YouTube is making a few changes to the YouTube Kids app. All of which are designed to help make parents' lives easier. This includes multiple profiles, better parental controls, and a new tailored experience which takes the actual ages of your individual children into consideration.
There is a wide variety of content available on YouTube, and some of it isn't suitable for anyone under the age of 18. So in 2015, YouTube launched YouTube Kids, a child-friendly app designed to filter out the age-inappropriate content. YouTube Kids is good, but there is room for improvement.
Customize YouTube Kids for Your Children
YouTube is rolling out a new version of YouTube Kids which adds several features we suspect parents have requested over the years. The new options will appear when you, as the parent or guardian, signs into YouTube Kids with your Google account. You can then customize YouTube Kids.
The new setup process is designed to give you more information about the app itself, letting you make informed choices before the kids even get their hands on the app. After that, you can create profiles for all of your children, essentially customizing the YouTube Kids for each child.
These profiles work across all devices, and even take the age of each child into consideration. Younger children will see less text than older children, for example. Each child can also create a secret passcode needed to access their profile, although parents can override it, naturally.
Profiles are available in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Ghana, India, Jamaica, Japan, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Nepal, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Uganda, United States, and Zimbabwe.
Help Make YouTube Kids Better for Everyone
These changes are all very welcome, but don't address the biggest issue parents have with YouTube Kids of inappropriate content slipping through the net. On that score, YouTube admits the system isn't perfect, but urges parents to flag content to help make YouTube Kids better for everyone.
Do your children use YouTube Kids? Are you pleased with the content available through YouTube Kids? Or have you ever seen something inappropriate? What do you think of the new changes? How else should YouTube improve the app? The comments are open below!