What is important for you while naming your child? Is it the meaning, phonetics, naming after a beloved senior member of the family or other personal reasons…? And have you taken the Internet into account?
What are the limitations of the responsibilities of parents towards their children? How and in what way do the circumstances of the era we live in affect these boundaries? In the 21st century, which is noted for its rapidly changing conditions with technological developments, should parents take their child’s future virtual lives into account? Or should it be the least priority on their concern list?
A piece of news published in the British Independent brought up these questions. The news highlights the millennium generation called as the Millennials, aka generation Y, prepare their children for the online life and there is an increase in the number of parents as such.
This evaluation is based on a research conducted by OnePoll for GoDaddy. It is a survey conducted with 1000 parents at the age of 24 to 38 from generation Y and a group of 1000 parents at the age of 39 to 53 from generation X.
How has the Internet changed parenting?
Questioning how the Internet influences the approach to parenting, the research is based on the idea that the child's plans for the presence in the virtual world are already being made before they open their eyes to the world. The research is also remarkable with different perspectives and attitudes.
Generally speaking, those born between the years of 1965-1980 are accepted as members of generation X and those born in 1981-1996 are included in generation Y. Also, those born in the second half of the 1990s and in the 2000s are within generation Z.
One of five parents check domain names while choosing a name for their child
According to the results of the survey, one out of every five parents of generation Y will take the suitable domain names into account before naming their child or changing their child’s name.
At this point, the address that corresponds to the Internet sites can be considered as a kind of identity that is easy, catchy and compatible with the content of our era.
Personal sites could replace social media profiles
When generations X and Y are compared, it is revealed that the generation Y parents are more concerned with their children’s virtual life. According to the results, the importance given to the strong presence of the child in the online realm has almost doubled between generations. 48 percent of generation Y parents think that it is important to have an effective presence in the virtual realm, on the other hand, the percentage of the generation X parents adopting this opinion is 27.
In addition, these young parents are also proactive in establishing their children's websites. 38 percent of the parents have already set up or intended to establish a website for their children. This rate is 20 percent among generation X parents.
37 percent of the parents think that, in the future, the personal web sites will replace the social media profiles.
According to the same study, the millennium generation shares an average of 107 photos from the time their children start to walk while generation X parents share 56 photos less than that number. And 54 percent of generation Y publish their child’s ultrasound photograph on the Internet while this ratio is 23 percent in generation X.
Parents’ experiences have an impact
It is no wonder that generation Y, who grew up in the digital age, compared to generation X, is more concerned with the issue of “being more effective in the virtual world”, given their own experiences. More than half of generation Y representatives who participated in the study had created their first social media profile between the ages of 10 to17.
The impact of personal experiences is also revealed by the results of the research: Generation X got their first mobile phone and social media profile at the age of 17, this age among generation Y is 15. Again, generation X parents get their children’s first cell phone when they’re 13 while children of generation Y are allowed to use cell phones at the age of 12.
In addition to the differences between the approaches of both generations, the research has shown that regardless of age, each family cares about their children's digital identity. 94 percent of the respondents said they plan to talk about how their children will responsibly exist on the Internet realm.
Another common feature of different generations is that they allow their children to create their own social media profiles. The research has shown that the children of both generation X and Y are allowed to create their social media accounts at the age of 13.
The best expression of identity in the virtual realm
Melissa Schneider, one of GoDaddy's trend experts, said in an interview with Independent that it is no longer enough to enroll children in a good school when they are a baby, and that families are thinking about the domain names in order to guarantee the success of their children. She said that most of the life is now online and that today's parents want to make sure that their children have a good place in this online realm. To sum up, she underlined that these parents, who know how important to express identity accurately and effectively on the internet is, give importance to training in this area.
According to the survey responses, 29 percent of the generation Y parents and 17 percent of the generation X parents have their own personal domain and/or website.
Why are parents getting a domain name beforehand?
The results of the research also include the reasons of the parents planning to get a domain name on behalf of their children:
1. To secure the child’s domain name for the future (54 percent)
2. To use it as a means to train the child how to use the Internet responsibly (46 percent)
3. They think that it is important to have the right to use their names on the Internet. (41 percent)
The meanings that families have on their children's own personal website also have different motivations. Here are the opinions of the families on what their children will use the websites for:
1. Job seeking process (48 percent)
2. University applications (45 percent)
3. Beliefs of social media to be replaced by personal websites (38 percent)
