With school holidays, it is common for children and teenagers to want to spend more time playing video games . This practice, however, needs to be closely monitored by parents and guardians to ensure the safety of young people in the online world.
For PlayStation users , the company offers a series of its own parental control tools that aim to ensure that children have fun in a safe and age-appropriate way.
According to Catherine Jensen , VP Global Consumer Experience at Sony Interactive Entertainment, “We want to give new users, especially parents, a glimpse into the parental controls available on PlayStation, where they can monitor their child’s gaming experience. The features can be set directly on the console or via an app.”
Check out the resources available to parents and how they can help maintain a balance between safety and fun:
1. Content sharing and communication control
With PlayStation, parents and guardians can decide whether their children can share content, view other users’ creations, or even communicate with other players on PlayStation Network. Additionally, on PS4 and PS5 consoles , you can also disable the web browser to prevent young people from accessing websites and apps with inappropriate content.
2. Usage management
Through this option, it is possible to control game time, configure individual permissions, set spending limits and monitor console usage . If desired, the guardian can also appoint other trusted adults as guardians to help with management.
3. Time control and age restriction
To ensure that children do not have access to content that is inappropriate for their age group, parents and guardians can configure the option on their children’s accounts. In addition, on the PS5, usage requests are also sent when younger users want an exception.
To avoid excessive screen time during the holidays, adults can also set daily limits on gaming time, adjusting the times for each day of the week.
4. Password protection and purchase limit
Cases of children making purchases of games without parental notice are more common than many might think. To avoid this problem, parents can control spending by setting a monthly limit directly on their account.
Additionally, to increase console security, adults can create a device restriction key to disable guest user sign-in and block changes to parental control settings, and set an account login password for parent-only access.
It is worth remembering that, in order to use the tools mentioned, you need to set up the family group on PlayStation Network and add the children’s accounts as family members. This will allow you to access the parental control settings not only on the console, but also through the mobile app or on the web. To find out more, simply visit the official PlayStation website .