Family Tech Blog

Category: Product Review

Fidget Spinners are Coming to Your App Store

When something becomes trendy in the offline world you can almost guarantee it’ll show up in some digital form. The theory rings true with the latest elementary school kid craze, the Fidget Spinner. While doing my daily scroll through the most popular apps on the Apple App store I noticed a couple of Fidget Spinner games. “Of course!” I said to myself, “it was only a matter of time before the app store tried to cash in on the popularity of the toy trend. Fidget Spinners have caused a lot of conversation among psychologists, sociologists, parents, and educators recently. Everyone seems to be talking about them. My goal was to avoid them on the blog because, “Hey, they aren’t on a smartphone or tablet.” Well, that’s no longer the case.

Fidget Toys have gained popularity recently as a way to help kids with ADD, ADHD, and anxiety focus during class and other times when they need a longer attention span. Blocks, dice, balls, and other items have served teachers and psychologists well as they help these children excel in their every day tasks. Spinners toys gave another option and even boast in their advertising that they can increase focus and productivity. The problem with that according to some teachers and psychologists is that a good fidget tool will allow you to keep your eyes focused somewhere else while playing with it. This will increase your attention on the speaker or teacher or video simply because your hands are busy. A Spinner’s main benefit is the spinning itself. This spinning must be viewed to be fully enjoyed. This is why many teachers are banning the toys from their classrooms. They are saying the Fidget Spinner is simply a distraction. In a recent CNN story a teacher said:

We have kids using them in class and the kids nearby are distracted by them. There are kids playing with them (during class) and showing other kids. – CNN

Many kids have a Fidget Spinner simply because its the latest craze. They don’t need it for focus, its just a toy for them and that’s completely fine. The benefit I’ve heard many parents mention from using the Fidget Spinner as a toy is that it keeps the off of their screens for a longer time. Well, app developers have an answer to that too. Currently, the fasting rising apps on the Apple AND Android app charts are Fidget Spinner games. I downloaded a couple of the iOS games and played for a bit. Here’s how it works.

Spin to win.

Earn coins for upgrades.

Get new spinners.

Make it faster.

Even faster!

Earn more coinage.

What Parents Should Know

Obviously these apps aren’t dangerous on their own. There is advertising involved, however, and it will most likely not always be geared toward young users. You can also watch ad videos to get coins, the ads were mostly for other free, casual style games. You can pay to get rid of the ads if you’d like. If screen time is a problem then these games could cause some issues. The one I spent the most time on, Spinner, had me trying harder and harder to get more spins out of my spinner. I wanted those coins so I could see what the next spinner design looked like or upgrade my speed. Kids who find themselves hooked on games like this would definitely have the same problem with one of these fidget spinner apps.

My advice is, as always, to know your child. You have to know if your kid is the type to get hooked on something like this. If they use fidget toys because it helps their attention span then apps like Spinner may not be a good idea since its well known that screen time can cause kids to have more trouble focusing. Let me just finish by saying that these apps are not designed to help your kids with focus or attention. They are simply created to capitalize on the Fidget Spinner craze. In fact, playing the game could take the place of the real spinner altogether for some kids. That just means more screen time, more advertising, and more distraction. We, as parents, have to have the right information and make quality decisions about how our kids spend their time. Hopefully the info in this article can help you take the right steps.

May 17, 2017
Parental Control Options for Your Kids’ Chromebook

The Chromebook is unique because it isn’t really a full fledge computer. They are designed to just run a browser so you can access the internet. This makes them affordable and easy to use. Because of this the Chromebook is often the chosen computer for schools. So your child may have been assigned a Chromebook when they were enrolled in school. While they must have content controls set while they are on school property there aren’t any regulations requiring schools to keep them protected while off campus. Here are some options for how you can protect your kids while they use their Chromebooks.

Supervised User

UPDATE: Google has discontinued Supervised User in favor of FamilyLink.

