Among Us Parent Review: 4 Tips to Make it Safer to Play

You have most likely heard its name at least once in the last several months from your children, even if you have not played it yet. Recently, analytics provider Sensor Tower announced that Among Us was the most downloaded mobile game on Android and iOS in September. All of this accomplishment is explicable by a few factors. The Covid-19 pandemic induced social alienation in a large number of countries worldwide. Online games were a viable alternative source of amusement in that sense, as leaving the house to visit relatives and friends was discouraged by health authorities.

Nonetheless, it is not solely due to widespread internet use and social distancing techniques that Among Us has reached this point. Adult and adolescent players are also drawn to the game's functionality, narrative, and possibilities. If you’re not familiar with this game, there is no need to be worried. This article is here to help you know more about Among Us.

Get into this Among Us parent guide to know what your children like.

Information about Among Us

Among Us is a video game developed by Innersloth, a company based in the United States. After its original release, only the mobile version (for Android and iOS) was made available. At the end of the same year, the PC version gets released.

Among Us is a multi-player game. There is no alternative to play alone. Players form groups of between four and ten players to begin the game.

As soon as the app launches, users have two options: start the game by themselves to invite friends and family to participate or join the existing games.

The game takes place onboard a spaceship, where crew members attempt to survive the cosmos. In the team, there is an imposter whose task is to eliminate the other participants. The impostor is picked randomly, and there may be multiple imposters depending on the game's parameters.

Is Among Us Appropriate for Your Kids?

The social and engaging game Among Us can be an interesting way to connect with their friends. Based on the surveys & research, kids between nine and twelve should enjoy Among Us because animation violence and horror themes occur infrequently. However, this does not adequately address the implications of the game's deception themes and the potential risks of playing with strangers. Apart from the lies and manipulation of the game that worry the parents, there are still some negative effects that parents should pay attention to.

Addiction

While every other study seemed to agree that video games like Among Us is easy to get addicted to, teens may crash in the excitement to find out the imposter or be an imposter. And kids are not good self-controllers. It would be hard for them to control the screen time spent on the game. And during the game, kids could communicate with friends easily. What's more, they could share their game experience with classmates in school, making them feel confident.

Online Predator

Everyone could create an account and join the group on Among Us. No one knows the person you are talking with right now is 13 or 30, or even it is hard to tell their true gender in this digital world. It will be fine if your kids play with their friends only in the private group. If it is a public room and they use other apps to talk with voiceover, it is impossible to ensure your kids’ online safety.

Private Information

Everything will be fine if it’s a private room where your kids play the game with their friends. While if your kids meet someone in the public space, it will be a little hard to keep your kids’ personal information secret. The experience will be much better for this multi-player game by communicating using voiceover. For Among Us, the players prefer to use a third-party app—Discord to use the voiceover feature. Such little kids may have no idea about private or personal information. Thus others may take advantage of this feature to obtain children’s data.

Tips to Protect Kids from Potential Risks

1. Talk to Your Kids

Communicating can be the best way to make kids closer to their parents. No need to talk with your kids all the time, but you could spend 3-5 minutes per day to communicate with your kids about their daily activities. Know more about your kids’ interests, what they have done every day and so on.

In this way, a trust-tie could be established easily. Then you could introduce the potential risks of the game your kids like playing. They will be more likely to trust you than before.

2. Family Activity

Hosting family activities each month can be a good solution as well. Not only can it develop your kids’ physical health, but it also promotes family’s cohesion. More time outdoor with families could let kids forget the game gradually. Then parents do not need to be worried that their kids may get addicted to the tech devices anymore. Some popular but healthy activities you could try include climbing, cycling, going for a picnic or playing the board game at home, and so on.

3. Take Advantage of the Restriction Settings

As Among Us becomes more popular among kids, there are some restriction settings in the app that parents could make the most use of. For example: Quick Chat Only. By turning on this setting, you don’t need to fear that your kids may get harassed by the strangers, and don’t need to fear your kids may leak their personal information accidently.

4. Parental Control App

Another solution to relief your concerns over the game is to set parental control on your kids’ devices. Unlike the restriction settings within the app, Parental Control App can not only control the specific game, but also the whole device your kids use. Apart from checking what your kids are doing online, a parental control app could help you locate where your kids are located in real-time as well, and report their location history.

Here we would love to introduce you to one helpful Parental Control app.

Wondershare FamiSafe—establish a safe online zone for kids

Wondershare FamiSafe is a tool that could help you remotely monitor your kids’ devices overall. It can help you check which app your kids are using right now, how much time your kids have spent on the app or the tech devices already, where they have been and where they are located at this moment. Not only this, but it could also filter the inappropriate content from the browser, alert any porn pictures detected on the device, etc.

App Blocker

FamiSafe, a parental control tool compatible with Android, Ios, Mac, Windows, Kindle Fire, and Chromebook, enables you to permanently or temporarily block any app on your child's phone whenever you need it. And you will receive an alert instantly if your child attempts to open a blocked app. With this feature, only one simple tap could keep your kids away from the app if they have already spent lots of time on it. Then parents do not need to be worried that their kids may get addicted.

Smart Schedule

Apart from blocking the app manually, parents could set smart scheduled screen time on their kids’ devices. Once it reaches the set screen time, the app or device will be blocked automatically. Kids will not get access to it within that day. And parents will receive an alert if kids attempt to re-open the blocked app.

The feature enables parents to set different scheduled screen times for specific days. Whether 4-hour on weekdays or 6-hour on weekends, it is all possible.

Location History

WondershareFamiSafe enables parents to check where their kids have been in the last 30 days and where they are located in real-time. And with the Geofences feature of FamiSafe, parents could create specific zones for their kids, such as school zones. If kids step out of the zone, parents will receive an alert. In this way, parents do not need to worry that their kids hang out alone instead of studying during school time.

Wondershare FamiSafe - The Most Reliable Parental Control App

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Location Tracking & Geo-fencing

App Blocker & Web Filtering

Screen Time Control

Smart Parental Control Setting

Block In-app Purchase