A YouGov poll, commissioned by Teched Off, of more than 1,000 parents reveals that the vast majority (78%) aren't fully confident they've set adequate controls on their children's devices. A further 11% haven't set any controls at all.

A parallel study by Teched Off* found that:

• 80% of parents are worried their child/children is/are addicted to a device
• 80% of parents are worried about what their child/children is/are doing or seeing online
• 85% of parents believe their child's/children's tech use sometimes interferes with family life
• Of the parents who haven't set controls, 38% haven't done so because they find them too confusing

In short, there are lot of children out there still seeing (and sharing) all the wrong things. Children are roaming the wild west of the online world, and parents are rightly worried.

The ill effects range from negatively impacting schoolwork and concentration, to dopamine-related addiction, premature sexualisation, online bullying, damaging attitudes to the opposite sex, negative self-image leading to self-harming, risk of exploitation by sexual predators, risk of exploitation by scammers, risk of radicalisation and so on. Young people's mental health has been dubbed 'an epidemic.' (See teched-off.com)

Even if the Online Safety Bill succeeds in protecting children from the worst content, it won't be immediate – or necessarily watertight. Legislation moves slowly and won't necessarily deal with all the issues above, and we can't expect the tech companies to take full responsibility – so parents need to know what their children are seeing and doing online.

As founder Miranda Wilson says 'We've let tech organisations monetise our children's attention and our children are paying a profound price. TikTok, Instagram, SnapChat and YouTube revenues are all in the billions in no small part thanks to us parents losing control.'

Teched Off, was founded by Miranda Wilson and Emily Spencer, two mothers of teenagers who want to see changes in what's normal around kids and technology.

It will include short, simple, step-by-step guides on how to set controls, how they don't always work, and outlining solutions. Like these they have already produced, on YouTube.

Further content to empower parents will include videos about privacy settings (and why they are important) for Instagram, Snapchat et al, dopamine explained, how fraudsters target your kids and so on. Plus short form video for kids, about how to not get scammed online, why their favourite platforms make it difficult to put down their phones and how to avoid predators.

Teched Off aims to

• Change the culture within three years to the point that not adding controls is considered negatively by other parents / peers.
• Encourage parents to resist giving young children access to smartphones until secondary school
• Encourage parents of older children to restrict usage and access to harmful content
• Ban phones in school and ensure they are not required for school use
• Campaign to raise the age of new social media accounts to 16
• Campaign to stop kids being on unverified live streams

*YouGov surveyed 1332 parents of children aged 18 and under. Fieldwork was undertaken between 10th-11th January 2023. The survey was carried out online.

* 271 parents of children aged 18 and under via Survey Monkey to founders' networks (70) and an ad boosted Facebook survey (201), combined.