Balancing Kids’ Tech Exposure – Incorporating Physical Activity and Screen Time App Limits

Kids have extreme technology exposure in the modern times. Laptops, smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles – they are surrounded by technology. As toddlers, they are fascinated by these shiny devices and parents also engage them into watching rhymes or cartoons. As they grow up they get into playing games and eventually as teens, they get access to everything on the internet. They text, socialize on the social networking sites, play games and surf the internet all through their tech devices.

The infographic below shows the different sides of tech-use and its effects on kids:

Source: HuffingtonPost

The Good Side

There is no doubt that technology brings convenience. It makes processes faster and saves time. Different games and videos help kids in developing learning skills. They can research instantly, find new recipes, learn about things they don’t know, get help for their assignments, etc. They can keep a digital record of everything and share it with the world. It also provides entertainment in the form of games, movies, and YouTube videos. And everything is available in a single device at the tip of their fingers.

The Bad Side

Like every other thing, it has a bad side too. First of all, too much use of tech devices affects their health- both physical and mental. They have a high risk of obesity, eye and brain damage and sleep disorders. Attention deficiency, social anxiety, and depression are also caused by it. Secondly, it can expose them to adult content and cyberbullying at a very young age. All these things influence their overall performance in life.

Let’s Create Balance

• The best way to create balance in their lives is to manage their technology use. For this purpose, make screen time rules in your house. These rules should be for everyone, including the parents. The safe ratio is 1:5 i.e. for one minute of screen time and 4 minutes of doing some other activity.
• Use a screen time app to enforce these rules e.g. FamilyTime. It allows parents to set screen limits on their kids’ devices, according to their will. When kids cannot access their devices, they are left with no choice but to do something else. You can set limits during meals, at night or during study time to avoid distractions and long device hours.

Get it for Android and iOS devices from the buttons below:

• Arrange healthy activities which encourage physical activity and family time, e.g. playing outdoors, swimming, dance classes, indoor games, crafts, cooking, baking, and reading etc.
• Have “unplugged” days once a month. There are camps or you can do it on your own. Get rid of all the devices and spend quality device-free time.

Get Your Balancing Act Straight

It is very important for kids to have limited exposure to technology in order to have a safe and healthy life. It can be easily done with a screen time app and some unplugging.  So, have fun with your family and play around without your devices for a while!

Fake Name Generator and Teens! Parents Beware

Fake Name Generator literally means “generating false names”. To be more concise and straightforward it is software used explicitly by the teenagers to generate false identity. To know about it in details, read on!

What is Fake Name Generator?

Fake Name Generator is a service that allows anyone to create a virtual card with completely false identification. It is more like “Jason Bourne”. We all remember Bourne, where the hero can change as he wished – the name and life. It’s the same here.

Use of Fake Name Generator:

It is quite obvious that the use of the software is not for any good reason. As mentioned earlier, the software is being used heavily by the teenagers who want to have fun in the virtual world without revealing their real identity. In their fun-loving nature, they forget important and dangerous aspects of using the software. They ignore the fact that just like them, there can be hundreds of other people with identity online. Mostly this game of fake identity is played over social networks an online dating platform.

• Teens usually pretend to be someone else to attract a dating partner
• Adults use it to trap innocent people
• Many others use it to browse incognito healthy individuals without bad intentions. They use it to browse anonymously and avoid external sites retain their information and private data.

The dangers of Fake Name Generator

The dangers of fake name generator are innumerable. We talk here about the most extreme cases that are related to sexual predators who like wolves, prowl after sheep on the Internet. Until a lost sheep falls into their networks, they dress up and take false identities to lure their victims.

Remember the wolf story we used to hear in our childhood, (that ends well) where the wolf changes the color of his paw to enter the house of children. It reveals a beautiful metaphor here, except that the end is not so happy. Just as the story, how can you tell your child that this individual is not him who he believes?

The best way to avoid unpleasant encounters

Nothing is simple and family analysis alone is not enough, unfortunately. Hence, to avoid unpleasant encounters, the best idea is to use parental monitoring app. The monitoring application is key to the problem because these applications help parents monitor all Internet activities of their kids including the social networking, internet surfing, instant messaging and other app usages etc.

Programs like Norton and FamilyTime for example, are handy to know if the child actually attends online dating or not. With the app in hand parents can:

1.     Monitor online activities

• Monitor browsing history
• Check bookmarks and favorites
• View most visited Web Pages

2.     Phone monitoring

• Monitor call logs
• Check sent and received SMS
• Check call timing along with date stamps
• Put screen locks at bedtime
• Put locks at school hours
• Watchlist contacts
• Receive alerts on any contact in the Watchlist contacts list
• Check all their installed apps
• Check app version and date of installation for the apps
• Block harmful apps and games

This may seem intrusive or worse, but sometimes a lesser evil can prevent the worst from happening. In real case when predators are becoming more efficient at creating fake profiles online, these monitoring programs helps parents maintain close surveillance that saves kids from indulging into harmful activities. Do remember that the Internet, for young people is a minefield so, take your position and step in to save them on time.

