More parents lenient about young web use: Poll

Seventeen per cent of US  parents questioned in the poll said they had no problem with a pre-teen child using a social media site, compared to just eight per cent a year ago.

And 11 per cent of parents admitted to using social media sites on behalf of a young child or infant, according to the online survey of about 1,000 adults by Liberty Mutual's Responsibility Project.

“More and more parents are allowing their children to have a Facebook account or to have more online activity at younger and younger ages.” said Janet Taylor. The clinical instructor of psychiatry at Columbia University at Hospital in New York described the findings as a sign of the times.

“It’s not alarming. I think it means we need to be aware of what is going on and how to best utilise social media,” she added in an interview. Most parents think that children under 18 should not be able to keep their account to themselves and a third monitor their usage. Forty four per cent also limit the time spent on the Internet or texting.

Facebook, which has 500 million active users, was the most popular social network among adults in the poll.