Sony Playstation Parental Privacy Settings

Parental Privacy Controls for Playstation 4 & 5

Why They Are Important and How to Set them

Learn how to set time restrictions and control available content

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Index

Introduction

Why Parental Controls?

Navigate to different steps of the guide with the buttons to the right.

Parental Controls Tutorial

Discussing Parental Controls with Your Child

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Example Discussion

Introduction

The Sony Playstation 4 (PS4) and Playstation 5 (PS5) are currently the most played modern-generation video game consoles in the world, with an estimated 102.5 million daily online players in 2022. Approximately 24% of those daily players are under the age of 18. The consoles are also the most frequently used device to play many online games that are popular with children including Fortnite and Call of Duty. Many Playstation consoles even come bundled with these games as a selling point. According to the Boston Children's Digital Wellness Lab, children of ages 5-8 play on average for 19 minutes per day, ages 9-12 play for 55 minutes per day, and ages 13-17 play for 69 minutes per day. These averages do not include mobile game time, and they also do not show the wide variety of playtime within individual age groups.

Why Have Parental Controls?

Explaining the need for parental controls with your child can be a difficult conversation. Reasons why parents won't set parental controls: They don't know how to do so. They feel that they are taking child independency away. They feel like parental controls won't be effective. They are afraid of retaliation from their child. However, parental controls have shown to be very effective in parenting, including but not limited to: Establishes boundaries Reinforces parental role Fosters agency in children Prevents overuse of screen media

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Why Have Parental Controls? Part 2

Presently, video game console developers have established highly customizable parental controls that range from basic playtime restrictions to digital purchase allowances and age-restricted content. In the next few slides, we are going to slowly walk you through the steps needed to set up parental controls on Playstation consoles.

Getting Started: Playstation Parental Controls: Step 1 of 7

In order to set up parental controls, you will need to create your own Playstation Network account and then create child accounts for each player in your household.

1. From the main menu of your console, select Settings > Account Management > Create New Account, then follow the steps to create your own account. You must create your own account prior to making an account for your child.

The links below will take you to video tutorials of this presentation.

Video Tutorial on Parental Controls for Playstation 4

Video Tutorial on Parental Controls for Playstation 5

Video Tutorial on Parental Controls for PS4/PS5 from your computer

Playstation Parental Controls: Step 2 of 7

To create your child's account, select Account Management > Parental Controls/Family Management > Family Management > Add Family Member > Create User. Then, enter the required information (including date of birth) to create your child's account.

Playstation Parental Controls: Step 3 of 7

After creating your child's account, you are now ready to begin adding parental controls. Often, the system will prompt you to begin setting up parental controls upon creating a child account, in which case you can skip to step 4. However, you can also set up parental controls on a preexisting child account following the step below:Go to Settings > Parental Controls/Family Management > Family Management. Click on Users on This PS4, select your child's account, and click on edit to access parental controls.

Playstation Parental Controls: Step 4 of 7

From the "Edit" screen, you can set multiple types of controls on your child's account. - "Play Time Settings" allow you to set daily restrictions on playtime per day. When a child reaches this daily limit, a notification will appear stating that they have reached their limit and the program will save and close.

Playstation Parental Controls: Step 5 of 7

"Viewing Content Created by Other Players" toggles whether or not your child can see custom content made by other players, which is not regulated by game developers and may show inappropriate material to your child if allowed.

Playstation Parental Controls: Part 6 of 7

"Age Filtering for Online Content" can help limit your child's ability to play or purchase games and content with ratings unsuitable for their age group.

Playstation Parental Controls: Part 7 of 7

"Monthly Spending Limit" will place spending limits on your child's ability to purchase in-game currency or items (ie. V-bucks in Fortnite). As the title implies, these limits reset every month.

Discussing Parental Controls with your Child

It is important to discuss both the necessity and the parameters of parental controls with your child. Use it as an opportunity to teach your child about the concepts of debate and compromise as you determine limits and why those limits are important. The wide variety of options for parental control on Playstation consoles offer many learning opportunities for your child. Providing both game time limits and spending limits can help teach your child from a young age the importance of budgeting time and finances, respectively.

Discussing Parental Controls, Continued

Let's consider a hypothetical situation. John and Sarah have a ten year old son, Jeremy, who recently received a Playstation 5 for his birthday and wants to play Fortnite with his friends. John and Sarah are afraid Jeremy will spend too much time playing video games and not enough time with his family or playing outdoors. Sitting down with Jeremy, John and Sarah ask him how often he plans on playing. He tells them his friends play everyday right after school. They tell him that he can play for 60 minutes a day. He rebuttals that that is not enough time and that his friends can play up to two hours a day together. They decide to compromise at 90 minutes a day. Jeremy also tells his parents that he wants to buy cosmetic items from the eShop on Fortnite. They tell him that he can spend up to $15 a month on the eShop, but he will not be able to spend more if he reaches this limit. After John and Sarah both make parental Playstation Network accounts, they create an account for Jeremy and designate it as a child account. They set the restrictions for playtime and spending limits, and they also set view filters for age-inappropriate content so Jeremy does not come across something that is not appropriate for him. John and Sarah let Jeremy know that these limits cannot be changed without a lengthy discussion between the three of them. While Jeremy wishes he had more playtime and a higher spending limit, he is happy to play regardless and looks forward to gaming with his friends.

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