Google is Make changes to its Family Link parental control system, which aims to better reflect parents’ changing views about children’s screen time. In the pre-pandemic world, parents were more likely to see screen time as a limitation – they’d rather their kids go offline or go outside to maybe play with friends. However, the challenges of a closed world and the push towards virtual learning have impacted parents’ views. According to Google, today’s parents are more concerned How Children spend time on their devices, don’t how much Time is spent.
It’s a concession to a world where devices for families who stayed at home to avoid COVID have become kind of saviors – where they’re no longer allowed to see extended family and friends, and where schools are closed and game dates and parties are closed have been canceled. Parents found that screen time in and of itself doesn’t necessarily have to be avoided. They just wanted more control over how it was used.
With the Family Link update, parents can now choose to have remote learning apps “always allowed” so they don’t count towards the total daily screen time limit. This may include not just apps that are used to go to school or communicate with teachers, but apps that have popped up to make learning and entertainment easier for kids, like the additional resources suggested by the school – or the apps that Parents in the break times from virtual admit class.
Parents now also have access to more detailed daily, weekly and monthly activity reports that give an overview of how the child is spending their time in apps as well as how their screen time usage has changed over a week or a month, and which ones Proportion of time was spent in the “always allowed” apps. This gives parents a better idea of what screen time was spent on education versus gaming.
On Android, Family Link users can also browse a selection of teacher-recommended apps from the Google Play catalog for children under 13 in the United States. Parents can now also set screen time limits right on the child’s device on Android.
Credit: Google
While these updates will remain useful in a post-pandemic world where parents have a more nuanced view of Screen Time, it’s unfortunate that Google waited so late in the pandemic to roll out these changes. As more people in the United States get vaccinated, the restrictions are lifting – including reopening schools in many locations. That means that parenting stress about the kids’ increased use of screen time will soon become a moot point. The devices are being replaced with face-to-face learning, and screen time can turn malicious again.
In the context of today’s news, Google launched a new website for families whose kids are starting to use technology (Families.google). The company has also launched a new series of content with the Headspace meditation app, which families with children can use to practice mindfulness together. Again, this is a resource that was desperately needed during the peak of the pandemic in 2020, more than it is today when the world begins to open up again.
Even so, the pandemic has forced families to think more about screen time and the type of device experiences their kids are supposed to have. As a result of this heightened scrutiny, social apps like TikTok and Instagram – the latter only today – have introduced more family-friendly security features to encourage parents to see their apps in a better light rather than being them first when screen time is locked. It has also encouraged new hybrid learning and education startups in hopes of creating a new category of edutainment apps that can be used to avoid screen timeouts.
It’s also worth noting that the update on Family Link follows the addition of an App Store privacy label on iOS that confirms the data Google is collecting about users. Until recently, the app was one of the many Google iOS apps that had stalled updates due to a lack of labeling.
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