~~This is an account based system that’s built into the Chrome browser. It allows you to set filters, monitor sites visited, prevent installation of apps, turn on~~ safesearch, and change settings. You do have to use blacklists or whitelists to block websites, there is not an automatic filter built in. I recommend using THIS LIST of blacklist sites provided by a University in France. It’s a pretty extensive set of blacklists and will take some effort to set up but if you don’t want to just set the Chromebook to only access a few domains then copy pasting ~~sites from these lists is your best option. You can access the supervised accounts by going to chrome.google.com/manage.~~

~~Click THIS LINK to see Google’s set up instructions for a supervised user account.~~

MobiCip

One of the only full service filter and monitoring apps for Chromebook, Mobicip offers a plugin that you can download from the Chrome app store. Mobicip will give you customizable filters, time limit controls, and usage reports and its pretty easy to set up. You just download the extension from the Chrome app store and then login. It takes you through the setup steps and lets you set your desired filter levels. Once it’s all set up you can make changes from anywhere using their web based controls dashboard. Their SUPPORT page has good How-To resources to walk you through the process.

If you want more controls than the Supervised User option gives you then Mobicip is a pretty good choice. It’s $39.99 per year for all of the features mentioned above for up to five devices. If you are going to need to protect more than twenty devices (I’ve met families with upwards of 30) then you’ll have to get a quote for their “Enterprise” option. Mobicip is a good option and will give you quite a bit of control.

Accountable2You

The final option is an accountability software. This, combined, with the Supervised User Account may be all you need. Accountability software doesn’t block content. This software will keep an eye on what’s being viewed and then red flag and report anything that it deems inappropriate. This allows you to more easily see when something questionable has been viewed. Otherwise you’ll spend time sifting through link after unrecognizable link to find something that may be naughty. You can even set up Accountable2You to send you a text message when an inappropriate site was accessed. The software works across all of your devices including Chromebook and is $6.99 per month for six devices and $9.99 per month for twenty devices. They have easy setup instructions on their SUPPORT page and have excellent customer service.

Whether your kids got Chromebooks from you to help with schoolwork or they were school issued, it’s critical that you have some sort of parental control solution set up. I recommend using one or more of these to set up a plan to help your kids be safer online. The statistics say that only one out of every three kids who saw something inappropriate online was looking for it. The fact that you have well behaved children doesn’t apply here. The internet isn’t well behaved and we have to make the effort to keep them safe.

This article contains affiliate links…

April 24, 2017
The Hooked App is as Addictive as it Sounds

We all want our kids to read more so an app that claims to have had users reading for over 500,000 hours sounds like a godsend. It is, in fact, a great idea and a pretty original way to get it’s users to read. The Hooked app isn’t new, having launched in 2014, but it’s rating number 6 in the iOS app store today. It’s popularity is growing fast.

Hooked is an app that tells stories in the form of text messaging conversations. The story topics include comedy, horror, fantasy, and sci fi. Each story has a title page photo, many of which feature a pretty girl or couple in a romantic or suggestive pose. When you’ve made your choice the story unfolds one text message at a time, usually in the form of a conversation between a couple of people. You can tap the screen to reveal the next message and you may find yourself in a tapping frenzy to reach the next plot twist. Then, however, you’ll suddenly be halted by the Hooked Owl asking you to pay for more “Hoots.” A “Hoot” is a click/tap and you only have a certain amount of them every hour. Once you’ve used them up you’ll be prompted to buy more or sign up for a weekly or monthly subscription to get unlimited “Hoots.” If you’re like me and not ready to invest fiscally in finding out the next line of the story you can just wait until the next hour begins.

The Hooked app cashes in on the obvious popularity of texting by using it as a storytelling venue. This makes it very appealing to the younger aged adults and teenagers. The target audience for the Hooked app is ages 13-24 but I wouldn’t just look over the app if I saw it on my teen’s phone.

What Parents Should Know

The Hooked app consists of some very mature themed stories but is targeting younger teens. The stories are delivered in a way that your teens and tweens will definitely find appealing. I found myself anxious to find read the next message as the story progressed. Obviously the story really started to climax right before I ran out of “Hoots” so I would have to wait a while to continue reading. While this did get me to close the app for a while, the $7.99 per month for unlimited “Hoots” is a low price tag for being able to sit all day long and click through these stories.

