Tag Archives: Family & Relationships

TikTok will automatically limit screen time for teens

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TikTok is introducing new settings that are meant to reduce how much time teens are spending in the app. In an update, the company says it will automatically default teens under the age of 18 to a daily screen time limit of 60 minutes.

With the change, teens will still be able to bypass the daily limit, but they’ll be required to enter a passcode, “requiring them to make an active decision to extend that time,” the company says. Additionally, if teens opt to turn off the screen time limit altogether, TikTok will further prompt them to set a limit if they spend more than 100 minutes in the app.

The company is also adding new parental control features via the app’s “Family Pairing” feature, which allows parents to monitor their children’s activity on TikTok. Parents will be able to set their own custom screen time limits, and view a dashboard that details stats about their child’s time in the app, like how often they open it and what times of the day they use it most. Parents can also set a schedule for when their children can receive notifications, and choose to filter topics they don’t want to appear in their For You feeds.

The update comes as lawmakers in the United States have renewed their efforts to ban TikTok entirely. In addition to national security concerns, Congress has also criticized the company for not doing enough to protect its youngest users.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/tiktok-will-automatically-limit-screen-time-for-teens-110056722.html?src=rss

Sorry, but you still have to push this $3,800 electric-assist stroller

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Non-parents may not believe it, but pushing a pram around can be a fairly strenuous task, especially when the train gets rough. It’s a full body workout to push two kids under four in my old Uppababy Vista, which weighed the same as an iceberg and had the turning circle of the Titanic. To remedy this, Canadian startup GlüxKind has developed an electrically-assisted stroller that’ll make pushing easier, and can even drive itself, albeit only when your kid isn’t on board.

The GlüxKind Ella is the brainchild of Anne Hunger and Kevin Huang, a couple who were less than whelmed when looking for a stroller for their own daughter. They decided to build their own device by strapping an electric skateboard to a regular stroller, and started developing their product from there. The device has three modes, the first of which is to add electric assist to the wheels as you’re pushing it around.

Trying this in an admittedly limited demo at CES, it feels very much like the sort of power boost you get with an e-bike. You still have to push this thing around, but you only have to make a fairly meager level of effort before the motor kicks in and helps you out. As well as easier forward motion, you’ll also find turning to be a lot snappier than you may expect, useful too when you’re trying to maneuver your rugrat in tight spaces. It’ll also prove useful when going uphill, or if you’re carrying lots of groceries in Ella’s surprisingly large cargo space.

I’m told that the battery will last for around eight hours of mixed use, and you’ll need to charge it at the end of every day, more or les.

You can also set the pram to rock your baby to sleep, moving backwards and forwards by about a foot. This, I’m sure, will be a godsend to parents who are otherwise praying for divine intervention at 3am as their precious child refuses to sleep. I’m aware that there are some safety caveats about using such a feature on a regular basis, but being able to call on the feature in a pinch will surely be an instant-sell to some harangued parents.

The last mode, and the most eye-catching, is self-driving, where the stroller will drive ahead of you by a couple of feet. It’ll maintain power when going up hill, and brake so it stays close to you when you’re going down the other side. But crucially, the system is designed to not work if you put your kid in the seat and expect the pram to do all of the work. A weight sensor in the bassinet and stroller chair will block the function if it detects the presence of a child.

A product like this is, understandably, going to be at the higher end of the price scale, and when it hits Kickstarter this spring, the first 100 units will set you back $3,800. Once that early bird special is done with, the price is likely to climb a little higher, but for that you’ll also get built-in GPS so you can track where your pram is if you’ve asked friends and family to babysit. GlüxKind also has plans to build out a community feature to find and connect like-minded parents — the sort of whom are also prepared to spend north of four grand on a self-driving stroller.

Hinge is adding video identity verification to combat scam accounts and catfishing

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Starting next month, dating app Hinge will begin rolling out a new profile verification feature to combat a surge in fake accounts. Dubbed “Selfie Verification,” the feature will prompt users to upload a video of themselves, which the app, with a combination of machine learning and human oversight, will use to confirm they look like the person pictured in their profile. People who complete the process will get a “Verified” badge on their dating profile.

