Highlights
Either we’re raising the most responsible group of teenagers in history, or American parents have become extraordinarily lazy.
According to a new survey from the Pew Research Center, only 61 percent of parents check the websites their teens are visiting. About the same number have ever checked their kids’ social-media profiles.
And it would be pretty hard for them to find out much, considering that just over half the parents have ever “friended” or followed their teens on Facebook, Twitter or other social media. And less than half have checked their teens’ text messages.
“They’re just so overwhelmed, they’re acting like ostriches,” says psychologist Wendy Mogel. The author of Blessings of a Skinned Knee, Mogel says that “parents who would never let their kids have ice cream for breakfast or drive cars without a license have just given up” when it comes to technology.