 

Why You Need To Limit Your Kid’s Screen Time and How?

Kids these days get hold of technology very early in their lives. Games, social media apps, movies and T.V shows keep them busy all the time- literally all the time. They become so used to using their cell phones, tablets or other devices that they can’t get away from them. According to a study conducted by the Pew Research Center, 24% of teenagers are online almost constantly throughout the day. And 56% check their phones several times a day.  That is an alarmingly large part of our teens!

Source:PewResearchCenter

As a result, they develop bad habits which in the long run can result in serious problems such as:

• Obesity
• Depression
• Constant tiredness
• Unable to interact in real social situations
• Sleeping difficulties
• Other health problems due to lack of physical activity

In order to make sure that your children develop a healthy lifestyle, you need to regulate the number of hours they spend in front of their screens. Here are a few methods that can proof effectively:

Dialogue

The first and foremost rule is to establish a relation with your kids in which you can communicate about everything. Rather than just putting restrictions on them, talk to them about all the dangers they can risk themselves to and how they can avoid them. Develop a friendly atmosphere and talk about why they should cut back on their time spent using these devices.

Parental control measures

While technology creates problems it also provides solutions. You can use parental control Apps to ensure your kids don’t use such devices excessively. There are plenty of Apps such as FamilyTime which allow you to limit the screen time. They also allow you to lock your kid’s phones for specific time periods such as bedtime, dinnertime etc.All you have to do is set up the starting and ending time and it handles the rest. Different rules can be made for different time periods and it can go on for as long as you like. If your kids have different schedules, it’s not a problem at all, you can make different rules for each kid and monitor them from a single dashboard. You can easily use it for both Android and iOS.

Establish Rules

Make rules and tech-free zones within the house. You can tell your kids that they will only have meals if they come to the dining table and they have to leave their phones in their rooms for that. Restrict the number of hours they can use their devices.

Do it Yourself

Become an example for your kids! Don’t make rules for them and use your devices at the same times or in front of them. Make them realize that the rules apply to everyone. In this way, it would become easier for them to follow the rules and you would benefit as well.

Enforce Physical Activity

Put them in the gym, sports and other games that require outdoor activity. Even if they are at home they can play board games or other indoor games. Play with them to make them realize that these activities are fun too.

Unplug

With the rising difficulties of addiction to technology, there are “tech-free events” happening more often. Become a part of such “unplug” camps which are a fun way to control your use of technology.

Kids are the pioneers of the future. They are going to make agreat revolution in technology but we don’t want them to become addicts of the same thing. That is why you as parentsneed to take adequate parenting measures to save them from this hazard. Put a limit on those screen times by using the right tools and ensure a healthy and bright future for them. Take a break from technology whenever you can spend time with each other.

A Fool-Proof Way to Find Lost Phone – Finally!

We all are aware of parental controls apps as these are a big hit among parents these days. But I never ever imagined that a parental app could help find lost phone. Yes, that’s right! We all know how important our smartphones are and how crucial information we save in them. I for one, save all my passwords, my family’s addresses, my social security number, my family’s pictures, countless selfies and what not! And if my smartphones gets lost, that could be an end of my life, literally! It could be a bombshell if it lands in the wrong hands!

And my fears are not unrealistic: each year, the rate of lost and stolen phones increase in the US. Talk about democracy, education and security!

Can you possibly afford to get your phone stolen? Or worse still, of your teens? Teens, absolutely not! God know what these teens store in their smartphones these days! It is surely disastrous. I know teens getting suicidal on phone thefts, no kidding!

Phone Loss – A disaster, A trauma!

Each hour, a large number of phones are stolen in the world. Our gadgets have become our best friends we save a lot of data, personal information and contacts in our smartphones.

Have a look at this Infographic by the Consumer Reports.

According to the stats shown in this Infographic over the last one year about 7.1 million phones were lost, stolen or damaged. The lost or stolen phone can leak your teens’ photos, passwords, their location and their financial information. All of these things could be used to harass them, kidnap them and/or physical harm.

Moreover, these devices are very expensive and our teens hardly understand that. But how can you put off their incessant demands of getting an iPhone for their birthdays? But now that the parental apps have got your back; you can let your teens get the phones they fancy the most. But all you need to do is to install these parental apps on their smartphones and pair it with your app account.

FamilyTime is a great app to help you out of this mess. This app can let you track their location history so you can exactly know where they lost their phones and where can you retrieve them. It has some pretty awesome tracking features including:

Phone Location Tracking

Instantly locate the current position of stolen phone.

Geo Fencing

Put specific places to Places list on the app and get alerts when teens enter or exit those places.

Screen Locks

Lock the phone quickly and avoid any misuse of their data.

Location History

Check where they have been over a period of time.

Panic Alerts

Get panic alerts if they feel emergency or danger.

Say Good Bye to Phone Theft!

FamilyTime is an innovative app to find lost phone. Overall, it’s a good parental monitoring app and it could also enable you to keep you teens’ personal data protected. It can be a great tool in keeping their smartphones safe and never worry about them losing expensive phones!