For the longest time, the internet has been a great part of our lives. Not only the kids and teenagers but even the adults cannot do without the internet in this day and age.
On the one hand, the internet is a great source to learn new things and grow in life whereas, on the other hand, it can be quite self-destructive too.
You cannot deny the fact that the internet has made our life so much easier and better. But you also must know the consequences of overuse of the internet. As an adult, you can understand what is good for you and what is not but sometimes kids cannot.
Whenever you’re using the internet it is very important to be extremely cautious and not over-share your details with random people. There are so many people on the internet that can use those details to blackmail you and destroy your life completely.
You should not talk to people who you do not know on the internet. It’s better to be safe than sorry. But teenagers don’t care about these things. They like to talk to new people, meet new people without thinking about what their actual reality can be.
Teenage years are the days where you want to do things spontaneously, without thinking about anything. But they don’t understand that their activities can land them into some great troubles.
Because of such uncontrollable behavior, the parents of teenagers are always worried about their kids. Especially working parents who cannot give enough time to their kids because of their busy schedule.
To lessen the concern of parents there are parental control apps available on the market nowadays. These apps can easily help you track your kid’s online history, call details, location details, etc.
Among all the parental control apps, Norton Family is one of the excellent ones loaded with many useful features. It is a cross-platform app that helps you to monitor and restrict your child’s online activities to keep them safe.
In this article, I’m going to take you through all the information about Norton Family. At the end of this article, I hope you can understand what the app is and whether it can be useful for you and your kid or not. Let’s Begin.
Features of Norton Family
I’d like to start this article by describing all the amazing features of the Norton Family. This app is of great use in case you’re looking forward to striking a balance between your kid’s online life and real life. This app covers it all. Here, are some of the most important features of the Norton Family:
Age Appropriate Web Filters:
One of the best features of the Norton Family app is its ability to filter web content as per the age of the user. In this app, you can personalize the restrictions for each child’s profile individually or use inbuilt restrictions which are curated based on their age.
- Very high Restrictions – For kids of age 8 and younger
- High Restrictions – For kids age 8-11
- Moderate Restrictions -For kids age 12- 14
- Low Restrictions – For kids age 15-17
Norton Family uses special Artificial Intelligence to categorize every site based on the images, the text, and descriptions. There are a total of 47 categories which includes everything from sports, news, movies, music to porn, drugs, alcohol, and everything in between.
All these categories can either be monitored, warned, or blocked as per your kid’s age and your desire. If you don’t trust your kids with some websites then it is better to block it from their device.
You can also warn for the use of those apps however the kids can still use those sites if they wish to. So, you can customize all the settings as per your trust level with your kids and as per your requirement.
Manage Screen Time:
Just like the previous feature, web filtering, you can either manually set the time limit as per your desire or you can use the in-built feature which sets the screen limit as per the age of your kids.
The kids cannot use their device for more than the allotted time however they can request to use it for additional time. The permission for the request is notified on your dashboard. It’s up to you whether you want to allocate extra time or not.
From a very small age, kids need to learn to strike a balance and not go overboard with their usage of the internet. Hence, this app is of great advantage to inculcate that balance in your kids.
Social Media Monitoring:
Social media especially Facebook is like a hub for all the teenagers where they spend most of their time. And social media is also known as a playground for all bullies and predators.
It is very easy for those online predators to start talking to the kids, get their personal information, and destroy their life completely. The kids may think of them as their friends and most of the time they’re bullies and blackmailers.
So, mainly for the parents of teenagers, it can be of great use. This app helps you to track all the social media activities of your kids. You can know with whom they’re talking and what they’re about.
Location Tracking:
This feature helps you know where your kids are and at what time. God forbid if the kids are ever lost then you can easily track them by having a look at their previous location history.
This is such a time where nobody can be trusted and you never know what is the intention of the other person. But the innocent kids tend to trust everyone and can fall into a big trap.
To use this feature you just have to log in to the app and then you can find out the exact location of your kids. In case if their phone gets stolen then you can also track it down by tracking the last location history of the device.
Text Supervision:
Texting and chats are the most common things for all the millennials out there. The kids are always busy texting their friends on the phone and you never know what kind of friends they’re talking to.
In this app, you can easily monitor with whom your kids are talking and what they’re talking about. However, you cannot see the photo messages sent between them or even phone calls for that matter.
Video Supervision:
One of the most unique features that Norton Family has is its ability to supervise videos that are streaming on your kid’s device. It helps you take a glance at your kid’s youtube and Hulu history.
Not only you can look at the content of the videos, but you can also watch a brief clip from the video and be aware of your kid’s activities.
Pricing:
The pricing of the Norton Family app has two different variations. The first one is Norton Family Premier for $49.99 per year. And the second one is Norton Family Security Premium for $54.99 per year.
As compared to the premier version, the security version has way more features which are very important to keep your kids in check. The price of the Norton Family app can be a bit expensive as compared to others on the market but I can assure you that this is one of the best parental control apps right now.
Norton Family: Advantages and Disadvantages:
Norton Family is a very powerful app that has some amazing features. Here, to help you make a better decision, I’ve listed some of its advantages and disadvantages:
Advantages of Norton Family:
- Works perfectly on windows, android and provides some support to iOS.
- Allows you to track your kid’s location.
- No limit on the number of devices.
- Blocks content as per your requirement.
- Helps you to keep a track of your kid’s youtube and Hulu history.
- Monitors call and text details.
Disadvantages of Norton Family:
- Not compatible with mac.
- Provides limited support to iOS.
- Has a scope of improvement on social media monitoring.
Installation:
The installation process of Norton Family is extremely easy and can be performed by anyone. To make it clear I’ve listed the steps below:
- Go to the Norton family official site and register for a 30 days free trial period.
- Then you must set up your kid’s profile.
- Follow the instructions to download the client on your device.
- Install the app on your child’s device as well. This app also has its browser, so it is preferred for the kids to make searches from the Norton browser only.
- Now you can customize the settings as per your requirements and the app is ready to be used.
Final Word:
Finally, at the end of this article, I hope you have all the knowledge about the Norton Family app and you’ve decided whether this app is appropriate for you and your kids or not.
To be honest, I feel that app is one of the best parental control apps available right now. It has so many different, unique features which make it better than all the other apps.
Location tracking, web filtering, application blocking, and the most unique one video monitoring are some of its amazing features. This app may be a bit expensive but I can assure you that it is worth it.
