As UK children head back to school, research from Zen Internet highlights how parental control has shifted for a digital generation. Gone are the days when being sent to your room or grounded was the ultimate deterrent. For today\u2019s Gen Alpha and Z, nothing hits harder than losing access to their devices or the internet.<\/p>\n
The research reveals that 35 per cent of parents confiscate phones, 32 per cent remove games consoles or computers, and 31 per cent even switch off the WiFi as ways to discipline their children.<\/p>\n
While traditional punishments still linger with 32 per cent of parents sending their children to bed early and 28 per cent grounding them, the data shows that for modern families, restricting access to technology has firmly overtaken the \u2018naughty step\u2019 or \u2018time-out\u2019 methods of pre-internet days.<\/p>\n
This reflects the scale of children\u2019s reliance on screens. In the study of 2,000 parents with children over the age of five living at home, 72 per cent of children spend more than two hours online every single day, with the majority using the internet for gaming (61 per cent), streaming (60 per cent) and schoolwork (55 per cent). Unsurprisingly, over half of parents (55 per cent) admit to enforcing limits to how long children go on the internet for, while nearly a third (32 per cent) believe their child is addicted to online services.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Only a quarter of children aged 5+ spend less than an hour online every single day<\/p>\n
\u2022 31 per cent are online 4+ hours daily (two-thirds of a school day)<\/p>\n
\u2022 41 per cent of children spend 2-3 hours per day using the internet according to parents<\/p>\n