Family Tech Blog

Tag: app

  • This Social Media Parody App May Cause You to Re-Think Everything

    This Social Media Parody App May Cause You to Re-Think Everything

    There are more articles on this site about social media than any other topic. I truly believe that social media is not a part of the internet, it is the reality of what the world wide web is now all about. Every site you visit has a social aspect, even if it’s just a way to connect to your favorite social media platform. Our businesses are run through social media and advertising is more prevalent and successful on our newsfeeds than nearly anywhere else. Social media isn’t a fad or a trend. It’s the world we live in and for some, it’s an addiction.  A new app, Binky, is providing a bit of a caricature of the social media lifestyle and it may just be something you should check out.

    Binky is a social media simulator (more like a parody) app that started as a joke. It simulates the features of most status and photo sharing social media platforms by giving you a seemingly endless stream of fake posts to scroll through. As you scroll you’ll see absolutely random and unrelated images with captions that may or may not make sense. You have the option to “Bink,” (read: Like) comment or “Re-Bink” (read: Share) the images that you’re scrolling through. When you click the Bink button you get an explosion of stars from under your tapping finger and a delightful bloop bloop sound. Commenting is my favorite feature of this app because it doesn’t actually let you say anything. Every letter you type after tapping the comment icon automatically puts in a word to form a randomly generated comment of text and emoji complete with meaningless hashtags. Finally, when you share the app you’ll receive a notice that asks if you are sure you want to “Re-Bink” this post. You’re reminded that the Re-Bink doesn’t actually do anything but it actually does. You get an explosion of thumbs up icons. That’s it though, there is not really anyone to  share with in Binky.

    What is the point?

    There really isn’t a point, except for satire and parody. You may be able to say that using this app is a bit eye opening, however. I think it was for me. As I mindlessly scrolled through Binky and clicked on the meaningless buttons and commented the automatically generated sentences on each post I couldn’t help but think about how not far from actual social media this was. What difference does what I do on Instagram or Facebook actually have? Is it any more that my activity on Binky today? I don’t know for sure but I think thinking this way is a good thing. We tend to be so concerned about how we look online that many of us, especially your teen and young adult children, may actually put on a false persona on our social media pages. Binky was a way for me to see the ridiculousness of working so hard to get more likes, comments, and shares.

    What Parents Should Know

    As I said before this app isn’t a real social media app. There is no social aspect to it at all. It’s more like a simulation of social media. Something to give us another perspective on what our behavior online truly looks like. I recommend spending some time messing with this app and encouraging your young teens and teens to install it and play around on it. It’s not only humorous but could lead to some conversations on the futility of living your life and finding your worth on social media. Maybe, just maybe, you can use an app like Binky to start a conversation that could help you make some good decisions with your kids on what healthy social media use looks like in your family.

  • The Hooked App is as Addictive as it Sounds

    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.

  • PODCAST: Date Night Monkey Business

    PODCAST: Date Night Monkey Business

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    Amazon is changing the parental controls game, Instagram has 200 mil users, and MONKEY is a hotbed for predators.

    FAMILY TECH WEEKLY EPISODE 3

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  • Amazon is Changing the Parental Controls Game

    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.

  • The Monkey App will be a Hotbed for Predators

    The Monkey App will be a Hotbed for Predators

    You can often tell a lot about an app or product by their logo. (See Instagram or YouTube) They often use the small icon to entice you into using their app based on the style or the creative way the image can explain what the app is used for. Sometimes, though, you can be lured into a false sense of security by the playfulness of an app’s logo or icon. Monkey is a perfect example of this. When I saw Monkey listed as number 51 on the app store’s top downloads I was expecting to see some kid’s social media platform that would allow you to chat privately or play games or something. That’s not at all what I found.

