Parents' Guide to Airtime – Group Video Chat

App iPhone , iPod Touch , iPad , Android Free Social Networking
Airtime – Group Video Chat Poster Image

Common Sense Media Review

Galen McQuillen By Galen McQuillen , based on child development research. How do we rate?

age 17+

Video-chat and media-sharing app is fun but not for kids.

Parents Need to Know

Why Age 17+?

Any Positive Content?

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age 9+

Based on 1 parent review

 

 

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age 13+

Based on 1 kid review

 

 

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Privacy Rating Warning

  • Unclear whether personal information is sold or rented to third parties.
  • Personal information is shared for third-party marketing.
  • Personalised advertising is displayed.
  • Data are collected by third-parties for their own purposes.
  • User's information is used to track and target advertisements on other third-party websites or services.
  • Data profiles are created and used for personalised advertisements.
Learn more about our privacy ratings

What's It About?

AIRTIME – GROUP VIDEO CHAT is a social media platform that allows users to participate in group video and text chats while also sharing and simultaneously experiencing content from across a number of web platforms such as YouTube, Twitch, Spotify, and more. Users create publicly joinable chat rooms and invite their friends. Via settings, they can change the "discoverability" of the room to everyone, friends, or friends of friends. They can also have new users request access or leave it open to all. Then they broadcast live video of themselves or search for and share videos and music. If teens don't want to share publicly, they can create private one-on-one rooms for more secure conversation. It's a very similar experience to other video-chat platforms with the added twist of being able to watch YouTube videos and see your friends' reactions in real time. 

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say ( 1 ):
Kids say ( 1 ):

Though the content-sharing options are cool, the usability and privacy concerns make it less than perfect. It's neat to be able to watch videos at the same time as others in the room, but other platforms offer similar features with much more robust video-chat options and better privacy. Airtime - Group Video Chat does score points for having a good selection of available platforms to share from with very little setup required, so you can get started sharing tunes from Spotify or SoundCloud very quickly. Unfortunately,  it can get cluttered very quickly, and it's jarring to get pulled from one room to another when a user accepts your private request, for example. Lastly, there's some worrying stuff in the privacy policy since the developer is granted pretty broad rights to any content you might share, with fairly limited availability to opt out or request content be deleted. While it's clear why teens love this app, parents may want to talk to them about public rooms, sharing content, and broadcasting live.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about your rules about the internet and staying safe while searching with Airtime - Group Video Chat. What kinds of videos and music are appropriate, in what settings, and at what ages? When the internet has no restrictions, there's lots of amazing things to see, but some content can be objectionable, inappropriate, or dangerous. 

  • Talk about the value of sharing with friends. It can be lots of fun to share media, either virtually as with Airtime or in person, but it can offer some challenges, too. What do you do if someone makes fun of what you shared or judges you or it? What if you don't like what they've shared with you? What if it seems dangerous or hurtful to others? Whom should you tell?

  • Talk about how to protect yourself online. Be sure that kids know what dangerous situations look like and how to get out of them, and understand the limits of what's acceptable to share with others. 

  • Discuss the advertising in the app and on the web in general. What kinds of ads do you see? Are they targeted at you, or are they general ads?

App Details

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