It has become very difficult for parents to regulate what kind of information their children interact with online; a whole new generation has grown up online. For this reason, YouTube announced that now tweens and teens can access YouTube through a supervised Google Account.
This new choice for parents of tweens and teens allows them to control what kind of content their kids can access on YouTube. Supervised accounts are easy to set up and use, and offer a great way for parents to supervise the content their children interact with.
How Does the YouTube Supervised Experience Work?
This option was designed for parents who feel their children are ready for moving on to YouTube and caters to tweens and teens’ needs for exploration and independence, all within a safe environment.
This option allows parents to choose between three different content settings:
- Explore: For kids ready to move on to YouTube. This setting features videos suitable for ages nine and above, including educational content, tutorials, gaming videos, music videos, and more.
- Explore More: This option offers content suitable for teens of ages 13+. This includes a much larger collection of videos, including live streams.
- Most of YouTube: This setting includes almost all videos on YouTube, except for age-restricted content, including videos that can deal with sensitive topics that may only be appropriate to older 16+ teens.
The supervised experience will use a mix of user input (children and parent’s feedback), machine learning, and human review to determine which videos to make available under each setting.
How to Set Up and Use YouTube’s Supervised Experience
If you want to set up YouTube’s supervised experience for your children, you first need to access YouTube through a supervised Google Account. If your child doesn’t already have one, you can easily create one for them by following these steps:
- Go to Google’s sign up page and provide your child’s information: name, birthdate, phone number, and so on.
- Provide the email address for the account that will supervise the new account.
- Agree to Google’s privacy policies and terms of service.
- Agree to the parental consent.
That is it, your child’s supervised Google Account is up and running.
Now that your child already has a supervised Google Account, all that is left to do is:
- Login to YouTube through your child’s supervised account.
- Click Get Started.
- Choose who’s approving the supervised account’s login.
- Select YouTube (parent supervised) and click Next.
- Choose a content setting for your child.
- Click Finish Setup.
Now your child can start having a safe, supervised experience on YouTube by simply signing in through their supervised account.
Now Your Kids Can Be Safe on YouTube
YouTube’s supervised experience promises to sort a wider collection of content to your children while keeping it age appropriate. It is very simple to set up and offers a great way for parents to supervise and even limit the kind of content they can access.