Teenagers are no strangers to emerging technology and it is no wonder that they are much proficient users than their parents. A new survery report reveals that teenagers are now utilizing ways to hide their "online behavior" from their parents.

The survey done by security provider, McAfee utilized 2,017 participants for this survey. According to the results, 70% of teens "hide their online behavior" from the parents. These hidden behaviors include the following:

  • accessing violent content - 43%
  • accessing pornographic content - 32%
  • hacking social networks - 15%
  • utilized phones to cheat on tests - 16%
  • hacking e-mail accounts - 12%
  • meeting a person they met online - 12%

Parents are usually unaware of their teenager's online behavior despite having some tools or measures that monitors their teenager's online activity. The survey showed that teenages do find ways to go around this "monitor system". Here are some of the ways that teenager's hide their online activities:

  • Clearing the browser history - 53%
  • Close/minimize browser when parent walked in - 46%
  • Hide or delete IMs or videos - 34%
  • Lie or omit details about online activities - 23%
  • Use a computer your parents don't check - 23%
  • Use an internet-enabled mobile device - 21%
  • Use privacy settings to make certain content viewable only by friends - 20%
  • Use private browsing modes - 20%
  • Create a private email address unknown to parents - 15%
  • Create duplicate/fake social network profiles - 9%

These alarming survey results indicate that there could be negative consequences for teenagers being online all the time and accessing forbidden content. Some of these consequences could include possible pornography, criminal behaviors (e.g. hacking), bullying, and more. The survey recommends that parents should be aware and informed of their children's activities in order to monitor the behavior of their kids online.