Hinge parent company Match Group told Wired, the first publication to report on the feature, that Selfie Verification would roll out to all users by December. “As romance scammers find new ways to defraud people, we are committed to investing in new updates and technologies that prevent harm to our daters,” Hinge spokesperson Jarryd Boyd told the outlet.

The feature comes after Wired writer Lauren Goode wrote about her experience with Hinge’s many bots. The app, like many other dating platforms, is rife with fake accounts, and the real people behind them will often attempt to scam their matches out of money. For instance, “pig butchering,” one of the more popular online dating schemes, frequently sees victims tricked into “investing” their money into fake cryptocurrency platforms. As Gizmodo points out, online dating scams aren’t new, but they’ve become more prevalent since the start of the pandemic. In February, the Federal Trade Commission issued a warning to online daters, noting that people reported losing a record $547 million in 2021 from online dating fraud.

How much Selfie Verification will help protect Hinge users from such scams and catfishing more broadly is hard to say. Other Match Group apps, including Tinder, already employ similar features. On those platforms, users aren’t required to verify their identity, and you still see plenty of fake accounts.

Hinge is adding video identity verification to combat scam accounts and catfishing

Posted on by

Starting next month, dating app Hinge will begin rolling out a new profile verification feature to combat a surge in fake accounts. Dubbed “Selfie Verification,” the feature will prompt users to upload a video of themselves, which the app, with a combination of machine learning and human oversight, will use to confirm they look like the person pictured in their profile. People who complete the process will get a “Verified” badge on their dating profile.

Hinge parent company Match Group told Wired, the first publication to report on the feature, that Selfie Verification would roll out to all users by December. “As romance scammers find new ways to defraud people, we are committed to investing in new updates and technologies that prevent harm to our daters,” Hinge spokesperson Jarryd Boyd told the outlet.

The feature comes after Wired writer Lauren Goode wrote about her experience with Hinge’s many bots. The app, like many other dating platforms, is rife with fake accounts, and the real people behind them will often attempt to scam their matches out of money. For instance, “pig butchering,” one of the more popular online dating schemes, frequently sees victims tricked into “investing” their money into fake cryptocurrency platforms. As Gizmodo points out, online dating scams aren’t new, but they’ve become more prevalent since the start of the pandemic. In February, the Federal Trade Commission issued a warning to online daters, noting that people reported losing a record $547 million in 2021 from online dating fraud.

How much Selfie Verification will help protect Hinge users from such scams and catfishing more broadly is hard to say. Other Match Group apps, including Tinder, already employ similar features. On those platforms, users aren’t required to verify their identity, and you still see plenty of fake accounts.

Snapchat Family Center shows parents their children’s friends list

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Snapchat has launched a parental control portal that allows parents to keep an eye on who their young teenagers have been chatting with. The new in-app feature called Family Center shows parents their kids' friends list, as well as who they've messaged in the last seven days. Take note that parents can only see who their teens have been talking to, but they won't be able to read their chat history. Snap says the center was designed to "reflect the way... parents engage with their teens in the real world" in that they know (for the most part) who their kids have been hanging out with but don't listen in on their conversations.

In addition, parents can confidentially report accounts they think might be violating Snap's rules straight from the Family Center. Back in January, Snapchat changed its friend recommendation feature following calls for increased safety on the app by making it harder for adults to connect with teen users: In particular, it stopped showing accounts owned by 13-to-17-year-old users in Quick Add. Teens also can't have public profiles and have to be mutual friends to be able to communicate with each other. Plus, their accounts will only show up in search results under certain circumstances, such as if the one searching has a mutual friend with them.

Snap promised to launch new parental controls and other features designed to protect underage users on its service last year. The company revealed its plans in a hearing wherein lawmakers put the pressure on social networks and apps that cater to teens, such as Snapchat and TikTok, to do more to protect children on their platforms. 

Family Center is completely voluntary, and teens can always leave the portal if they want — they'll even be given the choice to accept or ignore a parent's invitation to join. And since the feature was made for underage teens, users who turn 18 will automatically be removed from the tool.

The company plans to roll out more features for the Family Center on top of what it already has. It will allow parents to easily see the newest friends their teens have added in the coming weeks. And over the next months, Snap will add content controls for parents, as well as the ability for teens to notify their parents whenever they report an account or a piece of content.

