Parents' Guide to Boop Kids - Smart Parenting

This virtual world seems like nothing more than an opportunity for families to pay to rely on screens rather than real-world interactions. On the positive side, Boop Kids - Smart Parenting offers plenty of variety for creating family avatars, which can help any family feel included and represented. Parental time controls show some awareness of the importance of establishing limits around screen time. And it's a nice concept that multiple members of the family can connect from their own device. However, all those positive features don't outweigh the lackluster content. Some of the downsides are that the mini-games lack creativity and the videos have little value. The quizzes ask about personal preferences without any indication of why the app needs to know this information. The information parents get about their kids' activities is very minimal. And the video tools for potty time, dinner time, and sleepy time are ostensibly to be used as a screen-based backdrop to "encourage" kids to engage in each of those activities despite experts' recommendations for not using screens near bedtime and for having screen-free meals. Since families can actually connect via a screen using Skype, Facetime, or other apps that let you record and respond to video messages from different time zones, it's difficult to create content that competes with seeing someone's face and talking to them, which research shows is the best way for little kids to use screens in a social way. If there were more authentic, connective elements, it might have more benefits, but as it stands, there are better ways to foster family interaction.