My issue isn’t really with the way the stories are delivered, it’s actually a creative way to tell these tales. The “one post at a time” method lends itself to a lot of suspense and a pretty entertaining read. The problem I have is the addictive nature of this app, if you can tap an unlimited number of times and go from story to story you’d very easily find yourself reading through a hundred of these stories in just a few days. Also, these stories can be pretty mature, dramatic, and suspenseful. The categories feature love and thriller options and the stories get quite intense at times. The texting storytelling method also makes them a bit more eerie. Users can also write stories which makes for a completely new potential problem there. Any time you’re dealing with User Generated Content it’s hard to be sure what your kids may read.

My advice is to know your child and their maturity level well before you let them use Hooked. I wouldn’t go by the 9+ rating it has in the app store, I would assume your child should be a bit older. Keep in mind that many of these stories are written by users of the app. Since the content can’t be guaranteed to be safe for any age group, you should help your teen or tween by involving yourself in their decision to use Hooked. If they do read on the app, I recommend asking them what the stories are about and what they like about them. Keep yourself in the loop and informed as much as possible.

April 17, 2017
Amazon is Changing the Parental Controls Game

Many parents purchase their children a tablet without taking built in parental controls into consideration. Amazon’s addition of the Parent Dashboard should cause most parents to lead towards a Kindle Fire tablet. Amazon FreeTime has been available for a little while and allows parents to set child profiles, manage content, set time limits and bedtimes, and feature’s curated content. The Parent Dashboard, launching today, takes FreeTime to the next level by giving parents a breakdown of their kids digital habits. The app will allow parents who have set up FreeTime to see the time your kids have spent on certain apps. You can see what they’ve been reading and watching and it even suggests discussion starters for the content your children have been consuming.

FreeTime features tens of thousands of apps, books, websites, and videos. The built in web browser only allows pre-approved content and features age appropriate Amazon prime videos. All of this content is curated by an actual editorial team. They watch videos through to the end and read every page of every book to be sure it’s suitable for the age group it’s listed under. This is not filtering based on algorithms, it’s work done by live people to help you protect your kids. They’re keeping in mind that you don’t want your kids to run in to something online that they’re not ready to see. In factKurt Beidler, director and general manager of Amazon FreeTime, told Digital Trends: “We take a conservative approach.”

What Parents Should Know

It seems like the internet safety market is always trying to play catch-up with the latest online and social media trends. The stuff we don’t want our kids to see always seems to creep its way onto every platform. The only true way to keep inappropriate content away from our kids is for human eyes to make the distinction between what is suitable and what is not. The human editorial team for Amazon FreeTime is one of the first of its kind, surveying content with a conservative, kid’s health comes first mindset that we can hopefully take comfort in.

I don’t usually recommend getting devices for our young children but I understand that many parents or grandparents will insist. If that is you or someone you love, may I suggest the Kindle Fire Kid Edition. This thing comes pre-loaded with the kid friendly content and a 12 month subscription to FreeTime. Yes, FreeTime is a pay subscription based service. It’s $2.99 per child or $6.99 per family. That’s not a lot to pay for your own team of content curators working to help your children be safer online. No, I don’t have an affiliate link to promote. I just think this is a great option for families.

I do recommend, as always, talking to your children about what is appropriate online and what is not. I recommend they know that you are the safe place to come to if they see something that they shouldn’t see. Obviously the goal is to keep this from happening and using Amazon FreeTime with the Parent Dashboard is a great step in that direction.

April 12, 2017
These Games Let Your Tween Play Out Their Own Soap Opera

I was doing research for an app to write about when an ad came up. The ad was for a game called Episode and it featured cartoon animated teen girls in situations that would only come from some mid-day television show. For example there was one girl deciding whether or not to perform CPR on her shirtless and handsome male companion. He winks at the “camera” and she thinks he may be faking so the player gets to chose her next move. “Perform CPR” or “Kiss him to find out.” This scenario is one of thousand available on these games that are developed by a company called Episode Interactive.