A Filipino politician wants to make ghosting a criminal offense

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A lawmaker wants to punish people for ghosting, or abruptly cutting off communications with someone without explaining why. Arnolfo Teves Jr., a member of the Philippine House of Representatives, claimed in a note accompanying his bill that ghosting "can be likened to a form of emotional cruelty and should be punished as an emotional offense."

Teves referred to studies that indicate social rejection activates the same neural pathways as physical pain. He argued that “ghosting is a form of spite that develops feelings of rejection and neglect” and claimed the emotional toll can impact productivity. The bill doesn't propose specific penalties, but Teves suggested in an interview that community service would be appropriate.

The proposed legislation doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It defines ghosting as something that happens when a person is "engaged in a dating relationship." The document goes on to define a dating relationship as one where the parties live together without being married or are "romantically involved over time and on a continuing basis." Teves claimed neither casual acquaintances nor "ordinary socialization" constitutes a dating relationship. If you're being ghosted by someone you're in more than a casual relationship with (especially a domestic partner!), then there are bigger problems to worry about.

Importantly, the bill does not account for blocking someone without explanation if they're being creepy or threatening. As The Washington Post notes, the bill isn't likely to pass as it stands. The legislature likely has more pressing concerns anyway.

The bill suggests ghosting occurs "for no apparent justifiable reason but solely to cause emotional distress to the victim." That's not really the case. People are busy! They don't always have time to keep chatting to everyone who messages them on a dating app. Also, folks often feel they lack the communication skills to have open and honest conversations. Maybe the ghoster just thinks you're boring and wants to let you down relatively gently.

Being ghosted sucks. But expecting someone you don't really know to keep chatting with you isn't smart. Proposing to punish people for ghosting after you've been burned too many times instead of going to therapy probably isn't the answer either.

A Filipino politician wants to make ghosting a criminal offense

Posted on by

A lawmaker wants to punish people for ghosting, or abruptly cutting off communications with someone without explaining why. Arnolfo Teves Jr., a member of the Philippine House of Representatives, claimed in a note accompanying his bill that ghosting "can be likened to a form of emotional cruelty and should be punished as an emotional offense."

Teves referred to studies that indicate social rejection activates the same neural pathways as physical pain. He argued that “ghosting is a form of spite that develops feelings of rejection and neglect” and claimed the emotional toll can impact productivity. The bill doesn't propose specific penalties, but Teves suggested in an interview that community service would be appropriate.

The proposed legislation doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It defines ghosting as something that happens when a person is "engaged in a dating relationship." The document goes on to define a dating relationship as one where the parties live together without being married or are "romantically involved over time and on a continuing basis." Teves claimed neither casual acquaintances nor "ordinary socialization" constitutes a dating relationship. If you're being ghosted by someone you're in more than a casual relationship with (especially a domestic partner!), then there are bigger problems to worry about.

Importantly, the bill does not account for blocking someone without explanation if they're being creepy or threatening. As The Washington Post notes, the bill isn't likely to pass as it stands. The legislature likely has more pressing concerns anyway.

The bill suggests ghosting occurs "for no apparent justifiable reason but solely to cause emotional distress to the victim." That's not really the case. People are busy! They don't always have time to keep chatting to everyone who messages them on a dating app. Also, folks often feel they lack the communication skills to have open and honest conversations. Maybe the ghoster just thinks you're boring and wants to let you down relatively gently.

Being ghosted sucks. But expecting someone you don't really know to keep chatting with you isn't smart. Proposing to punish people for ghosting after you've been burned too many times instead of going to therapy probably isn't the answer either.

Meta rolls out parental supervision tools for Quest VR headsets

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Meta is introducing new parental supervision features for Quest virtual reality headsets and Instagram. The VR safety tools, which were announced in March, are rolling out worldwide. 

The parental supervision process needs to be initiated on a teen's account (the minimum age to have a Facebook account is 13). A Parent Dashboard in the Oculus app will allow parents and guardians to block apps (including web browsers), see a list of apps on the teen's account and view their friends list. A teen can ask to buy an age-restricted app, then their parent can approve or deny the request. Parents can also view headset screen time, receive alerts when an app is purchased and block the Link and Air Link features to stop teens from using PC content on their headset.

