- Parental concerns during the screen develop as children spend four hours online during the summer holidays
- The secure net update only helps British families, despite the operation of Vodafone in more than 20 countries
- Unstructured screen time increases during school breaks, arousing new demand for digital limits at home
As the summer holidays bring more freedom and fewer routines, children spend much more time online, but new research has warned of the risks it could bring.
A report by Vodafonethree revealed that screen time between 8 to 17 years old has reached up to four hours of unstructured use per day, an increase of 42% compared to the quarter of the school.
Although part of this time is spent staying in touch with friends or occupying long trips, almost two thirds (65%) of British parents expressed themselves by the digital habits of their children during school breaks and the overall impact on them.
Digital guarantees for children are coming, but not for everyone
In response, Vodafonethree plans to publish a major update of its secure net application offering improved parental control features designed to help families more easily manage the use of devices.
“Unstructured screen time tends to increase naturally during the summer holidays, we therefore associated ourselves with raising awareness of digital UK to offer practical advice and adapted to parents,” said Nicki Lyons, manager of business and chief sustainability of Vodafonethree.
“Combined with our secure net service, which offers the most complete parental controls of any large British network, families can feel more confident by sailing in the digital world and enjoying a safer and more balanced summer break.”
The Secure Net application, which currently offers basic filtering and protection, will soon allow British parents to manage mobile and domestic broadband connections via a single interface.
Its objective is to create a simpler way for families to limit access to inappropriate content, reduce distractions and encourage healthier routines.
The application features include “internet break”, “bedtime mode”, content filters and a “development time” parameter that blocks certain applications during periods of study.
While Vodafonethree describes the tool as offering the most complete set of parental controls among the main British networks, it does not replace other forms of digital protection.
The application does not include protection against antivirus or ransomware, and its main function is to control access rather than detecting threats.
Families hoping to improve global digital security can still require separate software to protect against malware or more sophisticated attacks.
However, despite its global scope, the Company is updating available only for its British customers at no additional cost.
This raises questions, in particular given the universal nature of the problems concerned.
Parents through the numerous markets of the parent company Vodafone are faced with similar concerns concerning screen time, harmful content and lack of surveillance, but they are left out for the moment.
“We know that summer holidays can be a difficult period.
