25 CONTENT FOR KIDS Safeguarding and Wellbeing
After three or four episodes, video will pause and then offer the child a different activity, like playing one of Hopster ’s games or reading a book on its platform. Kids can also hand off from watching video on a main screen to engaging with other content on mobile devices. Hopster has also introduced a parent- controlled timer in its app, which shuts the app off after a predetermined amount of time after a friendly countdown. It’s one thing to create a great screen experience for kids, but there is still the question of how much kids – adults as well – should be interacting with screens. Famously, Silicon Valley execs have been reducing their kids’ screen time – or banning screens for kids altogether – for some time. Chojnacka believes that Hopster ’s emphasis on giving kids multiple content options can have a beneficial effect. “Part of preschool education is to allow preschoolers to make their own choices,” says Chojnacka. “The interesting thing we learned is that children make different choices to their parents. Kids don’t necessarily go with the biggest brands. A lot of the shows that performed well on
Hopster are completely unknown on the major channels. “If parents are making the content choices, they will go with the stuff they know. Whereas kids are braver with their choices. They’ll make a choice based on the characters and story.” One of the big successes on Hopster is Punky , an Irish animated series about a girl with Down’s syndrome. The creators initially had problems selling the show, but its storytelling and characters have been a hit with subscribers. “We saw a lot of content that wouldn’t necessarily be picked up by the big players, but kids actually love,” adds Chojnacka. HUMANS OVER DATA Hopster is a digital media company, so naturally data-gathering is in its DNA. Chojnacka says that the company strives to keep its data use transparent and in the service of the families who subscribe. The company is GDPR compliant and kidSAFE certified, and Hopster doesn’t use the data for marketing or selling to kids, which its subscription-only, ad-free model goes a long way towards allowing. Data is used to provide personalised
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