    In reality Monkey is a chat roulette type of video chatting app. Once you’ve downloaded the app it will ask you your age. You set your age to whatever you’d like it to be, provide your phone number and your snapchat username and you’re in. It immediately begins connecting you with someone to video chat with. While it’s connecting it shows your face dimly in the background and says who it’s connecting you to. You have the option to skip the connection or accept. If you accept you’ll be shown their video feed and they’ll see yours. In the short time I tested the app I was connected with all males ranging from ages 22-45.

    Once you have connected with someone a countdown clock begins. You can tap the clock to add time and keep talking but if they don’t tap their clock you’ll be disconnected. This is another “swipe right” concept that gives each user the option to continue the connection with a simple gesture on their smartphone. To be honest I never accepted a connection. I still just don’t get a good feeling about the gamble of finding random video chatting partners. I don’t know what I”ll see when I connect. You also don’t know what your kids might see.

     

     

    What Parents Should Know

    The dangers of a roulette style video chat app should be pretty obvious. The potential for unwanted material and contact with dangerous people is real. While there is a report button to flag any inappropriate content, that method takes the “after the damage is done” approach to keeping their app free from pornography and bullying. The app is rated for users aged twelve and over and the terms and agreements explain how the company takes no responsibility for the content that may be displayed on the app.

    YOU FURTHER UNDERSTAND AND ACKNOWLEDGE THAT, WHILE THE SERVICES ARE NOT PROVIDED FOR PORNOGRAPHIC PURPOSES OR FOR MAKING SEXUALLY EXPLICIT CONTENT AVAILABLE, YOU MAY BE EXPOSED TO CONTENT THAT YOU DEEM TO BE OFFENSIVE, INDECENT, OBJECTIONABLE, OR SEXUALLY EXPLICIT, AND YOU AGREE TO WAIVE, AND HEREBY DO WAIVE, ANY LEGAL OR EQUITABLE RIGHTS OR REMEDIES YOU HAVE OR MAY HAVE AGAINST MONKEYSQUAD WITH RESPECT THERETO. – Monkey Terms of Use (All caps theirs.)

    This app was developed by two sixteen year old kids from Australia. They said that they designed the app to allow teens to build more random online relationships. Ben Pasternak and Isaiah Turner told Mashable “…Snapchat is for your real life friends and Monkey is for your internet friends.” These teenagers saw a line between their real world relationships and the ones they could make with people all over the world through the internet. This is exactly what parents need to consider. While living in a more globalized world has many positives there are also very real risks to exposing our young teens and kids to the entire globe. 

    My advice is to put this app on your uninstall list. Never trust an app based on their branding or icon. Have a real conversation with your teen about the potential of seeing body parts or other unsightly things on this app. Remind them of the problem of connecting with random people online. There are always people who will lie about their age or their gender in order to connect with someone they’d like to prey on. Even if they know they’re only going to be connected for a few seconds. Sometimes a few seconds is enough to cause major problems for our young kids. Don’t let the cute monkey emoji logo fool you. Uninstall on sight!

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  • Meet Sprinkles, Microsoft’s New Fun Camera App

    Meet Sprinkles, Microsoft’s New Fun Camera App

    Here’s what you need. You need a new camera app that will allow you to put text, stickers, and emojis on top of your photos. That’s what we all need, right? What? You already have six apps on your phone that do that? Well, nobody told Microsoft because they’ve just released their own. Ignoring the fact that they released it on April 1st (it’s still there so no, not entirely a joke) we should spend some time looking at what this app does and who the target audience is. 

    First of all it’s just a camera. This is not a photo sharing app with a built in social experience. When you take and edit your photo you can share it on any of the social media sites you have connected on your phone but there no native sharing system. The app uses a basic AI (artificial intelligence) to recommend what you could put on your picture. The choices are mostly text overlays and are based on what you took a photo of. You don’t have to post what it recommends, you can add your own text, stickers, or emojis by swiping the screen and hitting a few buttons.

