• Family Zone to acquire global leader in parental controls Qustodio for US$52 million.
• The merger of the Qustodio business into the Family Zone group will significantly expand the company’s capability and global footprint.
• The transaction is subject to approval from Spanish Foreign Direct Investment, the raising of capital by Family Zone, and Family Zone shareholder approval of the issue of securities to the vendors.

Qustodio and Family Zone today announced a definitive agreement under which Family Zone will acquire 100% of the shares in Qustodio and its subsidiaries in a transaction valued at US$52 million.

Based in Barcelona, Spain, Qustodio was founded by Eduardo Cruz, Josep Gaspar, and Josh Gabel in 2012. Today Qustodio is a global leader in family online safety, operating in eight languages to over 4 million users in more than 180 countries. Its channel partners are among the world’s leading telecom operators in countries such as Spain, France, Singapore, Mexico, Japan, Brazil and Chile.

Qustodio’s cross-platform solution allows parents and educators to protect children from online harm, while also promoting healthy digital habits and awareness. Its next generation tools help manage and balance screen time, block harmful content, and promote healthier online activity, allowing families and educators alike to build a safe, secure digital experience for every child. 

The merger of the two companies will bring accelerated growth through scale and product expansion.

“The bringing together of Qustodio and Family Zone will be seen in time as a turning point in online safety globally. We are honored and excited to be welcoming the Qustodio team into our family”. Tim Levy, Managing Director Family Zone

“Qustodio and Family Zone share the view of a better world where schools, parents and children can work together to create safe and enriching online experiences. This shared vision has led us to unite forces and bring game-changing unified approaches in online safety to the market. Our combination will represent the creation of a truly global leader in online safety with unmatched scale and capabilities.” Eduardo Cruz, Co-founder & CEO Qustodio

The proposed transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including the receipt of regulatory approval in Spain.

From left to right: Qustodio co-founders Josep Gaspar, Eduardo Cruz, Josh Gabel.

About Qustodio

Qustodio is the world leader in online safety and digital wellbeing for families. Since 2012, we have provided a cross-platform solution for families and schools, helping over 4 million parents and educators protect children from online harm, while promoting healthy digital habits and awareness. Available in over 180 countries in 8 languages, our digital wellbeing tools help families and schools live and navigate smarter in an increasingly connected world.

To learn more about Qustodio please visit www.qustodio.com

Qustodio Contacts

For media enquiries, email press@qustodio.com

About Family Zone

Family Zone, supporting and protecting every child’s digital journey, is an ASX-listed technology company and an emerging leader in the fast growing global cyber safety industry. Family Zone’s unique innovation is its patented cyber safety ecosystem, a platform enabling a world-first collaboration between schools, parents and cyber safety educators. Family Zone’s unique approach is delivering rapid growth in the education sector, as well as through direct sales and scalable reseller arrangements with telco providers.

To learn more about the Family Zone platform and the company please visit www.familyzone.com

• In times before WhatsApp, text messaging was limited to just 160 characters per message, with a cost for each individual SMS sent.
• WhatsApp is the most popular instant messaging app, with over 2 billion users around the world sending over 100 billion messages daily.
• Qustodio has compiled insights from 2021 and 2022, revealing how young people across the UK, Spain, the USA, and France use WhatsApp.
• Young people spend an average of 44 minutes daily on WhatsApp, with Spanish children spending the most time on the application, at 44 minutes every day, compared to 31 in the UK, 24 in France, and a total of 39 daily minutes in the USA. 
• 21.65% of Spanish parents block WhatsApp on their children’s phones, compared to 17.11% of parents in the UK, 12.69% of French parents, and just 2% of parents in the USA. 

In what feels like a lifetime ago in the world of technology, a simple message sent to friends or family was limited to 160 characters, and cost roughly 11 cents. These limits heavily defined daily communication, encouraging mobile users across the globe to brush up on their editing skills, and get creative with language. Textspeak, now almost as ancient as hieroglyphics for Gen Z and Alpha, featuring short forms of words and even whole phrases, such as “gr8”, “2nite”, “CUL8R”, and “TYSM”, became commonplace in attempts to hold a meaningful conversation within those precious 160 characters. 

