We announced the company to the world a few months back in the quietest way possible. As the year is coming to a close I think it’s only fitting to tell you about what we have been up.
Due to the lockdown in spring, many people were forced to work from home. Well, we have been working from home anyway but the difference this time was we found ourselves locked in with our children. Children who spent their days in schools and nurseries where they are surrounded by other children and constant interaction. Obviously, us needing to work meant the interruptions and need for attention had an impact on how we dealt with meetings and work in general.
One obvious choice for 2020 parents is devices and apps, TV or YouTube to keep children occupied. Looking thought the content offered on those, we highlighted three problem areas.
TV is great as it is curated content but there’s a lot of action-oriented shows which means children get revved up when finished with those. I use the analogy ‘they destroy the living room after watching that cartoon’ and parents agree.
YouTube is great but the algorithm is designed to keep you wanting more. Also if parents are not tech-savvy it is easy for them to let the algorithm autoplay content for children that is definitely not appropriate.
In the app land, there are some great and really horrific offerings. Anything that is educational, though provides a ton of content, is targeted for school-like activities or curriculum. Another side of apps is games where many are ad-supported and we have the first-hand experience in seeing when a well-known game that is suitable for children (age-rating wise) served a zombie game ad for one of our children.
This was the motivation behind us starting a project earlier in the year. We call it Flatstone Grove. It is a series of interactive storybooks that are designed to provide a safe and calm digital environment for 3-6-year-old children while teaching them values, such as friendship, sharing, love, bravery and much more.
We will tell you more in the coming months.
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