RIYADH — Modern parents have to constantly educate themselves and keep up to date when it comes to the Internet trends. There is a strong reason for it — their children. If parents do not know what is popular on the Internet, they can have misunderstandings or even conflicts with their children. It turns out, not all the parents keep up with current trends online and do not have enough knowledge about content that their children prefer.

According to the recent survey, 23% of Saudi parents do not watch video blogs. They are not sure what is popular among modern kids. However, it is a completely different picture among the kids themselves: 76% of children watch video blogs, including those dedicated to games and toys (71%), computer games (41%), movies (39%) and music (37%).

It goes on with video games that are one of the most popular pastimes among kids and teenagers – 90% of Saudi children play video games, over half of them involving in multiplayer ones where they are able to communicate with other people participating there.

An interesting fact here is that 8% of families have conflicts about their child’s digital life, with 60% of parents claiming that their child spends too much time on the phone or doing nothing useful (50%).

“Being digitally educated and involved in social media activities is a must-do for a parent nowadays as the lack of knowledge in this field can trigger some conflicts in the family,” said Andrey Sidenko, Lead web content analyst at Kaspersky.

“In order to understand your child, to be able to communicate with them and discuss certain modern trends of evolving world, you have to read more and to be present on the Net. It can possibly save the parents a lot of trouble and make their children respect them,” he added.

To successfully maintain a friendly relationship with your children and be aware to which things they dedicate their free time to, Kaspersky recommends following these steps:

• Educate yourself. Read more on the topic of the Internet trends, challenges, video games and new technologies – not only will it better your conversations with children, but also keep you informed.

• Communicate with your child, ask them about their digital hobbies and problems, help if it is needed.

• Install a reliable security solution such as Kaspersky Safe Kids to know about the interests of your child in the digital world. — SG