Verizon showcases Smart Family, the newly revamped parental control service that comes with a monthly fee of $4.99 to support up to six family members.
Even though some devices like smartphone and tablets come with pre-installed parental controls, activities such as location, online activities, files downloaded, and others can be difficult to monitor.
Once the service is activated, customers can take advantage of the detailed options it provides to monitor and control supported devices. It appears to be useful for subscribers that have no time to manually enable and disable the parental controls on each device.
Location Transparency
Based on the information from the wireless network provider, the service permits subscribers to check the location of the device. It subsequently informs the primary user where that particular person is at the moment.
Parents can check if kids are safely at home, at school, or wherever they are supposed to be.
Keeping Everything In Check
Verizon's monitoring service had been originally called FamilyBase before it was rebranded to Smart Family. The service adapts to current trends and understands that parents and their children need to adjust to the fast-paced nature of society these days. Most do not have the opportunity to spend time with each other on weekdays due to work, school, and other activities.
In this regard, it is important for parents to have a flexible way to monitor the digital activities of their children. If left unchecked, dependency might happen and it could affect how they socialize with other people. Too much exposure to the internet can likewise affect how they perceive certain subjects and might encounter inappropriate material.
Kids are also encouraged to allocate time to study and do their homework. Free access to multimedia and games could also affect their academic performance. Therefore, parents should have some measure of control over the usage of their children's smartphones.
What The Company Thinks
"Being a parent in today's digital world can be daunting," explained Susie Fernandes, Verizon's senior product manager. "We created Verizon Smart Family to give parents tools they need to help them raise tech-savvy kids with a healthy and responsible approach to screen time and content viewing."
Even though Verizon's Smart Family provides a great amount of control over certain functions, its monitoring capabilities come with a few caveats. While text and call logs are available with the default applications on the smartphones, third-party messaging programs like Snapchat, or iMessage are not included.
Furthermore, to enjoy the location feature, subscribers need to shell out $9.99 a month. Primary users get notifications if the devices being tracked will have arrived and left certain locations that can be digitally geo-fenced via the service.