Texting as a popular form of communication soon replaced phone calls, and in 2007, for the very first time in the USA – where more text messages are sent than anywhere else in the world – Americans sent and received more texts per month than they did phone calls. 

Just two years later, WhatsApp arrived on the market: the free messaging service that would completely revolutionize how texts were sent and received. Mid-2021, WhatsApp became the most popular communication app worldwide, with insights from Statista showing 2 billion active monthly users on the app. According to Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, a total of 100 billion messages a day are sent using the app. 

Due to WhatsApp’s enormous popularity, Qustodio, leader in online safety and digital wellbeing for families, has produced a report looking into how young people aged 10-18 used the app in 2021, focusing on WhatsApp use in Spain, The United Kingdom, The United States, and France. 

The insights collected show that WhatsApp is the communication app of choice for young people in most of the countries analyzed – in Spain, WhatsApp sits comfortably in the number one position, with 52.74% of 10-18 year olds active on the app. While WhatsApp is still the number one communication app for children in the UK and France, the number of active profiles is lower, at 36.81% and 29.14% respectively. The United States lags far behind, representing a small percentage of children, with just 5.2% active on WhatsApp. 

How long kids are spending on WhatsApp

Children around the world spend an average of 44 minutes on WhatsApp every day, with Spanish children matching this average as. Usage in Spain among 10-18 year olds in 2021 is up by 41.94% from 2020, translating to almost 268 hours every year sending and receiving messages through the app. 

Looking into the time Spanish children of different ages spend on WhatsApp offers further insight into how younger kids and teenagers are communicating online: 16-18 year olds are the group spending most time on WhatsApp (56 minutes daily), followed by 13-15 year olds at 43 minutes per day, and finally, 10-12 year olds, who spend a total of 37 minutes a day writing and reading messages on WhatsApp. 

Spain’s daily WhatsApp usage is the highest of all the countries analyzed, with children in the United States spending an average of 39 minutes per day on the app, followed by children in the United Kingdom at 31 minutes, then finally France, where 10-18 year olds spend just 24 minutes daily on WhatsApp. 

WhatsApp is frequently blocked by parents

The instant messaging app is mainly a means of communication for its users, but this doesn’t mean that WhatsApp is exempt from risks. Photos, videos and audio messages with inappropriate content can all be sent using WhatsApp, and younger users can be subject to cyberbullying through the app. In addition, message sharing is easy through WhatsApp, meaning viral messages can be passed along quickly, which could easily be full of false information, or encourage dangerous activity, such as in viral challenges.

For these reasons, many families choose to block WhatsApp on their children’s phones. According to the Qustodio study, 21.65% of Spanish children have the app blocked on their phone, followed by 13.81% of kids in the United Kingdom, 12.68% of French children, and just 2% of children in the United States. 

Children are now spending more time in front of screens than ever before, a trend which has accelerated even faster during the coronavirus pandemic, with Qustodio data showing screen time skyrocketing in recent years. Young people today frequently use multiple devices which influence their daily lives and greatly increase their dependence on technology. According to market research, 90% of 11 year-olds now own their own phone, and 39% of teenagers state they could not live without one.

• Block inappropriate content using smart filters
• Manage and balance screen time across multiple devices
• Set time limits, or entirely block, specific games and apps
• Monitor time children spend on social media 
• Locate their children in real time in case of emergency

For media enquiries, contact press@qustodio.com

The end of 2021 welcomed Instagram’s 11th birthday, along with its worst technical hitch to date: for over six hours, Instagram was offline all around the world, with no way for users to interact with the platform or its partner apps, Facebook and WhatsApp. Those six hours might have seemed an eternity for Instagram’s most frequent users: many of which are teenagers and young adults. 

