It is an undeniable fact that digital technology has evolved immensely and we use it, possibly excessively, in our everyday lives. Even children between 0-2 years of age partake in that lifestyle since now it’s very common to have access to digital devices at home. According to a 2015 study (Chaudron, 2015, p. 34), it was stated that children who are under 8 years old use these devices mainly for entertainment purposes in their leisure time and the most popular activity was found to be watching videos via Youtube, TV and some other platforms. Through the interviews held with children, it was discovered that children perceive the content on Youtube as an infinite continuity, especially when another recommended video starts playing immediately after the former one finishes. In such a situation, parental control becomes difficult to maintain even though it is very necessary to keep children safe from possible age-inappropriate and harmful content.

Both parents and experts aim to use the media for the benefit of children. However, the basis of streaming videos from Youtube or similar sources are based on increasing views, regardless of the content. The question that arises in mind is, “what are our children watching?”.  Exposure to inaccurate, inappropriate, or unsafe content and contacts affect children’s cognitive development negatively. Risks of such media include adverse health effects on sleep, attention, and learning, a higher incidence of obesity and depression as well (Chassiakos et al., 2016). Hence, it is important that the content watched by children should be age appropriate and supportive of their cognitive development. To achieve that, parents should be meticulously careful about choosing good channels and filtering videos. Although this may sound intimidating, Yubi is here to help parents to provide a secure device for children.

Yubi is a parental control application that protects children from inappropriate content. Unlike a traditional parental control app, Yubi does more than just filtering adult content. 

  • Yubi VPN does not permit access to the apps (such as tiktok, instagram, twitch) that you do not want your child to use. Children can only access Yubi. Also, Yubi turns your web browser into a safe one for your kids. Even though kids try to explore restricted content, they won’t be able to. Moreover, kids will not get a warning message that says they are not allowed. Children, especially adolescents, tend to not like the feeling of being restrained when using the internet and this may cause tension between the children and their parents (Gosh et al., 2018). To prevent this, Yubi was designed to make it look like there is an internet connection problem when they are trying to reach restricted content.

  • Yubi blocks advertisements in all websites and mobile applications. A study conducted in 2017 that investigated Youtube, revealed that children are exposed to so many inappropriate advertisements (Araújo et al., 2017). This piece of information is obviously not shocking considering that we are bombarded with ads no matter which website or application we are using. On top of preventing your children from coming across inappropriate ads, you also will protect them from the imposement of purchasing caused by popular-social life.
  • Speaking of purchasing, Yubi blocks your children from purchasing applications and in-app purchases. This way, there is no chance for you parents to encounter a surprise 300$ spending in your card statement.

 

 

  • Along with the safe channels that are picked by professionals for each age-group, your children will only be able to watch the channels you picked for them. The automatic recommendations made by the Youtube algorithm are disabled. Numerous studies show that children are 2 to 3 clicks away from inappropriate content on average. For example, only 2 clicks later from watching Sesame Street, children could come across a graphic video of a woman giving birth (Halliday, 2013).

 

  • Besides protecting your children from restricted content, Yubi blocks advertisements in all websites and mobile applications

  • Excessive screen time, especially for children who are younger than 8 years old, affects children’s development negatively. Physiologically, children may suffer from obesity, diminished sleep time/efficiency and poor physical strength. Psychologically, too much screen time can result in problems in cognitive and socio-emotional abilities (Domingues-Montanari, 2017). Hence, children should be monitored in terms of their screen time. Yubi always makes the well-being of your child it’s priority and provides a feature that does not let your child spend more than enough time in front of a screen. 

 

With Yubi, children will get to make use of the internet and spend quality time while being safe from inappropriate content. Get ready for a new generation secure device that continues to develop with all these features and more! 

 

References

Araújo, C. S., Magno, G., Meira, W., Almeida, V., Hartung, P., & Doneda, D. (2017). 

Characterizing Videos, Audience and Advertising in Youtube Channels for Kids. 

Social Informatics, 341–359. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-67217-5_21

Chassiakos, Y. L. R., Radesky, J., Christakis, D., Moreno, M. A., & Cross, C. (2016).

Children and adolescents and digital media. Pediatrics, 138(5), e20162593.

Chaudron, S., Beutel, M. E., Donoso Navarrete, V., Dreier, M., Fletcher-Watson, B., Heikkilä, 

  1. S., … & Mascheroni, G. (2015). Young Children (0-8) and digital technology: A 

qualitative exploratory study across seven countries. JRC; ISPRA, Italy.

Domingues-Montanari, S. (2017). Clinical and psychological effects of excessive screen time

on children. Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health, 53(4), 333–338. 

doi:10.1111/jpc.13462

Halliday, J. (2013). Children Three Clicks Away from Explicit Material. The Guardian. 

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/feb/05/youtube-study-explicit-material  2013.

Ghosh, A. K., Badillo-Urquiola, K., Guha, S., LaViola Jr, J. J., & Wisniewski, P. J. (2018). 

Safety vs. Surveillance. Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors 

in Computing Systems – CHI ’18. doi:10.1145/3173574.3173698

Writen by, Melike Cakir & Nazli Ozkoca