Apps that help you monitor children's Internet use

With smartphone and tablet users getting younger, new apps can help parents of 2-to-13-year-olds monitor and control their children's use of the Internet.

A Pew Research Center study shows that more than one-third of American teenagers own a smartphone, up from more than a fifth in 2011. For nearly half of these users, the phone is their main way of getting online, making it difficult for parents to supervise their behavior.

"When you have a smartphone, you basically have the Internet in your pocket wherever you are - away from your parents' eyes," said Anooj Shah, a partner in Toronto-based company Kytephone, which develops apps.

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Kytephone's namesake app allows parents to control the apps and sites their children use and the people they receive texts and calls from.

The company on Monday released Kytetime for 13-to-17-year-olds. The new app has many of the same features as Kytephone but does not include the ability to block calls.

Earlier this month, Net Nanny, a monitoring software company, released a browser app for Apple Inc's iOS devices to filter Web content and block profanity.

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"Smartphones and tablets have added new technology, with new challenges (for parents) - full Web browsing capability, unlimited texting, access to hundreds of thousands of good, bad and malicious apps," said Russ Warner, chief executive officer of the Salt Lake City-based company.

The Android version of Net Nanny, which sells for $12.99, can control which apps a child uses. The app is also available for iOS devices, with fewer applications, for $4.99.

The company is also introducing Net Nanny Social, a subscription, Web-based tool to help parents monitor problems such as cyberbullying, sexual predators and identity theft on social networks including Facebook and Twitter. The service costs $19.99 per year.

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For parents of 2-to-8-year-olds, Boston-based Playrific has a free app with a locked browser that allows only content suitable for children, including educational videos, interactive games and books.

The app, available for Android, iPad and on the Web, curates content based on a child's interests, which it learns over time.

"Kids feel the limitless sense of what's on the Internet," said Playrific CEO Beth Marcus, "but the parents know that it's not really limitless."