Probably second only to keeping your Chinese residency permit current, WeChat is the most important thing in any expat’s ‘thriving in China’ arsenal. It is hard to appreciate just how important the app is outside of China as people might compare it to the Chinese version of WhatsApp until you realize that everything from payment to business to playtime is conducted almost exclusively on the app. Truth is, WeChat can be a bit of a pain to use, but it is constantly being updated to make the user experience better, especially for expats.

Now, WeChat incorporates most of our favorite features in other social media apps, with a channel function where you can now upload videos and share them with millions of users. But recently, WeChat unveiled its iOS 7.0.17 which includes new handy features.

So much of life in China lies in the palm of your hand.

For one, there is a new ‘hide’ feature, which allows you to hide conversations you might wish to keep discreet, or just don’t feel like seeing or engaging with on a busy workday. Admittedly, WeChat can be quite distracting on a typical workday, with messages, especially group messages, constantly being updated and demanding our attention. Well, no more. All you have to do is click on the ‘Hide’ function and banish certain conversations and groups until they are needed again.

Hashtags are not just for Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram anymore. You can now also add tags to your moments and your videos for your channel to create topics, just as you would on Instagram.

No more worries if little hands grab hold of your phone.

But the most impressive feature thus far is the parental control feature, which allows parents to control which WeChat Mini games, mini-programs, channels, official accounts, searches, and top stories your child can access. This is an addition to WeChat’s already existing ‘Allowance’ feature, which is designed to allow parents to automatically transfer a set amount of money to their children directly from their WeChat accounts.

Obviously, these are iOS specific updates. We can only hope that soon they will be available to WeChat’s Android users.

KEEP READING: Weaning Kids Off Screen Time Post-COVID

Photos: Unsplash 

It seems remarkable to think of just how far the internet has come. Not so many years ago, the thought of sending a full-size Jpeg via email or Facebook would be a stress-inducing thought. Watching videos online was tedious at best and impossible when internet connections didn’t have enough juice to buffer said videos. But in the span of less than ten years, we have gone from internet cafes and dial-up modems to 4G and 5G internet on every personal device, and unparalleled internet access which would have been unfathomable past generations. This has its advantages. For one, no one ever needs to go to dusty old libraries to check out books for school- or work-related research. The world’s wealth of knowledge is quite literally at our fingertips.

The internet has single-handedly revolutionized information dissemination and synthesis. The current generation of students is poised to take full advantage of it, by connecting to students from all across the world, sharing their experiences, and fighting systemic discrimination which has been a part of student culture for generations, as well as for simpler things such as studying for exams. But with great power comes great responsibility, and a potential for bad faith actors lying in wait to take advantage of unsuspecting internet users, most of them minors.

It has, therefore, become imperative for parents and authority figures to monitor internet use by their children, if only to ensure said minors aren’t subject to online bullying or have access to age-sensitive content. In the recent past, parental control apps have grown in popularity given the increase in internet use by minors. Parents trying to ensure their children’s time on the internet is not only safe, but limited in scope and time turn to these apps to help ensure their children are protected.

Enter Qustodio, a relatively new app that has risen in popularity as one of the best parental control systems. Here are some reasons why you might consider it as the parental control app for you.

Limit Amount and Time of Use

One worry for parents is the amount of time their children spent in front of a screen browsing the internet. This app has a feature which allows the administrator – the parent – to limit the amount of time spent on the internet. Once the amount of time is reached, one of a few things might happen. The administrator might set it such that the screen in use turns off, the internet connection is disconnected or the administrator might receive a notification about the time limit having been exceeded. It can also be set to allow use of the internet at certain times of the day, marking undesirable times as ‘red’, to mean restricted.

Filtering and Blocking Websites by Category

This feature has been conveniently split into several categories, from forums to social media, etc. The administrator can choose to block an entire category on the app, or include exceptions from the same category to allow access. The opposite is also true as an entire category can be given the green light for use, with a few exceptions being added to the blocked list. Another advantage to this feature is the blocked sites will be blocked not only on all devices connected to the app, but also all browsers – supported and unsupported.

App Monitoring

Part of the monitoring and time restriction feature is the ability for the administrator to set time limits on the use of certain if not all installed apps on your child’s devices. Be it gaming apps or other apps such as YouTube, their use can be limited as per the administrator’s specifications.

