spacer

SAFELY SPOTLIGHT

Latest Entries

spacer

Were the Good Old Days Really Better?

By Sherry - Friday, March 8th, 2013

Every day, I pass a sign, tacked on our office bulletin board, that says, in huge red letters: “19% of kids worldwide (ages 2-5) can operate a smartphone app. Only 9% can tie their shoelaces.”  Where did this dire statistic come from, and what’s it for, other than to leave us pining for a (better,Read More…

spacer

Know When Not to Say No

By Erin - Wednesday, February 6th, 2013

Yesterday my five-year-old daughter said to me screamed at me before slamming her bedroom door, “You are the MEANEREST MOM I have EVER MET!” I had just (for the third time, without raising my voice, which was still tinged with gentle cheer, which took every shred of self-control I had left) told her no, sheRead More…

spacer

What We Thought Was Hot and Not: 23 for 2013

By Erin - Sunday, January 6th, 2013

We Safely folks like to work behind the scenes, writing code, designing apps, and generally making the world a better place, in our own way. But with the new year, we’re turning over a new leaf, and coming out from behind the curtain. Here we are (above!), wearing our Sunday best on a Friday. (ReadRead More…

spacer

What Happens to the Holidays When Everyone Wants a Gadget?

By Leticia - Thursday, December 6th, 2012

This weekend we brought home a gorgeous new 23” touchscreen desktop computer. We dropped everything to unbox and set up this beauty, but ever since, the kids have been drawn to it like moths to the flame. Its enormous, shiny surface gleams in a much-trafficked area of our house, beckoning them each time they pass.Read More…

spacer

Making a Digital Break

By Leticia - Monday, October 29th, 2012

Hello, I’m Leticia Barr, Safely Spotlight guest columnist and a DC Metro area mom of 2 elementary-school-aged children. I’m also the founder of Tech Savvy Mama and a regular contributor to Parents.com, where I provide technology tips to parents through Tech Savvy Parents. In today’s world there are myriad digital devices that let us communicate andRead More…

spacer

Parents, Grandparents and Teachers: Win $500 Amazon Gift Card for Your Favorite Classroom, from Safely

By Erin - Tuesday, September 11th, 2012

We at Safely are committed to helping families, by providing services and resources parents can use to teach their children healthy mobile habits for life. To celebrate the new school year, we’re excited to extend that help into another important place where children learn: the classroom. Enter our Facebook giveaway, and you could win: •Read More…

spacer

Fearless Kids, Fearful Parents

By Heidi - Thursday, August 16th, 2012

I’ve spent the last week thinking a lot about parenting expert Madeline Levine’s recent New York Times column, in which she writes: “Parents must acknowledge their own anxiety. Your job is to know your child well enough to make a good call about whether he can manage a particular situation. Will you stay up worrying?Read More…

spacer

Can we know everything our kids do online?

By Erin - Monday, July 30th, 2012

“22% [of parents] live in denial, claiming that their kids can’t get in trouble online,” reports a recent study about how much parents know about their kids’ online activity. Characterizing parents who don’t think their children can get in trouble online as “in denial” is harsh. But I think before we deem these 22% GoodRead More…

spacer

Should Facebook allow kids under 13 to sign up? That isn’t a real question.

By Jason - Friday, June 15th, 2012

Over the past few weeks, there’s been a lot of buzz about how Facebook is considering allowing children under the age of 13 to sign up (right now, officially, you have to be at least 13 to use the site). News organizations surveyed parents, brought in parenting experts and even roped in so-called “internet researcher”Read More…

spacer

Is “mommy blogger” a bad word?

By Jason - Friday, June 1st, 2012

That’s an infographic that recently appeared on the social news site Mashable about moms who blog. While the statistics may seem innocuous at first, this grahic caused quit a stir in the blogosphere. Women bloggers around the internet rightly pointed out that these sorts of studies always characterize women bloggers as “mommy bloggers” even ifRead More…

spacer

Our Solution to Three Biggest Problems with Teens and Cell Phones

By Jason - Monday, May 14th, 2012

  Fact: 43% of teens have texted while driving in the past three months. Fact: One of the main reasons parents call their kids is to check up on their location. Fact: 64% of teens text during class.   These days, kids are getting cellphones as young as 8-years old. If you’ve been thinking aboutRead More…

spacer

When Parents Look for their Kids

By Jason - Tuesday, May 8th, 2012

Since we’re a software company, many of us here at Safely have a bit of a nerdy side. We recently looked through some of the data we’ve collected from Safely Family Locator to figure out how parents use it to locate their kids. I thought I’d share a few of the interesting trends we’ve discovered. ParentsRead More…

spacer

Facebook vs Cyberbullies Who Will Win?