The origins of Instagram

Launched officially in 2010, exclusively for iPhone, Instagram managed to recruit a massive 1 million users in its first two months alone. Instagram’s user count now stands at over 1 billion worldwide, according to Statista. The Instagram so many have come to know and love nowadays was, in fact, completely different at its original launch, down to its name, Burbn. Burbn’s original function was similar to that of FourSquare – as a tracking app where users could check in to places they were visiting. 

Shortly after its launch, however, creators Kevin Systrom and Mike Kreiger noticed that what the app’s users were really interested in were the photos that they were uploading in the places they’d visited. Burbn hit the dust, and, taking its inspiration from the words “instant” and “telegram”,  Instagram was born. The new-feel app allowed users to upload photos to the platform with somewhat of a nostalgic twist: square-shaped images which recalled the days of the Polaroid.

How are teenagers using Instagram? A year in figures

To coincide with Instagram’s 11th anniversary, Qustodio analysed insights collected between September 2020 and September 2021 – looking at the app’s usage in under 16s for a whole year across the USA, Spain, and the United Kingdom. 

Instagram’s popularity among teens

Social media apps experienced a 76% growth amongst younger users in 2020. 2020 was a big year for social media: TikTok, for the very first time, overtook Instagram as the most popular social media platform for younger users.

While, according to our insights from teens and young people, Instagram fell to second position overall, it experienced significant growth in terms of overall usage. On average, it experienced a 25% growth in users: Spain leading the pack with a user increase of 41%, followed by the United Kingdom at 27%. While growth was not as strong among younger users in the USA, Instagram still experienced an 11% growth in the country from September 2020 to 2021: the total number of younger users in the USA is four times as large as in Spain. 

How much time teens spend on Instagram

Globally, younger people spent 16% more time on Instagram than the previous year: an increase of 8 minutes overall, moving from an average of 50 minutes daily to 58 minutes each day. 

Again, Spain takes the lead for time spent on the platform, with Instagram’s younger users clocking up a total of 36,500 minutes a year on Instagram – a total which translates to over 608 hours of scrolling. The insights we gathered showed that young people in Spain spent an average of 100 minutes a day on Instagram in September 2021, compared to 69 minutes in the same month of 2020, representing an increase of 45% in time spent on the app. Younger people in the UK are also spending more time on the app, increasing their 41 minutes a day to an average of 46 daily. In contrast, younger users in the USA are spending less time on Instagram, with total average use falling by 6%, from 48 minutes a day to just 45.

How parents react to Instagram

Fame and popularity come at a cost, and for the younger generation of Instagram users, this translates to preoccupied parents. In reaction to the increased time children spent on Instagram, blocking of the app has surged by 25% on average. This makes it the third most-blocked app globally, falling behind TikTok (54%) and Facebook (27.5%). 

Country by country, Instagram is the second most “popular” app for families to block in Spain, with the data from 2020 and 2021 demonstrating a 48% increase: a figure significantly higher than those of the United Kingdom and the United States, at 21% and 10% respectively. 

“Since its conception, Instagram has been in a state of constant evolution, evolving from an app allowing users to simply show where they’d been, to a space where users can now share, create, do business, and even forge a career,” states Eduardo Cruz, CEO and co-founder of Qustodio. “Now, Instagram’s great challenge is to take on TikTok, and meet the increasingly high expectations of Generation Z and Alpha.” 

Audio entertainment is having its moment worldwide: there’s no denying that its popularity is on the rise, with no signs of slowing down any time soon. With the arrival of the television and video games, the medium of radio seemed to have been cast aside, but in the 21st century, we now find it alive and well, with its very own modern twist: the podcast. 

The podcast, where the terms “broadcast” and “iPod” meet to describe a series of digital audio files the user can download to their device to listen to any time, anywhere, has grown from strength to strength in recent years as a form of entertainment. According to The State of the Podcast Universe report from Voxnest, in 2020 alone, global podcast listens increased by 42%, with European listeners tuning in 53% percent more than they had done the year before. 