    What Parents Should Know

    This app is geared toward young users. The quotes or sayings are silly and there is a high volume of illustrated overlays and emojis to chose from. This app could be a good option for kids who want to take photos and put silly stuff over the top but shouldn’t share online. Just be sure to look at the settings by clicking the gear in the top left of the camera screen. The settings will give you the option to activate or deactivate more mature overlays. (Mostly language.) You can also set the permissions it has, such as location and notifications. You can enter your name and birthdate to allow the app to recommend certain overlays on your special day or with your name on them. Remember that photos taken on this app are scanned so that overlays can be recommended. Encourage your children that even if they aren’t posting online, they don’t want to take a photo of something they don’t want anyone else to see. It is a good idea to familiarize yourself with this app if you’re going to let your younger kids use it. Take it seriously, even though it was released on April Fool’s Day.

  • Nintendo Switch Launches New Parental Controls App

    Nintendo Switch Launches New Parental Controls App

    Nintendo has always provided good gaming console solutions for families with younger kids. Many of their games are family friendly and they were some of the first to try to provide a more active method of gaming. Nintendo Switch is no exception. The popularity of Nintendo Switch is growing and its versatility is one of the features that is feeding that growth. While the number of games available on release was low, the system is still selling well, breaking records in its first weeks. With it’s newest parental control app release, I think Nintendo Switch remains a good game system for families. 

    The parental control app is free and available for iOS and Android. After installing the app you can sync it with the Nintendo account that is on your Switch and begin setting up age requirements, time limits, and sharing restrictions. This article has a good step by step on how to setup the parental controls on the app.  There are other features as well, such as a time played section and a monthly summary. If you have a Nintendo Switch then get this app as soon as you can. It’s another great way to protect your kids while they use technology.

    Don’t Stop the Conversation

    While this app is a great feature for parents it doesn’t eliminate the need for parents to remain actively involved in their child’s online and gaming experiences. Continue to have conversations with your kids about the games they play and how much time they spend on those games. Discuss healthy habits and time management. They need to learn how to make quality decisions in those areas and it’s up to you to teach them.

  • The Risks of a Fully Connected Home Part 3

    The Risks of a Fully Connected Home Part 3

    Security and advertising are the most obvious concerns when it comes to connecting your appliances and devices via smarthome technology. We must take precautions to protect our identity and our privacy. We should also be careful in our new wifi connected homes with the content that can come across these connections. In this final part of our Connected Home series we’ll talk about the content available on our smarthome devices and what we can do to filter that content.

    Unsupervised Content

    After a recent Setting Digital Boundaries workshop a  mother asked me what I knew about the parental controls on Amazon Echo. I hadn’t ever set one up and hadn’t really looked into them so I didn’t have many answers for her at the time. She told me why she had asked: her daughter likes to ask Echo to play songs that she likes but she’s young and her words don’t always come out sounding like they should. This causes the Echo to mis-hear what is said and the devices has, more than once, played a song that is not from any playlist they’ve set up and is not at all appropriate for a young toddler. With the increasing popularity of the Amazon Alexa and Google Home parental controls are becoming a major topic on tech forums and blogs. The reason it’s such a major part of the discussion is because there aren’t (yet) any real parental controls.

    On the Amazon products you can set a pin to make purchases. This will keep your child from making an order and you being shocked to find a two hundred dollar doll house at your door. That’s about it, though. There aren’t any music or video rating limits that you can set. There aren’t any separate voice commands that will let Alexa know the child is in the room. So far, there isn’t much. Google only has the filter settings you’ve given YouTube to protect from inappropriate content. These filters are strictly for video content though and won’t block explicit lyrics.

    It’s likely that more effective parental controls will become a reality on these popular products sooner rather than later but until then you should take precautions to keep your children from encountering more of the internet then you’re ready for them to connect to. 

    What Parents Should Know

    My advice is to hold off on extensive use of Alexa, Echo, or Google Home until real parental control options are made available. If you have already been using these devices or you’ve decided you can’t live without them I recommend setting up what restrictions are available. Protect yourself from surprise purchases with a pin on your Alexa or Echo and set your YouTube filter to protect your children from videos you wouldn’t want them to see. Other apps or web video and audio services that have parental controls may protect your family when connected through your smarthome device as well. Right now this is about all you can do but if you’re going to use these devices then something is better than nothing.

