Since the COVID-19 pandemic, screen addiction has jumped exponentially, both in kids and adults alike. But children have been particularly busy in front of screens. With families stuck at home for half of the past year, managing kids and keeping them entertained has become an ordeal for parents. This has also led kids to use their gadgets and devices for hours at a time. As per the data gathered by the American Academy of Pediatrics, a normal 8- to 10-year-old spends about eight hours, whereas teenagers spend about as much as 11 hours a day on their screens while using social media platforms, texting with friends, and gaming.
Technology now permeates all aspects of our lives, from school to home to play. Parents now have to tackle the new challenge as things are now returning to normalcy. However, screens and smart gadgets have become the norm in education. Schools are widely using technology nowadays and have added iPads into their curriculum. The pandemic began the new trend of online classes. No matter how much parents want to delay screens, there is no other way about it. Toddlers are being soothed by devices, as parents actively use them as babysitters. As kids grow up, placing restrictions becomes all the more difficult, as it is not merely YouTube or streaming services they have to watch out for, rather it is the entire digital world. When it comes to implementing the right controls, parents find themselves at crossroads. Giving digital freedom to children and defining the extent of that freedom.
With technology becoming an integral part of our lives, there is no way of detaching from it entirely. Also, since after the pandemic, digital habits of tweens and teens have changed considerably that calls for stricter parental controls. Curious teens would always find ways to bypass restrictions and control settings. With screen and technology addiction growing at such a fast pace, parents need to take a proactive approach and use effective parental controls.
Parental controls are built for modern-day parents to protect their children from harmful or inappropriate content online, such as pornography and violence. Parental controls play a key role in ensuring that children can access only age-appropriate content, set screen use limits, and monitor all digital activities. You can find parental control settings in devices, mobile operators, internet providers, and online services. You can even use a combination of them.
Here are some major reasons you should use parental controls on your child’s computer and smartphone:
Monitor Digital Activity
With tons of content out there, it is not possible to filter all of it. As a parent, using control can help you keep tabs on what your kid is doing on the internet by monitoring browsing history, emails, and social media accounts.
Block Certain Content/Features
There are numerous game apps and online platforms that keep your kids hooked. Kids can even make in-app purchases and talk to other players. Sure, it provides an interactive experience. However, you may not want your kid using credit cards or sharing too much information with strangers. Parental controls can help block certain features as well as content on the web you deem inappropriate.
Set Screen-time Limits
Social media, as well as a screen in general, are addictive. An adult can spend hours just scrolling mindlessly and find it hard to put their phones down. For a child, it can be quite the task to quit their favorite game. Moreover, using screens excessively leads to poor eyesight, dry eyes, bad posture, obesity, and lower physical activity. The child becomes lazy and detached from their surroundings. For older kids, the consequences are worse, as spending too much time on social media apps leads to anxiety, depression, and lower self-esteem. Parental controls help parents set boundaries and time limits on the type of media they engage with.
Establish Cyber Safety
Cybercriminals prey on poor cyber habits, which most internet users are guilty of. As children grow, their brain is constantly developing and soaking information. They are curious by nature, and this curiosity could make them engage in risky online behavior. They could share too much and divulge private information that could jeopardize their safety.
Manage Search Engine Results
Want to know anything? Type it in your search engines, and chances are you will find plenty of information. Maybe a bit too much. For a child, a seemingly innocent search could expose them to inappropriate content. Parental controls assist in blocking adult content in the form of websites, images, and videos from the search results.
Teach Digital Etiquette
Teach children about responsible digital etiquette. They should follow similar rules in the cyber world like the real world. A child should know about practicing good behavior both online and offline. Let them know about the consequence of unethical hacking, cyberbullying, and body shaming. Parental controls help ensure that your child is being a responsible netizen.
Owing to its affordable pricing, remarkable functionality paired with seamless compatibility with Android and iOS, Xnspy has made its mark as the best parental control app in the market. Let’s run you through a brief overview of the app.
Installation
For Android devices, you need to download and then install the software on the device. To work on an iOS device, you need to have the iCloud credentials of your children. The app connects to the iCloud of the user and creates a duplicate of the data on the server you can view later on. There are no jailbreaking requirements either, contrary to many popular parental control apps.
Once the installation procedure is complete, you must wait for a day or two before using the app. Xnspy requires 24 to 48 hours to become fully functional. During this time, the app shall record data from your child’s phone and upload it to your online account. You can view all the uploaded data via Xnspy’s web account.
Price
Xnspy is one of the least expensive parental control apps. Offering two editions—Basic and Premium—Xnspy allows for affordable monitoring. With the Basic Edition, you can view text messages, contacts, and multimedia, locations, and call records. The Premium Edition lets you use all the remote features and stay on top of everything that goes on the phone you are monitoring.
Features
Here are the main features of the Xnspy parental monitoring app parents can benefit from:
Monitor Text Messages
With Xnspy, you can keep an eye on their incoming and outgoing messages as well as their conversations on instant messaging apps like Facebook Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, LINE, Kik, and Skype.
Watchlist Alerts
This feature is one of the best ones the app offers. You can make a list of specific words, phrases, and even contact and set alerts for them whenever they appear in messages or emails. This would save you a lot of time that you would have to spend rummaging through chats otherwise.
Call Monitoring
Xnspy has a built-in feature of recording all calls. Furthermore, it maintains a log of incoming, outgoing, and even missed calls. You can see the top 5 callers and top 5 calls as well to know who your child talks the most to. You can know about weekly call activity through call activity punchcard as well.
Access Apps
The app allows parents to view the installed applications and even block any if need be.
GPS Location Tracking & Geofencing
Parents cannot be with children all the time. However, with Xnspy, they can stay on top of their child’s whereabouts at all times. Xnspy tracks the real-time location of the phone. Moreover, you can use the geofencing feature and set alerts on certain locations to know when your child enters or leaves a certain region.
Ambient Sound Recording
Xnspy not only records all calls, but it also lets you record surroundings as well. This could come in handy if the child gets lost or is unable to respond to your messages or calls. You can send a remote command that activates the microphone of the device and record the surroundings for 30 minutes. All of it takes place silently.
Web Browsing History
Xnspy allows parents to view the online browsing history and the top 10 most frequently visited websites. You can even view the bookmarked pages.
Access to Multimedia
Parents can access the images and videos their child sends or receives on their phone through different apps.
Keylogger
A feature for Android only, parents can even see the keystrokes made on Facebook, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Skype, and Viber.
Wi-Fi Logs
Parents can see the history of all the Wi-Fi connections the phone recently connected to, including their names, date, and time.
Offline Recording
Xnspy is one of the few apps that facilitates offline tracking. The app continues to record data in the absence of the internet. It uploads the recorded data to the online web account as soon as the device connects to the internet.
As a modern-day parent raising techie kids, you cannot go wrong with choosing Xnspy. The features are plenty, and the cost is easy on the pocket. Xnspy ranks among the most robust parental control solutions in the market and the reviews are more than satisfactory. Its array of impressive features has allowed parents to intervene right on time and dodge unfortunate situations. If you have been on the lookout for suitable parental control that ticks all the right boxes, you have found a good option. Choosing Xnspy would be a decision you won’t regret.
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