In addition, demand for podcasts in languages other than English reflects global content consumption trends: downloads for Spanish-language podcasts increased by a whopping 94% during 2020’s first six months. According to a study from IAB Spain, 70% of people who consume online audio content listen to it in some form daily. All signs that tell us podcasts have arrived, they speak multiple languages, and they’re here to stay. ​

How young people listen to podcasts

Reflecting on the increasing European awareness of podcasts as a form of digital content, at Qustodio we ran a short analysis on how younger listeners access audio entertainment, to dive deeper into the trends and investigate what young people are really interested in. 

Contrary to popular belief, young people do still listen to the radio: Spain’s 2020 Estudio General de Medios showed that radio reaches 48.8% of young people under the age of 24, while according to Statista, 55% of 15-25 year olds in the United Kingdom listen to the radio on a weekly basis. Spotify’s 2021 Culture Next report, exploring how generations shape audio culture, details that 77% of UK millennials, and 67% of UK Gen Zs say they use audio to reduce stress levels. Young people are now turning to podcasts and audio content more frequently to help with their mental health: on Spotify, Gen Z listening was up by 179% for the category of mental health, 108% for self-help, and 119% for health overall. 

The same Spotify report in Spain showed that 4 out of 10 Gen Z and millennial listeners in Spain feel they can trust information in podcasts more than that of traditional media outlets. The most-consumed audio types which Spanish younger listeners turned to in order to relax and de-stress came in the form of true crime, pop music playlists, or ambient sounds. 

While Generation Z and millenials have a lot in common when it comes to audio entertainment, there are some differences between the two generations. According to the Leisure and Digital Entertainment Observatory in Spain (OCENDI), Gen Z’s most-consumed form of content is music and video entertainment (83%), with only 28% of Gen Z listeners confirming that they listen to the radio, compared to 54% of millennials: a difference of almost double. 

“Podcasts, as a new form of entertainment and communication, are here to stay,” states Eduardo Cruz, CEO and co-founder of Qustodio. “That’s why it’s important for us as parents to understand the type of content our children are listening to, and for us to suggest podcasts that might interest them or our families. There are now so many different types of podcasts: from fictional storytelling to educational ones that help us learn languages from the comfort of our own homes. There’s a podcast for every family out there!” 

How many times a day do children hear “You’re just like your mother,” or “You talk exactly like your father”? Of course, while genetics play a big part in family resemblance, the secret behind shared behaviors could also be down to things called mirror neurons. First discovered in 1996 at the Italian University of Parma, mirror neurons are a type of nerve cell that encourage us to follow, or imitate the behavior we witness in others. 

With this in mind, how conscious we are of our behavior around our little ones becomes even more important: the first three years of a child’s life heavily shape their development, and this is also true of their development in the digital world. Children learn many behaviors from their parents – and a study published in Child Development demonstrates they may be learning some more “antisocial” behaviors from those around them. The study, involving 170 families with at least one child at an average age of 3, revealed how often digital devices disrupt their time together as a family.

Almost half of families (48%) reported that their smartphone, computer, or tablet interferes with the time they spend with their children: up to three or more times a day, compared to just 11% who asserted that such interruptions would never happen. Mirror neurons encourage us to mirror the behavior we witness in others, and in the case of children, behavior is often directly learned from important figures in their life such as parents – so it’s more important than ever that we are aware of the way we use technology around our children. 

Qustodio’s recommendations for technology use around children

At Qustodio, we’re parents ourselves: and we understand that growing and learning as a family in an ever-connected world can be challenging. These are our recommendations to help you and your family follow a more healthy digital lifestyle, based on research and real family experiences. 

• Lead by example

Neuroscientists and psychologists affirm that children learn things in two ways: trial and error and through observation. This is where mirror neurons come into play, where children begin to understand how to interact with their environment based on what their peers – in this case their parents – do. 

• Digital disconnection at home is a must

Ensuring daily time away from screens is important, although we understand that this can often be difficult, especially now that the workplace has become a huge part of home life. Working from home is now becoming increasingly more common for companies, and according to research from The University of South Australia, 55% of workers sent some form of digital communication to colleagues in the evening, and 30% on weekends. Turning off our electronic devices, respecting work schedules and dedicating more time to other outdoor activities can have a beneficial influence on our children. 