Their apps are all interactive story games that put the player in control of the choices of the main characters. Each app features thousands of stories to play out. The scenarios feature romance, mystery, comedy, family, and a bunch more. The situations that the character is placed in during the stories can often be very adult oriented. Decisions whether or not to have sex. A choice to run away from a potential mugger or try to attack them back. There are some very dramatic and grown up themes in these games. A look at the description will tell you that the games are rated for ages twelve and over for various reasons including, sexual themes, drugs and alcohol, violence, and nudity.

These games are a choose your own adventure of sorts for the new generations. They target young tweens with the glam of what it’s like to be a teenager or what High School life is like. It’s all obviously very fictitious but our kids buy these messages hook, line, and sinker. Think of apps like this as romance novels that are targeting your ten to twelve year old daughter. I say it’s targeting tweens because the app I was reviewing when I saw the ad for Episode was one that is obviously mostly populated with young girls. Your daughters will believe a message about who they are and what gives them value. Apps like this are speaking to a certain version of that message. We as parents must play defence against the wrong message to successfully teach the correct message.

What Parents Can Do

My advice is to make sure your child is far older than the recommended age for these games before you let them play. They are obviously meant to mimic the soap operas of our parent’s days and they feature exactly the same types of themes. The maturity of your child is best understood by you, their parent. It is usually not a good idea to take the age recommendation of an app, game, or other form of entertainment as the law and gospel. You have to use your own judgement. Unfortunately for some kids these themes are mild compared to things they’ve dealt with in real life. But for many of our ten, eleven, and twelve year olds, these games can introduce topics that they may not be mature enough yet to navigate. That’s why it’s so important for you as a parent to step in and see what they’re doing on their phone or tablet.

Apps like Episode are easy to spot because they don’t hide their themes in the ads on the app store. It’s pretty obvious what they feature in your game. My advice is to use something like Google Play’s parental settings, or Apple’s Family Sharing to ensure you’re seeing every app being installed by your kids. If you see something that looks like it could be a choose your own adventure style of soap opera game then think seriously about the potential questions your child will be asked while they play it.

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March 23, 2017
Three Apps that Can Help Any Parent

We spend a lot of time on this site talking about what apps you shouldn’t let your kids have. For this Friday post I would like to share a little bit about some apps you should get for yourself. I found as I dig around the internet that there are new resources for parents being released all the time. Digital resources are a new way to help you be safer, more organized, and more efficient.

1. Mothership (by FamilyTech)

Mothership is a great way to organize all the tasks that you need done in your home. It will pair with other apps like chore monster to distribute some of the needed duties to the members of your family. Mothership is a great idea for the family who is looking for ways to reward kids for doing chores and ways to organize the things everybody needs to get done. There’s even an app I can help mom and dad’s reward each other for accomplishing the tasks they need to do, it’s called Honeydo. We just recently wrote about the fact that Disney circle will connect with mothership to use screen time as a reward.

2. Daniel Tiger App for Parents

If you have young children like we do and you may find yourself constantly watching Daniel Tiger. That’s not so bad since some of the songs Daniel tiger sings can help you convince your kids to do the right thing. This app takes that into account. With songs, ideas for conversation starters, and follow up questions, The Daniel tiger for parents app gives you some cool tools to help you bring their love of the character into their learning. The Daniel tiger for parrots app is free on iTunes or android.

3. Life 360

As your kids get older you’ll find yourself off and wanting to keep track of where they might be. The life 360 app makes that as simple as opening a map and see for yourself. This app is created to help you stay connected to your family runs on a mobile device and let you if you found the numbers on the map communicate with them, and receive alerts when they arrived at their destination. You can even pay for more features that will allow you to get an alert if they use the phone while driving and many other cool features. These features only cost you about $2.99 a month or $25 a year. That is a small price to pay always know where your kids are and if they’re safe.

