforms like YouTube Kids, focus only on video content, neglecting potential vulnerabilities in other areas. This highlights the necessity for parental perspectives in shaping safer online spaces for minors. Our Proposed model addresses the current limitations by providing a social media experience with integrated parental controls. The proposed model includes features such as content sharing control, message control, Log-in/ Log-out timings, and customizable ad preferences. The model was stimulated by the literature review and a preliminary research study, which adopts a data-driven approach to enhance child safety within digital landscape. Future research should involve user testing of proposed model with focused group discussions, along with their validation and analysis.