Impressionable Kids

I am a bit behind on my blogging and honestly I have little to write about The Harry Potter Alliance readings from last week. I decided instead to read one of the articles in the feed the class website. I read Your Kid's Apps Crammed With Ads by Nellie Bowles.  
The article discusses the research of pediatrician Jenny Radesky as she looks into children's apps advertised as educational. One immediate concern was the use of banner ads that started to appear throughout the game at the bottom of the screen. The ads also were very difficult to close and contained information that no child needed to see. One example she gave was of an ad that came up of a cartoon picture of Donald Trump and a button to set of a Nuke. These were in games aimed at kids under the age of 5 years old. I don't care who you are that isn't necessary for a child to see. This particular ad actually made the child concerned. Dr. Radesky and her researchers looked at over 135 games and the findings were deeply concerning. 

"95 percent of commonly downloaded apps marketed to be played by children ages 5 and under contain at least one type of advertising. The researchers concluded many of these examples seemed to violate F.T.C. rules around unfair and deceptive advertising."

Reading this I couldn't help but think of my own daughters use of apps on her Amazon kid Kindle. Really it is advertised as a child's kindle but it a regular kindle in a pink case. Anyway, it comes with a free 1 year subscription to Amazon's FreeTime web browser. I have never once seen an ad and everything my child has played has been completely appropriate. It is also filters apps and games at her age level. Through some deeper digging on Amazon's information page I found the following:

"Once enabled, Amazon FreeTime web browser permits access to a curated set of thousands of web videos and websites that have been screened and approved with input from Common Sense Media, the Amazon FreeTime team, and parents like you. Parents are also free to add websites and web videos they have reviewed."

I find great comfort in this and I am interested to see what the future has in store of regulations of ads in children's games. With advocacy groups demanding action or an investigation from the F.T.C. I would hope it is not far away. 

Comments

  1. JaneNovember 29, 2018 at 10:58 AM

    Great to have these protections, and Common Sense Media is a good organization. Can you tell if Amazon is tracking your use as a parent or her use as a child?

    ReplyDelete

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