Back in October 2010, AVG began a year-long study called Digital Diaries to investigate how our children live and interact in today’s dynamic digital world. The first age-group that we examined was newborns (Digital Births) and this was followed by two-to-five year olds (Digital Skills). What we found was that today’s generation of newborns and young children face a vastly different world than those born before the Internet was conceived in 1973.

The latest chapter in the series is announced today is called Digital Playgrounds and covers children aged six-to-nine.

The findings suggest that children aged six-to-nine years old spend as much as three-and-half hours per week playing in their Digital Playgrounds. Interactions that once took place in the schoolyard, football field or in the cafeteria are now just as commonplace on the Internet. In fact, nearly half of eight-to- nine-year-olds regularly talk to friends via computers and mobile devices, showing that our children are more socially connected than ever before.

Sadly this increased connectivity can lead to unwanted behavior. The Digital Playground research also shows that one in six six-to-nine-year-olds and one in five eight-to-nine-year olds have already experienced what their parents consider inappropriate or aggressive behavior online. When parents were asked if their family devices were armed with parental controls or Internet safety, only 56% were certain that their family computers had such tools and less than half were unfamiliar with the sites their children frequent online.

So the question remains, are we, as parents, doing enough? Are we doing enough to educate our children about online safety; supervising them; and keeping them safe?

As a father and the CEO of AVG, family safety is a top concern. What used to be second nature and as simple as wearing a helmet to ride a bike, is made more complex by the online world. The Digital Playground of today can consist of a broad reaching network of strangers and unfamiliar activities and territories.

That is why I am pleased we have AVG’s premium Family Safety suite to help all parents protect their children from online threats while also helping educate children as they traverse this great, wide open field of possibilities. Our AVG Family Safety suite helps monitor specific websites visited, searches conducted, and the amount of time spent online. It enables families to customize their filtering options to best suit the specific ages, needs and awareness levels of individual family members. And equally as important, it offers full reporting capabilities to help parents better engage with their children about online habits.

As their Digital Playgrounds become increasingly important to our children, it is important that they understand the new possibilities and boundaries of this landscape.

I encourage you to download our AVG Family Safety (www.avg.com/avg-family-safety) tools and start talking to your children today about their time in the internet. Talk to them about what they enjoy doing and what they find fun. As with most things, education (both yours and theirs) is the key to getting the most out of the internet safely, whatever your age.