Practically every parent has had to give their smartphone to their child. Whether it’s for a game or to watch a Youtube video. As you can probably guess, giving your child unsupervised access to the internet and your smartphone is not exactly safe. So here is how you can better control how you child, or anyone for that matter, uses your phone.
Youtube Kids
Youtube Kids is a much more restrictive version of Youtube. You can turn off the search function allt ogether, and even restrict entire channels. On desktop if you’re logged in, you can click on your portrait in the top right of the screen, and at the bottom of the menu, turn on restricted mode.
This has some of the features in the sense that videos deemed to be of mature content are filtered. Like any form of filter, neither of them is perfect, so if you want to restrict certain content, it would still be a good idea to supervise their use.
Guided Access
If you’re on iOS, the process is relatively simple. Firstly, you need to turn on guided access in the settings.
Once that is done, whenever you are in an app that you want your child to stay on, just triple tap the home button. You can also specify parts of the screen where touch will be ignored. You can even control what physical buttons will and will not work, and set a time limit.
Once everything is set, just tap start at the top right of the screen, and input your password. To end guided access, triple tap the home button again and input your password again.
Screen Pinning
On the Android side, you can turn on screen pinning, which locks you in one app until you turn it off. To turn it on, the exact location might be in slightly different locations. But as a rule of thumb go to your settings, tap on the security section, scroll all the way down (this is on a OnePlus).
To activate screen pinning, tap the recents button (the square on most devices). On the bottom of your most recent app, there will be a pin icon. Just tap the icon, and the screen will be locked to that app.
To unpin the screen, hold the back and recents button, which will take you to the lock screen.
Any more handy child-proofing tips? Let us know in the comment section below.
