PlayStation Has a New Parental Control App
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On Wednesday, Sony announced a new way for parents to track and monitor their children’s gaming habits on PS5 and PS4: the new PlayStation Family app.
The app, available for free on iOS and Android , uses the existing parental controls available directly on the console, but adds the ability to remotely view and manage settings and activities at any time. It joins other major gaming companies like Microsoft and Nintendo, which also have their own parental control apps.
Here’s what Sony says you can do with the app:
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Step-by-step setup : This feature will guide you through the steps needed to set up a child account for use on a PlayStation console.
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Real-time notifications : This feature lets you know when your child is playing a game, as well as which one. Here, you can approve or deny requests for extra play time, restricted games, or mobile communication.
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Activity Reports : This section creates daily and weekly reports on the games your kids play and how long they play.
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Manage Play Time : You can set limits on how long kids can play each day of the week. Kids can request more play time, and you can approve these requests in the app.
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Spending : You can add extra funds to your children’s accounts, view their current account balances, and choose a monthly limit on how much they can spend in the PlayStation Store.
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Content filters : You can choose what content your children see. Sony has presets that allow you to apply general settings for different age groups, but you can customize these settings to suit your needs.
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Privacy Settings : Choose how your child can interact with others online.
As someone without kids, I find this useful and very similar to Apple’s Screen Time feature. I find it a huge plus to be able to not only set parental controls, but also monitor my child’s activity on PlayStation. It also gives kids more agency by allowing them to make requests directly through the console: both Screen Time and PlayStation Family allow kids to request more play time and permission to make purchases. As a parent, I find it helpful to see these requests as notifications and approve or deny them as needed.