Call and SMS Monitoring

Depending on whether you get the free or paid version of this app, the function of this particular feature varies. You have the option of getting notified each time your child receives a call or a message, or you can choose the premium version of the app which allows you to see the contents of the incoming messages and the contact information of the sender.

Location Monitoring

Thanks to the GPS trackers in smart phones, the administrator can set the app to update them on their child’s present location depending on the settings chosen. For instance, you can choose to receive an update every two hours, at which point you will receive a location summary. You also have the option of activating a panic button on the app which, if used by the child on their device, will send an SOS message along with a location summary via SMS to a few trusted contacts as input by administrator.

Social Media Monitoring

This feature is particularly important in the monitoring of your child’s interactions on social media platforms. It allows you to keep track of exactly who your child is interacting with on social media platforms such as Facebook. This feature doesn’t allow you to see the contents of their interactions however.

All in all, the features that this app offers are not only useful, but easy to use. However, some of the more advanced features are either only available on the premium app, or on the Android version as opposed to the ISO version. It might also need a lot of time to set up in terms of connecting all the devices to be covered, but once that is done, management of the app is easy.  A concern when installing this app on your child’s device might be that they might just delete it on their own. You have several options to ensure this doesn’t happen. You can choose to hide the app on your desktop device. But simply put, as long as the device is managed by the administrator – you – then it is impossible for your child to uninstall the app, no matter how hard they try.

Photos: PRWeb ,falcon1.net, Bright Hub Education, Foss Bytes, Lifewire, ProPakistani, astronomycommunication.com, midas-pr.com, questodio

I held back letting the kids watch TV for as long as I could, until I couldn’t.

We came to Beijing a few months ago and moved into a house that unexpectedly had one too many problems. Fortunately my mother-in-law was with me at the time to help me take care of the two babies while I ran errands. Unfortunately though, the unfamiliar food and the putrid pollution were really starting to take its toll on her. I knew I needed to give her a daily break, even if just for half an hour (a task the Ayi couldn’t help her with since the kids didn’t like her yet). The easiest solution that came to mind was “The Screen.”

There are scores of sites detailing the bad effects of TV on very young children, and naturally I fell in line and did my best to limit my children’s screen time. It was sadly a task easier to implement back home than in Beijing, and so I decided to give in.

My husband stopped short of bringing out the champagne glasses when I said I was giving in to TV. “Twenty minutes max!” I added. Like a proud child, he invited me to sit by him on the couch as he clicked away on the tiny remote control of our Xiao III Mi Box—probably the best thing about the apartment—introducing me to the different programs and functions available. Though I have to admit that the different services I saw amazed me, there was really only one category that interested me.

The cartoon selection.

?

Getting there was easy. First, we click on the 电视猫视频 icon.

Then 分类.

Then we choose 少儿.

There are four options visible. The one most left usually has something to do with a celebration (e.g. New Year’s, etc.). The second one is where your favorites are stored; the third one has the entire collection of cartoons while the fourth one is for music. He entered the second option and showed me the list of programs. I gave him a smirk relaxed into a half-smile. “Ow-kay… kids! Come watch with Daddy!” I started for the kitchen to do the dishes while my mother-in-law took our infant to play in her room while she rested (she is also not very pro-TV). My eldest daughter was squealing excitedly until the show finally started.

“I’ll be right back,” I told her. But it was too late to expect a reply. She was zombified.

As I was drying the dishes I heard my eldest daughter start crying. “MOMMY!”

I went back into the living room and stared at my daughter, who was by then bawling. I looked at my husband and then immediately looked to the TV. I laughed.

“I don’t know how!” My husband explained to my daughter. “Wifey, fix this!”

A screen had appeared, and it said that time was up and we had two options: either we end the program now or we end it AFTER this particular show was done. I explained my daughter’s options to her. Naturally, she wanted to finish the show.

She still cried after finishing the show even though we had already struck a deal earlier on, but that didn’t matter. What mattered to me more was that our TV had a parental control option, allowing me to control the program my daughter could watch and how much time she could watch it. I didn’t notice it earlier because it was hidden behind the time on the lower right.

Since then, I’ve stopped hesitating from letting my kids watch TV. I let them watch some programs or some songs within a certain time limit (20 minutes in our case). My mother-in-law has gone back since then, but this newfound freedom has allowed me to do so much without worrying that I will let time slip by or that screen time will become a fight. The kids are happy, I’m happy, and yes, maybe now we can bring out the champagne glasses.