    Should Your Home Be Connected?

    The level of connectivity in your home is obviously a choice your family has to make. There are absolute benefits to having your house connected to a network and working together to make your life easier. The reality, though, is that these conveniences could come at a cost. Some may feel the cost isn’t that high and some may say it’s unfounded fear or foil hat conspiracy theory. My advice is to just stay informed. No matter your decision become a student of the way your connected home works. Reset passwords often, and don’t store your personal data somewhere that is easily accessible through your smart home device network. If you just use common sense and think ahead of the potential risks you may be able to be wired up like it’s the year 2025. Just do it with wisdom.

  • Do You Really Own Your Phone?

    Do You Really Own Your Phone?

    The ordeal with the exploding Galaxy Note 7 has brought about an interesting topic as of late. In case you’re a bit behind, I’ll remind you that early in 2016 some Samsung Galaxy Note 7s began to explode. The phone was recalled and many people began to return it for a replacement. Many, however, did not. In order to increase the number of returns Samsung started to roll out updates to the operating system that would eventually render the phone ineffective. The idea is that if phones wouldn’t charge all the way, or eventually at all, then users would have no choice but to turn the phone in and get something that wasn’t just screaming POTENTIAL LAWSUIT for Samsung. This is what started the conversation about who owns the phone we paid for and use every single day.

    The Phone is Yours, Sort Of…

    We pay good money for our smartphones. iPhones can cost up to eight hundred dollars when first released and the cost of a good Android phone is comparable to that. Since we pay so much it stands to reason that we should have complete control over what happens to and in our phone. The truth, though, is that we don’t. In fact, we sign away that right when we purchase, or now lease, our smart device. The terms and agreements page that we sign without reading spells out the fact that the physical device we just bought belongs to us but the software that makes it more than just plastic, glass, and metal, still belongs to the company that developed it.

    This is why Samsung can “brick” a phone with software updates in order to get people to bring them back. They can’t require you to physically bring your phone back because they want it back but they can make it so useless that you can’t stand to use the thing anymore. If it has any use anymore at all. Technically you are using software that belongs to someone else because they allow you to. That doesn’t stop with operating systems, it goes for the apps you download too.

    Here Come the App Police

    Twitter has been flexing their “terms and agreements muscles” recently as they try to crack down on bullying and abuse in their popular social media site and app. Some of their most recent changes include adding the ability to explain why you’ve blocked a user or hidden a post on your feed. With an even larger step, Twitter is using algorithm and moderators to recognise users of previously banned accounts and keep them from setting up a new account to continue their abuse. These steps and some more they’re not being as open about may seem controversial to some but they are definitely allowed under the terms you agreed to when you signed up to use their service.

    What Parents Should Know

    There are a couple of major ways that the ownership of our digital devices is an important topic for parents to understand. First of all you must know that the use of any software, be it an operating system, an app, or computer game, is considered a privilege given to you by the developer of that software. Even if you paid for the right to use it. Your kids need to understand that behavior contrary to what is acceptable in those apps or software can cause them to lose the ability to play or use the software anymore. Secondly, it’s important to update your device when an update becomes available. While it may seem like recent updates slow down your phone or cause other apps or software not to work properly, the developer created that update for important reasons. Security is a major reason that updates come as frequently as they do. Hackers or identity thieves are always working to find ways to sneak through security settings set up in your phone or computer. Updates by the developer allow them to keep up with the new ways those hooligans have discovered to breach your digital defenses.