The internet can be a dangerous place. But it also can be very useful. If we as parents learn how to leverage the benefits of digital life we can help our family be more organized, safer, and smarter. Keep informed of the latest trends in social media and other family relevant tech news by subscribing to our mailing list. You’ll also get free access to the online version of our Setting Digital Boundaries Workshops.

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March 17, 2017
Kiddle is the Safe Search Your Family is Looking For

It’s next to impossible, once your kids reach a certain age, to keep them off of the internet completely. Schoolwork requires online research and so do many other activities that kids enjoy these days. What you need is a solution that will help you fully protect your kids while they search. That’s where Kiddle.co comes in.

These days we need to be parents and educators in the online world as well as the real world. The internet is a great educational and recreational resource that can help children learn and satisfy their curiosity about life.

The websites included in Kiddle search are recommended by educators, librarians and parents from across the globe as well as websites our own editors have used in schools or for homework within the K-12 age range. – Kiddle.co/internetsafetytips

Kiddle is a safe search engine powered by Google. The beauty of Kiddle is that, for most searches, it features curated, kid relevant results. While google ad results do often show up first, they’ll be family friendly and related to the topic searched.

Obviously, inappropriate searches are blocked with an angry looking robot telling you to try again. It will also filter out inappropriate results to searches that should be safe but sometimes aren’t. For example a search for some pop star they’ve heard of will produce results but the images shouldn’t be adult oriented and news articles about their indecent activities at the club won’t show up.

What Parents Should Know

Kiddle is branded and designed for children but it’s a good solution for your kid or teen who needs to do some research while you aren’t looking. I recommend using sites like Kiddle to help kids with homework so that you can be sure they’re only seeing results that are safe.
Also, Kiddle has some pretty good advice and tips for parents and educators on their site as well. Just head over and take a look. I’m confident you’ll be pulling it up the next time your child has a science project or history paper due.

March 9, 2017
Parental Control Hardware “Circle” Announces Integration with “FamilyTech” Apps

Circle is one of our favorite resources to recommend to families. With its simple to use app and customizable, profile based filters Circle is one of the most accessible parental control options out there. At a price tag of only $99 it’s affordable too. Today, Circle announced Circle Connections, the roll out of integrations of some new resources to make it one of the most extensive filter and time management apps available. These integrations will soon add the ability to stop notifications from social media apps while your child is driving and allow you and your kids to use Amazon Alexa to set and monitor your time limits. Launching first, however, is a partnership with FamilyTech.

The new platform, Circle Connections, allows Circle users to connect other partner apps, devices, and services to offer rewards, automate features, and much more. These other pieces of Circle help leverage some of the biggest drivers of family life: screens, physical activity, teen driving, and social media.

FamilyTech launched late last summer and is a chore/time management system developed by CEO Chris Bergman. The system features four apps. Mothership, the hub for setting chores and giving rewards. ChoreMonster, an app for kids that rewards them for meeting their chore goals. Honeydo, a way for couples to communicate what needs to be done and get more accomplished. And Landra, the home productivity solution for older kids and teenagers. This partnership is going to set Circle up to be one of the most extensive time management and parental control options available to parents.

For Example

With Circle’s time limits, the integration with FamilyTech can do a lot for parents. Imagine your child has an excellent week of chores. The choremonster app asks what reward they would like and they choose to extend their bedtime. ChoreMonster will communicate with Circle and their bedtime will be extended to whatever reward time you’ve set up. Pretty much automated rewards. That sounds awesome.

As mentioned, some of the functionality will be released in future updates but the integration with FamilyTech is rolling out now. If you have circle, be sure to update often and take a look at what FamilyTech’s apps can do for you. If you don’t have Circle yet, maybe this will be a pretty good reason to give it a go.

March 8, 2017
Kids Online Too Long? Put the Power of Time Limits in Their Hands with UnGlue

Every now and then a resource comes along that we can’t wait to tell you about. Today, we are excited to show you UnGlue. We are always looking for the newest and simplest way to protect your kids online and UnGlue is answering the time limit question with some pretty great new ideas. Check out the video below to see the heart behind their cool new time limits software.