• Make use of time management strategies

When looking at our own insights, 37% of Qustodio families do not set a time limit on the use of screens at home. In 2020, screen time usage in under-16s was higher than ever: up by 76% for social networks, 49% for communication applications, 25% for online video platforms and 23% for video games. By setting time limits, either through use of a parental control tool, or a daily schedule that works for your family, you’ll be able to understand just how much time you are all spending behind screens. 

• Use tools to secure your family’s digital safety 

In a recent study by the Spanish National Market and Competitor Commission (CNMC), 74% of parents asserted that they knew that parental control tools existed, but only 1 in 10 families stated they made use of them. Smart use of technology, including tools that help manage your child’s screen time while also protecting their devices can be a great resource for parents, while supporting your whole family to value your digital wellbeing.

Each generation speaks and writes differently to the next: but no generation before has been so affected by technology and digital communication as the current Generation Z and Generation Alpha. With such rapid growth in technology, has the way kids write on social media changed in recent years? And how does it affect the way they write overall? 

How children write on social media: the highlights  

• Kids choose to avoid using punctuation, such as apostrophes and accent marks in languages that use them
• No punctuation, and mixing up words like ‘their’ and ‘there’ are some of the top errors on social media
• Roughly 9 out of 10 kids don’t pay attention to how they write on social media
• 20% of junior high and high-school students say they write as they speak
• Online abbreviations, such as GNOC (get naked on camera), SUGARPIC (request for a suggestive photo), 420 (marijuana) and CID (acids and drugs) have now made it into how kids speak in regular conversation too

Do kids really write differently to adults on social media?

Kids ages 10–19 are capable of writing roughly 10 more words per minute than a 40-year-old, according to the Zurich Polytechnic University (ETH). Writing fast or texting on the internet and on social networks are the perfect ingredients for spelling mistakes. The culture of immediacy has caused young people to pay less attention to how they write, flooding the screens with spelling and other writing errors, such as the absence of accent marks, missing punctuation marks and confusion between words that sound the same but are spelled differently like their and there, according to the spelling software company Walinwa.

According to Alcalá de Henares University, 9 out of 10 young people do not pay attention to their writing when they communicate or interact on social networks. And 20% of junior high and highschool students say they “write like they speak”.

How does this affect how children write offline?

Kids are now bringing the abbreviations they write on the internet into the way they speak in normal conversation — making them difficult to understand for older generations. However, just because kids pay less attention to how they write on social media, doesn’t mean this habit crosses over into other situations where they need to use their writing skills. 

“Bad writing on the internet does not mean that children will automatically be bad writers in other settings. The most important thing is that parents pay attention not to how their children write, but to what they write. Some acronyms can be signs of risky behavior.” – Eduardo Cruz, CEO and co-founder of Qustodio.

To help parents, we’ve compiled a series of acronyms that parents should know that might signal that their children are having inappropriate conversations or behaviors, inside and outside the network.

Acronyms to watch for on social media

• Sexual content. Sexting is increasing more and more among the population, especially among boys, girls and adolescents. In fact, according to a study by EU Kids Online and INCIBE, 3 out of 10 minors have received messages with this type of content.
  • GNOC (get naked in front of the camera)
  • GYPO (get your pants off)
  • SUGARPIC (request for a suggestive photo)
  • 53X (sex) or CU46 (see you for sex)

• Drugs and parties. According to the European Survey on Alcohol and Other Drugs published by the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction, 9% of Spanish adolescents smoke daily and 17% tend to get drunk. 
  • 1174 (see you at the party)
  • 420 (marijuana)
  • CID (acids and drugs)

• • Cyberbullying. Insights from the Qustodio annual study “Centennials: the before and after of a generation marked by Covid-19”, show that in 2020, despite the fact that children spent less time at school, bullying grew by 70%. Among many insults to watch for, these are among the many acronyms that are used to hide “bitch”, generally aimed at girls: 