    Be sure your kids and teens understand that the digital lives we live are a privilege. There are right ways to use our smartphone and wrong ways. When their account is banned in an app it happened for a reason. This means you should be having a conversation with them about what led to that action being taken by the developers of the app. Was it because of other users “flagging” him for his posts? Was there something she posted that she admits crossed the line and caused her account to be shut down. This DOES happen and should be taken very seriously. There are some online behaviors that are as illegal as anything you can do offline. One major example is the distribution of child pornography. This is a felony and punishable by years in prison and the remainder of your life labeled as a sex offender. Sexting, or sending a nude picture of yourself or someone else, if you are under eighteen years old is considered distribution of child pornography. The activities we are involved in online have very real consequences. We may own the device we use but we have agreed to use them in a certain way, and if we fail to meet those standards the privilege can, and will, be revoked.

     

  • Advertising on Snapchat Gets Creepy 

    Advertising on Snapchat Gets Creepy 

    Snapchat’s Always Been About Privacy

    The initial appeal of Snapchat was the disappearing images. The idea was that your conversations with friends stayed between you and them. It was a novel concept in a world where anyone who wants can comment on your post on Facebook or Retweet you on Twitter. SNAP inc., the company that now develops Snapchat even let the privacy theme stay in the way they allowed advertisers to use their site. Last fall a feature allowed business accounts to import their email and phone contacts to target current customers with advertising but that meant the companies were using information that already belonged to them.

    The new announcement about advertising  means that marketers can use data from a third party data collection agency to target their audience based on what they do outside of snapchat. You know the feeling when you follow a whim and lookup the entire collectors set of Star Trek The Next Generation on Amazon and then see the ads for Star Trek pages on facebook the next day? Well, now the same icky feeling is available on Snapchat.

    The silver lining here is that you can opt out of targeted advertising on your accounts page. Snapchat has yet to release an in-app announcement notifying users of the addition or the option to toggle it off though.

    Snapchat’s CEO Said Ad Targeting is Creepy

    “I got an ad this morning for something I was thinking about buying yesterday, and it’s really annoying” Spiegel declared. “We care about not being creepy. That’s something that’s really important to us.” – Snap CEO Evan Spiegel

    Snap is a Real Company Now

    In September of 2016, Snapchat changed their company name to SNAP Inc. This led to some changes in how they did business, including adding hardware (Spectacles) to their repertoire. It has also meant that some of their earning decisions have changed and this step to provide more accurate advertising to companies who use Snapchat for marketing is a perfect example of one of those decisions.

    SNAP isn’t a company that makes an app for High Schoolers anymore. According to the latest reports Snapchat brags 301 million monthly users and are projected to earn over $900 million in advertising in 2017. That’s right, it’s time to take snapchat seriously. The app was largely considered a young person’s trend for a while after it launched but it has quickly become a serious part of the Social Media landscape. In fact ages 18-30 are one of their fastest growing user demographics. When you take all of this into account you realize that this shift in the view of targeted marketing was just a matter of time.

    Marketing Ruins Everything

    Remember when email was simpler? You had one address and just used it to chat with family or to do business. Now you have to have your spam address, newsletter address, family address, signup address, business address, and the email you never check anymore. This all happened because marketers ruin everything.

    Facebook was all about social connection, now you can’t scroll through three posts without a sponsored ad beckoning to you to buy some monthly box of uselessness. Marketers ruined Facebook too. Don’t get me started on YouTube. Sitting through a lame movie trailer before you can watch the cool movie trailer you clicked through to see…it’s all too much.

    It looks like Snapchat is next in line. The inclusion of ad targeting by Snap will allow everything, even some of your offline behavior, to influence the advertising you will see on your Snapchat story.

    What Parents Should Know

    Snapchat makes a lot of appearances on this site because it’s one of the most relevant social media apps out there. I recommend understanding the app and how it works if you’re the parent of a teenager. If they don’t use the app then they want to and you will need to be knowledgeable about it before you make the decision whether or not to let them start Snapping. While sexting is always a concern on any messaging app, the marketing announcement today confirms what I have been saying since this fall. Advertisers want to notify your teenager when they have a new message for them and Snapchat just made it even easier for them.