The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and its corresponding Rule were passed in 1998, before Facebook, Snapchat, YouTube, or Hello Barbie were even conceived. Despite the Rule having been updated there have been calls to alter the way that children’s privacy is regulated in the United States. This white paper explores the implications of the current regime and potential areas of improvement. 

Technology has the power to bring families together across generations. This year, FOSI explored intergenerational technology use as well as how parents and seniors think about the benefits and challenges technology brings to their families. In this new report, FOSI asked parents about digital role modeling, managing content and screen time, and what resources they rely upon to help navigate their family’s online safety. For the first time, FOSI also looked at how seniors feel about going online, to better understand their concerns, what they may be interested in doing online, and how they rely on their adult children and their grandchildren in order to address with technology issues. Both parents and seniors shared some the steps they take to protect themselves and their families when it comes to the Internet. 

For many years the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended no screen time for under 2’s. The advice was clear and easy to follow, in theory if not always in practice, parents should avoid giving their toddler a computer. However, technology changed but the guidance took time to update, in the meantime parenting became more complicated. What do you do when grandparents want to FaceTime? or when the toys that a baby has don’t have screen but do connect to the Internet? How does one parent in this new digital environment and what can be done to help?