07Apr 2025 by Martin Van't Foort
Topic: Accountability – what and why?  Different ways to hold oneself accountable with modern media usage

Topic: Accountability – what and why?  Different ways to hold oneself accountable with modern media usage

Cell Phones, Devices, Filters, Guidelines, Resources
For the five years since they had been married, T & R both worked full time jobs. Each enjoyed their job; their work ethic helped them both to excel in their company. They normally spent their evenings doing things together or with friends. They stayed busy enough with their house, jobs, and social life that each one’s use of their phones stayed limited. Even when they were on their phones, they were together, and one would tease the other to ‘be present’ or ‘tell your boy/girlfriend you’re with your wife/husband right now’. There was an understanding between them that they weren’t perfect with it, but together they could hold each other accountable on their devices. It was a system that worked well - openness and honesty with their phone usage…
Read More
07Mar 2024 by nrcmmc
Hoop – Teens Connecting with Strangers

Hoop – Teens Connecting with Strangers

Guidelines, Hazards
Hoop describes the user experience as being able to make new friends locally or all over the world. What exactly is Hoop? When creating an account for Hoop, you only need your age, gender, country, Snapchat username, and a profile picture (up to 5 pictures). Then, Hoop provides you with endless profiles to view. If you find a profile you like, you can request to exchange Snapchat usernames and begin chatting on Snapchat. If you do not like a profile, you pass. Requesting a user’s Snapchat username requires you to use “diamonds.” You can either earn diamonds by performing certain tasks, such as gaining a certain number of friends on Snapchat that were initiated through the Hoop app, or you can purchase more diamonds. Hoop has no chat capabilities -…
Read More
11Dec 2023 by nrcmmc
Saturn Time Together App

Saturn Time Together App

Apps, Guidelines, Hazards, Privacy
Saturn is a scheduling app which targets high school students as their users and markets itself as a way to “control the chaos and live in the now.” After creating an account, students select their school and can take a picture of their schedule or manually enter their schedule into the app to get a personalized calendar. The app helps students to feel connected by sharing their schedules with each other and being able to make comments on the school bulletin board. Saturn also has a feature that allows students to privately message each other. When Saturn originally launched, there were limited safety features. Recently, more safety features have been added, such as needing a verified school email address to privately message other students and access other features of the…
Read More
02May 2022 by Martin Van't Foort
Google Family Link

Google Family Link

Apps, Cell Phones, Devices, Guidelines, Resources
Google Family Link is an app used to regulate usage of a child’s phone. Google Family Link’s purpose is to “help your family create healthy digital habits.” Key features of Family Link: It lets you view your child’s phone activity; which apps they’re using, and how much time they’re spending on each app.Whitelist for websites.  Start by approving a website like Google for search results and phone numbers.  If your child requests to visit a website, the parent must Approve or Decline before the child can access that website.You can decide if they can download apps from the App Store, and if they’re allowed to make in-app purchases.You can set limits on the amount of Screen Time they’re allowed to have each day.  You can also set a bedtime for…
Read More
08Jun 2020 by nrcmmc
Google Safe Search

Google Safe Search

Tutorials
GOOGLE SAFE SEARCH Google offers a feature that may help deter explicit material that can come up on your screen when your child is doing a simple Google search for homework.  To make sure Google Safe Search is enabled, open your Google search screen.  You must be signed into your Google account for this to work effectively.  Looking at the screenshot below, on the bottom right, is the settings tab, click that to open, click on Search Settings.  It opens the following screen.  Be sure the “Turn On SafeSearch” is checkmarked.   Scroll down and hit SAVE!! Another feature of safe search, it will decrease the amount of inappropriate images.  Do a google search, click the IMAGES tab, right beside the All.  On the RIGHT of the screen you should…
Read More
04Mar 2020 by nrcmmc
Youtube Parental Controls

Youtube Parental Controls

Tutorials
YouTube is home to tons and tons of great videos, and a lot of them are useful orinstructional for children to watch. It has everything from science videos todocumentaries for kids to humorous skits to early learning shows. While this can be a great way to introduce a new subject to your children, what happens when the video is over and they start looking for other things to watch on their own?With over 100 hours of videos uploaded to YouTube every minute, it’s likely they could watch something that’s not suitable. After all, it’s not all funny cat videos. That’s why it’s a good idea to utilize YouTube’s parental controls. It’s already built in and does a decent job at providing a first line of defense against displaying inappropriate videos.…
Read More
29Feb 2020 by nrcmmc
Is Privacy Really Private?

Is Privacy Really Private?

Tutorials
The Department of Homeland Security Privacy Act Statement says a Privacy Policy “provides protection to individuals by ensuring that personal information collected by Federal agencies is limited to that which is legally authorized and necessary and is maintained in a manner which precludes unwarranted intrusions upon individual privacy.” Source That means, anytime a ‘company’ asks for your personal information (identification, financial, geographical, etc), they are required to have a Privacy Policy that you can view; that specific Privacy Policy will inform the registrant of how their information will be collected, used, and protected. Information collected will depend on who is collecting it and what it is for (ex: bank and personal information for credit cards or loans; name and email for an account on a website). Have you ever wondered…
Read More
06Jan 2020 by nrcmmc
Social Media Safety

Social Media Safety

Guidelines
Most teens use some form of social media and have a profile on a social networking site. Many visit these sites every day.There are plenty of good things about social media — but also many risks and things kids and teens should avoid. They don't always make good choices when they post something to a site, and this can lead to problems.So it's important to talk with your kids about how to use social media wisely.  kidshealth.org/en/parents/social-media-smarts.html
Read More