• THOT
• HOE
• BOSH
• SBW
• SLUB

• • Qustodio launches its annual report focused on children’s digital habits throughout 2020. The study covers families with children between 4 and 15 years old in Spain, the US and the UK. 
  • The study analyzes kids’ app use across 5 categories: online video, social media, gaming, education and communication (new to this year’s report due to its unprecedented growth). 
  • Propelled by Covid-19 lockdowns, globally in 2020 the time spent on apps grew by 25% for online video, 23% for video games, 54% for education, and 49% for communication. Social media apps had the most remarkable increase of 76%. 
  • WhatsApp remains the most popular communication app, but kids use Zoom 56% longer (50 min/day). 
  • Instagram popularity dropped 43% in 2020, lagging behind Facebook globally. Nevertheless kids spend more time on Instagram (44 mins/day vs 17 mins/day on Facebook). 
  • YouTube is still the online video app of choice for kids, but its lead is shrinking with increasing competition. Meanwhile, Twitch’s popularity increased as much as 150% in regions such as Spain.
  • YouTube Kids is the app parents blocked the least, even though it is the online video app most used by children (68 min/day), nearly 50% longer than time spent viewing Disney Plus. 
  • Globally, Roblox continues to be the most popular video game app, although World of Warcraft is the longest played. 
  • In 2020, the use of educational apps grew by 54%.

   

  A little over a year has passed since the arrival of Covid-19 and the related pandemic restrictions that pushed much of the activities left in the offline world into the online world. Our way of relating, working, educating, socializing and entertaining was pushed behind on the screens. 

  However, even before the pandemic, Qustodio, the leader in online safety and digital wellbeing for families, was already warning parents about the risks related to the excessive use of screens by kids, highlighted by a 100% increase in online activity in the spring of 2020, and remaining up 36% for the year, even as many kids returned to the classroom. 

  Aware of this constantly evolving digital reality, Qustodio presents its second annual report on children’s digital habits: ‘Kids and apps: a year trapped behind screens’, a study that provides insights on the app behavior of 100,000 families with children between 4 and 15 years in Spain, the US and the UK during 2020. The study researches 5 app categories: online video, social media, gaming, education and communication, the latter new to this year’s report due to the unprecedented growth in the category. 

  The analysis of online video showed a clear need for entertainment during lockdowns–viewing among kids increased by 25%, an average of 45 minutes per day. YouTube was the most popular video by far, but its lead is shrinking with increasing competition. Twitch saw exceptional growth in popularity, increasing as much as 150% in spain. 

  The other star of 2020 was Disney Plus, absent from the Spanish market before the pandemic, it has gone on to become the 3rd most used video application in the US and the 4th in Spain and the UK. Nevertheless, kids spend nearly 50% more time watching videos on YouTube Kids than on Disney Plus. Parents blocked YouTube Kids the least, even though it is the online video app that kids use the most, 68 mins/day on average. 

  While video apps kept many kids entertained, social media apps kept them connected. Social media use had the largest and sustained increase for the year, 76% higher than in 2019. TikTok, despite all the bad press, rose several points to be placed in the favorite social network among kids. Children connected to TikTok on average 75 minutes a day, nearly 100% more than last year. 

  Instagram, which was the most popular social network in 2019, dropped 43% globally, placing it behind Facebook. Nevertheless, kids continued to use it far more than Facebook (44 mins/day compared to 17 mins/day). 

  Among gaming apps, the analysis shows that the vast majority are games inspired by war, battle, survival and with violent content. Additionally, time kids spent playing games in 2020 was up 23% relative to 2019. Globally, Roblox remained the most popular video game with 35% of children playing that app worldwide. Kids also played Roblox longer than the other popular apps, averaging 100 minutes a day in the US, 95 minutes a day in the UK, and 86 minutes a day in Spain. For example, Kids played Roblox 2x more than Brawl Stars, the most popular application in the Spanish market. Which game did kids play the longest overall? World of Warcraft (142 min / day). 