By Jason - Tuesday, May 1st, 2012

A few days ago Facebook introduced a new support dashboard for reporting and tracking incidences of cyberbullying. While it’s good to see Facebook making strides towards curbing cyberbullying in their community, all the dashboard does is help parents and kids track abuse reports. It doesn’t add any extra reporting features or new methods of deterringRead More…

spacer

Should I Send my Kid to an Online College?

By Jason - Friday, April 20th, 2012

With the rising cost of education and a total national student debt of over $1 trillion dollars it’s not hard to see how many high school students may be looking for a low-cost alternative to a traditional college education. Recently a slew of new technology companies have cropped up to tackle that problem through providingRead More…

spacer

Is Technology Destroying our Relationships?

By Jason - Thursday, April 12th, 2012

A couple of years ago Pew ran an extensive study on how teens use their cellphones. If you want to see a quick breakdown of what they found, check out this infographic we made about it. One interesting thing the survey found was that teens who talk on the phone a lot tend to haveRead More…

spacer

The numbers behind how parents cope with their phone-crazy teens

By Jason - Wednesday, April 4th, 2012

Here at Safely we’ve been working to help families keep their kids safe in the digital world for years. As part of our dedication to family safety, we’re constantly researching how technology affects families. We recently pulled some numbers from Safely Phone Controls to see how teens use their cellphones and how parents are copingRead More…

Your TV Has a Mind of Its Own

By Jason - Tuesday, March 27th, 2012

A Blast from the Past Remember WebTV and their hokey advertising from the 90s? If you don’t, check out the commercial below. That guy is really excited to see the internet on his television. Unfortunately, real customers weren’t quite as enthusiastic. Due to slow internet and lack of interesting features, WebTV never really took off.Read More…

spacer

Your Photos are Spying on You

By Jason - Tuesday, March 27th, 2012

Ten years ago, the idea of sharing photos online was strange. Today things are very different. In 2010, Consumer Reports found that 63% of people share photos of themselves on Facebook, and the numbers have only been on the rise since then. As social norms about sharing photos online have evolved, something else has beenRead More…

spacer

Everyone’s Wrong: Teens Do Care about Privacy

By Jason - Tuesday, March 27th, 2012

Popular wisdom says today’s teens don’t care about their privacy. In reality, that isn’t true. Pew reports that 55% of teens stopped themselves from posting something online because they knew it could come back to bite them later. And, over 80% of teens use privacy settings to control who can see their Facebook page. Still,Read More…

spacer

Do We Need a Privacy Bill of Rights?

By Jason - Tuesday, March 27th, 2012

“Facebook spies on phone users’ text messages, report says” Or at least that’s what a Foxnews.com article said earlier this week. The article alleges that Facebook’s mobile app is secretly recording the contents of all your text messages. Facebook denies the charges. But still, it begs the question, are companies collecting too much data onRead More…

The Most Protective Parents in America

By Jason - Tuesday, January 31st, 2012

We calculated just how protective American parents are by looking at how often our users locate their kids’ cellphones with Family Locator. We found that parents in some cities are more protective than others. Does your home town rank in the top 15?

spacer

The crazy places people locate their kids

By Jason - Thursday, January 26th, 2012

Safely’s Family Locator (sold as AT&T FamilyMap, Sprint Family Locator and T-Mobile FamilyWhere) lets parents locate their kids’ mobile phones. You can also create “Schedule Checks,” which automatically check if your kids have arrived on time at locations you save like Home, School or Work. We looked at the places where people located their kidsRead More…

gipoco.com is neither affiliated with the authors of this page nor responsible for its contents. This is a safe-cache copy of the original web site.