Kids and Mobile Applications

Kids today, live in a digital age. Products, to aid our comfort, surround us at the touch of a button. Smartphones have broadened their usage from a mere text and talk to Personal Planner, Wallet Organizer, Entertainment Center and a Navigation aid. The reality today - Smart gadget are an integral part of our lives. Parents directly or indirectly influence kids in thinking the same. Kids use most of these smart gadgets. Parents have a number of kid applications downloaded on their smart Phones or Tablets. The App Store/ Google Play store/ Amazon is flooded with innumerable applications ranging from games, educational applications, and even curriculum base applications from kinder garden to 12th grade. Many applications have a beautiful and detailed explanation of the subject. Playing games is the most exciting and fun part of using smart Phone or Tablet. Most of the free applications have in-app purchases and advertisements. Kids can get carried away playing games and purchase in-app. The price of an in-app may not matter to them. Some of the in-apps have a recurring payment clause, written in fine print which can be easily ignored. Small kids due to their curious nature can click in-app purchases. Parents can get a shock at the end of the month looking at their app store statements. Ads in mobile space is a new way of displaying newer brands in the market. Some may be age appropriate but many are not. Hence parents need to be extra careful, downloading applications for kids. Applications designed for kids should provide some kind of barrier so that kids cannot visit ads that are not appropriate. All the applications of "Kidz Learn” be it free or paid have parental locks. All the in-app purchase links in "Kidz Learn" applications need parent approval for visiting the page or downloading. Ads are blocked based on the "text" contained in the ads. These texts are filtered in the settings page of the ad agencies displaying the ads. Secondly, there is a parental gate that denies access to external websites. Hence all the contents of "Kidz Learn Applications" can be used with minimal parental monitoring.
Social and e-mail sharing are the most powerful ways of communicating and expressing ideas about a product. Mobile applications, be it for adults or kids need these sharing tools for rating and commenting on a product. Many applications may collect private information ranging from location, first and last names, e-mail and other sensitive information like address, pictures and phone numbers. Many applications designed for kids may collect them for data mining purposes. All the applications of "Kidz Learn" have the social sharing links in the parent zone. Kids cannot access these tools prior to parental consent and approval. "Kidz Learn Applications" is a member of COPPA and my applications are placed in "Know what's inside" website which strictly encourages mobile apps which has these rules incorporated.
Nothing is fool-proof, "Kidz Learn" attempts its best to incorporate security features in all of its applications.​