  Looking to education apps, according to the study, in the first semester, the use of learning and classroom management apps by children shot up 162% during the pandemic, and landed up 54% for the year. Google Classroom remained the most popular application worldwide with the exception of 

  the United Kingdom where Show My Homework held on to the top spot. Finally, communication apps have been fundamental, allowing contact with friends and family during this period. So much so, that the time spent in them increased by an average of 91 minutes a day, that is, 49% more than in 2019. Although WhatsApp is still the most popular, 2020 welcomed Zoom, which took off during the pandemic and grew by more than 90% in popularity. Kids used Zoom an average of 50 minutes a day, 56% more than WhatsApp. 

  Before the pandemic, kids used apps most between 4 pm and 8 pm, but during the lockdowns that after school peak disappeared and stretched out throughout the day, from 11 am to 9 pm. The buffer in screen time created by going to school was gone as school itself went online and parents needed to keep kids educated and entertained while they themselves had to work online. 

  Eduardo Cruz, CEO and co-founder of Qustodio, sums up the report by saying, the “confinement has marked a before and after in people’s digital lives. The insights obtained during this period highlight the stark contrast in kids habits compared to 2019. The habits assumed during the Covid-19 will be difficult to modify, especially among kids. It is expected that the mainstream apps will continue to grow and offer increasingly specialized and personalized services, including adaptations of popular services for kids. Instagram’s recent announcement of the creation of a version of its service for children is just the beginning.” 

For media enquiries, contact press@qustodio.com

• Starting today, Chromebook users around the world will be able to enjoy Qustodio on their devices with features such as: time limits, smart web filters, and extended reports. 
• The global demand for Chromebook has multiplied 4x during the Covid-19 pandemic. 
• More than 30% of parents have purchased a new device due to the pandemic and 7 out of 10 families use new educational software at this time. 
• The use of educational applications increased 50% in the last week of January 2021 compared to the same period of the previous year. 
• Qustodio has received the INNOVATIVE SME seal awarded by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, which recognizes the commitment and work of the company developing cutting-edge technological tools for the digital well-being of families. 

Qustodio, leader in applications and information for online safety and digital wellbeing, today announced the launch of Qustodio for Chromebook, extending its core parental control features to the millions of Chromebooks running Chrome OS around the world, and making it easier for families to create a safer digital learning environment for their children. 

Adding Chromebooks to Qustodio’s list of protected devices, which already includes smartphones, PCs, tablets, laptops, and Kindles, is a natural next step for the company. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the global demand for Chromebooks multiplied x4, according to Canalys. 30% of Spanish families acquired new digital devices for their children during the pandemic and almost half of those were laptops, according to the latest study conducted by Qustodio. 

These data reflect the exponential growth of Chromebooks both locally and globally, and point to the growth in remote education or homeschooling accelerated by the pandemic. 

Additionally, in the same Qustodio study, 7 out of 10 families reported using new educational software due to the pandemic. A trend seen in Qustodio users worldwide whose use of educational applications increased by 50% the last week of January 2021 compared to the last week of January 2020. 

“On Safer Internet Day and at a time when millions of children and teens use Chromebooks to facilitate learning at school and at home, we’re thrilled to launch Qustodio for Chromebooks,” says Sergio Morales, Product Manager of the company. “Our commitment is to protect minors in the digital world and adding Chromebook to our services will help us to reach more families with our security and digital well-being solutions and adapt to their new needs.” 

Features included 

Time limits: allow families to know how much time their children spend in front of screens to be able to adjust that time to help create better digital habits. 

Smart web filters: allow families to monitor what content their children access and block any content they consider inappropriate by page or by categories such as gambling or pornography. 

Extended reports: allow parents to easily review the activity of their children online in real time through the parental administration panel or through daily, weekly or monthly reports. 

INNOVATIVE SME 

Qustodio is also proud to announce it has received the INNOVATIVE SME seal, granted by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities. This seal endorses and recognizes the company’s work in the parental control sector, developing cutting-edge technological tools that help ensure families’ digital wellbeing.

For media enquiries, contact press@qustodio.com