“Kids are the ones that are hooked… they’re the ones using these devices … And it’s not even their fault… they’re fighting with the best minds in the industry that are set on having them scroll just a little bit more. Just one more like, one more picture, one more chat, one more Pokémon, one more level. And they’re losing,” – Alon Schwartz (CEO of UnGlue

UnGlue runs with the idea that kids truly want to do better at managing their screen time by placing the power in their hands. In fact, the founder of UnGlue doesn’t like to call their service “Parental Controls.” While parents do set the time limits, the kids are able to decide what they do with that time. UnGlue doesn’t only turn off internet access at a certain time, it designates between productive and “entertainment” internet activity. Parents establish the amount of time their kids are allowed to spend being entertained on a screen and their child is then able to use the time as they choose. They can even store up unused time to use later for some good ol’ fashion binge watching or playing. The UnGlue concept is a new one and, I think a great one.

The only thing more important than keeping kids safe from the dangers of internet use and over use of the internet is teaching them how to be responsible in those areas for themselves. UnGlue puts the power in their hands and allows you to show them, through their own experiences, how they can better manage their time and be more effective and productive every day. In fact, I would go as far as to say that most of us parents could use an education on screen time management.

I could go through all of the ways UnGlue allows you to set up their mobile app but I’ll just point you to their website and let you watch this video below. UnGlue is FREE to use so go check it out and email us at BecauseFamily@GMail.org to let us know how your experience was.

March 3, 2017
YouTube Kids Adding Original Shows and SmartTV Support

YouTube Kids has now been around for over two years. I’m still amazed how many parents don’t know about the curated kids streaming app. It is a pretty good safe alternative to YouTube’s more open and unsecure content. An announcement today could make YouTube Kids an even better option for your family.

Today YouTube announced that they are going to launch four new original shows on the kids app. The shows will use people who already have a strong YouTube presence and be available only to YouTube RED subscribers. Shows like “Fruit Ninja; Frenzy Force” will be designed for younger kids while there will be a couple of shows, such as “Hyperlinked” (starring tween YouTube Music stars L2M) that are geared for children a bit older. There are more shows scheduled for the lineup and they range from animated cartoons to unscripted reality shows.

Along with this announcement, YouTube has said they will soon be rolling out support for YouTube Kids to be viewed on SmartTVs from Samsung and LG. This will mean that content from YouTube Kids can come to life on a larger screen and be viewed more easily by more of the family at the same time. It seems that YouTube is really working to become a major player in the streaming entertainment world. New YouTube Red shows are coming out all the time and you can see many YouTube stars being interviewed on more mainstream media talk shows like Jimmy Fallon to promote YouTube’s original content. We are entering a new age in digital entertainment so be ready and pay attention.

What Parents Should Know

YouTube Kids is a good option for parents whose children enjoy watching videos on the streaming service. It’s a lot better than the YouTube app in which they can be as few as two clicks away from some type of violent or inappropriate adult content. While YouTube Kids is better, it isn’t without it’s faults. You will still want to put your eyes on what your children are watching every now and then. The original content means that, if you’re a RED subscriber, you will have a bit more than the clips from PBS shows, lets play, toy unboxing, and science videos. That’s a good thing but you’ll want to be aware of which shows are designed for what age audience. The trend is for messages in kids entertainment to lean towards kids a few years older than the target age of the shows. That means you young daughter could be watching a show by music sensation L2M about what it’s like to be in High School. This could lead to eventual trouble if you aren’t aware of the message they are getting from the show.

I always recommend parents having a total knowledge of what their children are spending their time doing. These original content shows may be designed for children but it’s important to remember that only you can decide if they were designed for your children. Nobody knows your kids like you do so only you can make the right entertainment decision for them. You should just allow unsupervised viewing of anything you’ve never seen, even if it is meant for children. Should your kids watch streaming content on YouTube Kids? If they are already using YouTube then absolutely yes. Should they watch the original content and use your tv to view it like other shows? That’s entirely up to you, just be sure your decision is based on knowledge, not a trust that the term “KIDS” always means safe.

February 13, 2017