NOW YOU CAN MANAGE YOUR KID’S SMARTPHONE
There’s a host of reaNEW YORK sons why some parents are reluctant to let their youngsters have a smartphone. They fear the kid will spend too much time on the device when they should be doing homework or playing outside with friends.
They fret kids will be exposed to age-inappropriate material, in effect entering the cyber-equivalent of some dark alley. They worry, too, that the child might lose the device.
Google becomes the latest company to tackle such concerns. Starting Wednesday, parents with children under 13 can request early access to a Family Link app that gets installed on their own Android phone and on an Android phone for their kid. Then through Family Link, mom or dad can manage the apps their kid can use, peek at how much time he or she is spending on the apps that are approved and choose bedtime and daily use limits.
At any point, parents can remotely lock the device or check on the location of the handset.
Since Family Link is still in a testing period, Google is seeking feedback from parents who do receive an invitation and will apply changes leading up to, Google hopes, an early summer launch.
I tried Family Link with my 10year-old son Samuel, who doesn’t yet have his own phone. For the purposes of this tryout, we were issued test Nexus 5Xs smartphones, his with the kid version of Family Link preinstalled, mine with the parental version.
After the actual app launch, parent and child are meant to go through the Family Link installation process together and, to the degree possible, agree on digital ground rules.
As a starting point, you create a Google Account for your kid; if he or she already has one, you must create a new account. The kid’s device must be running Android Nougat 7.0 or later. A parent can run a device dating as far back to Android KitKit. Google says it is working on an iOS version for the parents’ device, but the timing of a release isn’t clear.
The software on the phone you give your kid looks much like the software on your own phone. One immediate difference: The kid’s phone has access to download YT Kids if approved by a parent, not the more grown-up YouTube.
Parents get to restrict what the child can see when he or she browses Google Play and limit the other apps. By default, mature and adult-only apps are blocked inside Google Play so your child can’t even see them, though parents can alter the settings to be more or less permissive.
So apps such as Facebook and Instagram didn’t show up in the Play Store on Sam’s phone, though Facebook Messenger and apps related to Facebook and Instagram were surfaced.
Mom and dad can also set age rating restrictions for movies and TV shows, block books and music with sexual or explicit content and choose whether photos can be shared. Parents can arrange to approve all downloads and purchases on a case-by-case basis. Or parents might choose to only have to approve apps that cost money. You’ll get a notification when your kid wants an app; you can say yay or nay remotely.
Parents can also put restrictions on the websites kids can view inside the Chrome browser. You can customize an approval list or trust Google to block mature or violent sites. As an additional protection, kids are unable to browse Chrome in private or “incognito” mode.
A SafeSearch filter is turned on by default — but as Google itself acknowledges, it isn’t perfect, nor is it designed to suppress informational or newsworthy articles on topics such as sex education and sexting, even if graphic. That meant a search for “sexting ” went through on Sam’s phone, and I was able to read an article on the subject. Parents can turn off search altogether if they wish.
Google Now is not available to kids; I’m told the Google Assistant will be available on certain devices.
One feature that immediately paid off: When Sam misplaced the device I was able to remotely ring it from the parent phone and find it. And worth noting: Family Link does not provide parents the ability to specifically block certain people, though such functionality is built into Google apps such as Gmail.
Google says technology is no substitute for parenting and I wholeheartedly agree. Still, many parents will appreciate the controls and tools Google is offering here, especially as they’re finetuned leading up to launch.
Google’s Family Link app lets parents keep tabs on their devices, habits
Many parents will appreciate the controls and tools Google is offering here, especially as they’re fine-tuned leading up to launch.