4 strategies to safeguard your kids from explicit media

4 strategies to safeguard your kids from explicit media

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SALT LAKE CITY — The average American teenager spends nine hours a day on screen-based media, according to a report by The Common Sense Media, so it’s vital for parents to know how to protect their children from explicit and violent media on every platform.

With streaming content available on almost all platforms, it is easy for parents to feel overwhelmed and powerless to filter media on all the channels teenagers have access to. But parents are not powerless, and there are tactics they can use to help ensure the safety of the content their children view.

Choose TV that provides content options

Now that it is possible to watch TV and movies anywhere, on almost any device, parents need to be proactive when they subscribe to plans to ensure television safety with the proper parental controls.

Unlike free network TV, subscription TV bundles like cable and satellite not only give you more channels but the ability to set parental controls based on audience ratings. By choosing a TV package that has parental controls, you can pick and choose the content available to your children by choosing a TV service.

Set parental controls on video streaming sites

While the big three video streaming sites — Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon — all have parental filters, they each differ in the scope and power of those controls.

  • Netflix Netflix gives you the power to mark your Netflix profiles under four categories: little kids, older kids, teens and adults. You can adjust the maturity level of your Netflix profiles by going to your account page and clicking “Manage Profiles.” While on your account page, under “Settings” click “Parental Controls,” and you will be prompted to create a PIN. Just be aware that while you can set a PIN to adjust the parental control setting, you can’t set a password for individual profiles, meaning your children can access your adult profile as well. If you would like to keep your adult Netflix profile separate from your kids’, you will need to create a new Netflix account with a different email.
  • Hulu Plus Currently, Hulu has the weakest parental control options of the three video streaming sites. Mature content is viewable for users at least 17 years old. Like Netflix, you can create a kid-appropriate profile, but if the profile is under an adult account, kids can still access that adult account without a PIN or password. To keep your kids from getting into your adult account, you will need to create a separate account with a different email, password and a date of birth under 17 years old. Birth years can’t be changed on the original account, which guarantees that your kid’s profile always has age-appropriate content.
  • Amazon Video Of the big three video streaming sites, Amazon Video gives parents the most control. Amazon gives you the ability to stop video purchases by requiring a PIN as well as the ability to block specific content based on MPAA ratings or maturity level (general, family, teen and mature). However, it should be noted, there is no simple way to create a separate Amazon Video profile like there is with Hulu and Netflix.

Skip the explicit music

While the FCC requires the explicit lyrics or language to be bleeped out for public broadcasting, the same rules do not apply to music streaming apps. And some apps make it easier than others to filter explicit content.

  • Spotify Spotify offers no options for users to filter or block music by language content or subject material. But they do provide the radio-censored version in an album’s playlist as well as the explicit version. If you or your teens use this app to listen to music, you can create personal playlists featuring the “clean” version of the track or album.
  • Pandora Unlike Spotify, Pandora gives listeners the ability to restrict music with explicit lyrics from playing on their account. Pandora gives you the ability to filter music only by explicit lyrics but not by content material. To confirm any changes to the content settings in Pandora, you will be asked to enter your password.
  • YouTube According to 2012 survey from Nielson Media Research, two-thirds of American teenagers use YouTube as their dominant source for streaming free music, which makes enabling YouTube’s “restricted mode” essential in protecting your kids’ eyes and ears from crappy content. YouTube sorts its content via search using title, descriptions and age-restrictions, which gives them the ability to appropriately filter content within the restricted mode. Similar to Pandora, once you have enabled the restricted mode on your account and “lock” it with your password, only those who know the password can change it.

Restrict internet searches with in-browser tools and software

Many parents are justifiably worried about what their children can find on the internet, but several tools are available to help.

Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Internet Explorer all offer in-browser tools that allow you to filter content. If you find the in-browser tools not powerful enough, check out this list compiled by PC Magazine that reviews and ranks the best parental control software of 2017.

Related

In the end, enabling parental controls and other media-safety tools are just tactics for creating a safe media environment in your home—and tactics are not foolproof.

If these tactics fail, the best way to help your children stay safe online is to model appropriate media consumption yourself. Also, have frequent, open conversations with your children about the dangers they will encounter online and what tools they can use to protect themselves.

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