On top of that, Meta is debuting a parent education hub, which includes information about the VR supervision options. The company says it worked with industry experts, teens, parents and policymakers on these controls. It will refine the tools over time.

At the start of this year, the Information Commissioner's Office in the UK said it would hold talks with Meta over how Quest 2 complies with a children's code that's designed to protect young users. These new measures could go some way toward addressing the watchdog's concerns.

Meanwhile, Instagram's parental supervision tools, which launched in the US in March, will arrive in the UK, Japan, Australia, Ireland, Canada, France and Germany this month with some expanded options. Parents can now invite teens to set up supervision tools (rather than requests solely coming from teen accounts).

Parents and guardians can limit access to Instagram at certain times by scheduling breaks. They can view more details about an account or post their teen reports, including the person in question and the type of report. They can also see which users their teen follows and who follows them. Instagram plans to roll out the tools globally later this year.

In the UK and Ireland, Instagram is testing a nudge feature. Teens will be encouraged to look at different posts if they spend too much time with the same kind of content in the Explore tab. The aim is to prompt them to be more mindful of their Instagram use. As part of a different test, teens in certain countries may see a prompt to turn on the Take a Break feature after watching Reels for a while.

Elsewhere, Instagram is adding more resources to its educational Family Center. There's a new page that provides teens with details about privacy settings for Quest, Instagram, Facebook and Messenger. Parents and guardians can access information about how to talk to kids about online safety issues.

Match has a new dating app for single parents

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Today is National Single Parents Day and Match has unveiled a new app designed to help such folks find love. The aim of Stir is to help single parents meet, chat with and date folks who also have kids.

Match says there are around 20 million single parents in the US who are often underserved by many dating apps. After you answer questions on personality and values, Stir will show you potential matches.

Once you find someone you have a spark with, you'll be able to arrange a date. Match is aware that single parents might find it hard to coordinate their schedules and find a time that works for both of them. The app has a feature called Stir Time, which allows you to display your available "me time." Hopefully, that will line up with your prospective date's calendar. Stir Time schedules can be displayed on your profile.

"Having kids shouldn't be a dealbreaker when dating," Match Group's Dinh Thi Bui said in a statement. "We're dedicated to giving single parents a dating experience where they are celebrated and feel like they can be themselves. With that, our hope is that they can truly focus on having a personal life beyond navigating parenthood."

Stir is available on the App Store and the Google Play Store.

Instagram is getting ‘parental supervision’ features

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Meta is introducing new “parental supervision” features for Instagram and virtual reality. The update will be available first for Instagram, which has faced a wave of scrutiny for its impact on teens and children, with new parental controls coming to Quest headsets over the next few months.

On Instagram, the controls will be part of a new “Family Center,” where parents can set time limits and access information about their teen’s activity on the app. For now, parents will be able to see a list of accounts their teen is following, as well as which accounts follow them. Parents will also be notified if their teen reports another user.

Notably, the update is for now only available in the United States and parents will only be able to access the parental control features if the teens “initiate supervision” within the app themselves. Teens will also need to approve any parental requests for parental supervision. “Over the next few months we’ll add additional features, including letting parents set the hours during which their teen can use Instagram, and the ability for more than one parent to supervise a teen’s account,” Instagram Head Adam Mosseri writes in a blog post.

Parents will be able to access account information of their teens.
Instagram

The new features, which were first promised back in December, arrive after Instagram was forced to “pause” work on a dedicated app for kids younger than 13 after a whistleblower disclosed internal research documenting Instagram’s impact on teens’ mental health. The disclosures prompted lawmakers to push Meta to end work on Instagram Kids entirely. So far, Meta executives have declined to do so.

Mosseri said the company also plans to add similar parental control features to its Quest headsets so parents can also set limits on their children’s activities in virtual reality. Those features, which won’t launch for a few more months, will enable parents to restrict VR content rated for ages 13 and up and set other limits on VR purchases. Meta is also working on a “Parent Dashboard” for the Oculus app so parents can keep tabs on what their children are watching and how much time they are spending in VR.