A teenage boy and girl stand outside their school building and look at a cell phone together.
If you asked a group of parents 10, or even five years ago about their children’s access to smartphones, you could easily strike up a debate as to whether children should be allowed to own or use these devices at all. In today’s digital landscape, however, it’s much more commonplace for young children, and especially teenagers, to either own a smartphone or have open access to a family device.
Data shows that 95% of teenagers own a smartphone, compared to 73% a decade ago. The same report shows that the average age for children to receive their first cell phone is 11.6, and 97% of children own a mobile device by the time they are 15 years old.
While there are plenty of valid safety reasons for parents to provide their children with smartphones, like location services and emergency communication, there are some obvious downsides, such as app addiction, distractions, and inappropriate content.
One less obvious downside is what your child’s unfettered access to a smartphone might be costing you– and no, we aren’t talking about your family plan subscription. Whether it’s an unauthorized credit card charge, security risk, or increased data costs, many families have turned to parental control apps like Parent Geenee, Net Nanny, or Kaspersky Safe Kids to help mitigate unwanted expenses.
Here are four ways your child’s phone use might be costing you more than you realize:
Increased Data And Service Costs
Streaming, video, and gaming content are extremely popular among young smartphone users– and they are also the most costly when it comes to data usage. If you have a limited data plan, continuously accessing this type of content can easily lead to expensive overuse charges.
Depending on your plan, certain apps can trigger extra fees for accessing premium content outside of Wi-Fi zones.
This is where a third-party parental control app like Parent Geenee can prove to be especially useful. Parent Geenee allows parents to control not only which apps children can access, but also where they access them. For example, if your plan allows for unlimited streaming when connected to Wi-Fi, you can limit your child’s use of an app like YouTube to when your child is at home and connected to your network.
Accidental Or Unauthorized In-App Purchases
Most apps today offer some form of in-app purchases. Perhaps your child is a gamer and needs to re-up their game credits, or maybe they’re a TikTok fan who may be entranced by influencer content marketing the hottest products in TikTok shop. No matter where your child prefers to do their scrolling, there are many ways to either intentionally or unintentionally wrack up a huge credit card bill. And if your credit card happens to be the one saved to your child’s phone, you’ll be the one footing the bill.
For iOS users, Apple offers an “Ask to Buy” feature, which requires parental permission for any purchases made on your child’s device. Android offers a similar feature through parental controls on Google Play.
Subscriptions And Recurring Charges
Similar to in-app purchases, it’s also incredibly easy for kids–and adults for that matter–to rack up unwanted subscription charges. One of the easiest traps to fall into is downloading the “free trial” version of an app, and then forgetting to cancel it before the automatic paid subscription kicks in. Whether a child signed up for the app under the pretense that it was entirely free, or if they meant to come back and cancel it before the first charge, it’s possible for busy parents to go months paying for a rogue app subscription without even realizing it.
Parents can use the same parental control features previously mentioned for iOS and Android to block in-app purchases as well as subscription purchases. To take this a step further, parents could also remove their credit card information from their child’s phone by following these instructions from Apple and Android.
Privacy And Security-Related Costs
As much as we may not like to think, we live in a world of advanced and sophisticated cybersecurity threats that can easily compromise our personal data. Many adults don’t fully understand the extent of these threats, so it’s no surprise that children can be especially susceptible to scams, phishing attacks, or other privacy breaches.
Certain apps might have more vulnerabilities than others, and include malicious links or forms prompting users to fill out information that can then be used for things like credit card theft or identity fraud, in extreme cases.
An app like Parent Geenee or Norton Family can be helpful in reducing these risks. With Parent Geenee specifically, parents can limit which of the 450 most popular apps their children have access to. This empowers parents to properly vet and research the apps their kids are using on a daily basis, providing peace of mind in the face of an ever-evolving cybersecurity landscape.
Building Healthy Digital Habits For The Whole Family
As parents navigating a digital environment vastly different from the one we grew up in, it’s important to remain vigilant about how our children are using their smartphones. Beyond avoiding unnecessary expenses that may occur on your dime, remaining proactive about managing your children’s smartphone usage sets a strong example for how to build the healthy digital and spending habits that they can carry with them into adulthood.