Bark Kids

So so so invasive.

From a pre teens perspective, I feel scared to use my phone. It’s not that I have anything to hide, or I’m doing/watching inappropriate stuff, cus I’m absolutely not, but as a girl who’s maturing I’m gonna want some privacy. I’m talking to my friends about things that sometimes I don’t want my parents knowing about, like crushes, etc. also, it gives a warning of me “bullying” when I like a video on YouTube! There’s other ways to teach your kids trust, while also respecting privacy, especially at this age. My parents said this app was mostly because my brother is completely uncensored, but I don’t want this app. I am perfectly ok with parents checking my texts every know and then, as long as u respect my boundaries with talking abt crushes and stuff w friends. Also, it gives warnings when a video on yt swears, which is absurd. Just because a song says a bad word doesn’t mean u have to flag it and make my parents lecture me for it! I like the idea, just change it slightly. Kids should be able to be trusted while keeping privacy.

As a 13 year old teen girl, I like my privacy, and don’t like having serious talks with my mom, I have lots of things I want to keep to myself, I hate things I vent about to my friends that are MY private stuff, and my friends also have things they vent about that might trigger the apps concern system, i don’t want my mom seeing the problems my friends are dealing with bc its not her business, this app is also restricting my phone badly, barley able to do anything, my Pinterest doesn’t work, searching up things never spends anymore, all the comments of YouTube are restricted, and overall a bad app. It feels like I’m being watched at all moments, if my mom wants me to trust her and be able to tell her things, this is not the way to do it. Putting an app on my phone that makes me feel trapped and like I can’t do anything it’s not fine. Earn trust, don’t force it. I just don’t want my mom to invade my privacy like that and I feel like there’s a better resort than this app. This app has completely messed up my phone and I just want my own privacy as a teenage girl.

So this is coming from a teenagers pov. If you want to ruin your child’s relationship with you or want them to become depressed then get this app. This app has ruined my relationship with my parent and my friends, I feel like I can’t do anything without having to step around eggshells. This app has ruined my relationship with my friends because nothing is private and my friends used to vent to me about their problems, but now we can’t even talk without my parent getting an alert, if you do not trust you kid this isn’t going to make you trust them more, it even stalks your notes app which some kids or teens like to vent in but now you can’t say or do anything and we are being silenced I never felt so alone because I pushed away all my friends because of this app, some teens in other reviews I’ve read became suicidal because of this app you have no privacy it’s like your a dog on a leash this app isn’t good for anything besides ruining relationships and nothing works on your phone when you download this app and it stops your wifi and if your in danger and if you want to reach out to someone it takes a while because it messes with your cellular data and WiFi if you are a parent reading this please do not get this app for your child it ruins relationship and they won’t ever trust you again (seriously I was thinking about cutting my parents out of my life when I got older)

No

My iPhone 12 worked fine until I had this app, then it steadily became more broken until it was unusable. I just got a new phone and this one is already starting to not work. Also even if you pay for cellular, their vpn is so useless and makes it so you can barely use your phone on wifi.

I understand that parents protect their kids, but I’ve never done anything shameful on my phone. Two weeks after I downloaded this app I was unable to send or receive pictures, even ones my parents sent. They blamed it on my game that I’ve been playing since I was 3 years old on my grandmas phone without issue. My game has a 4.6 star rating and this app has a one star rating. As soon as my parents deleted it everything was back to normal.

I give this app 1 star for many reasons: letting porn ads come up on YouTube, while blocking websites like Aquatic Arts and Aquarian Co-op (I am a fish hobbyist), and allowing YouTube shorts featuring naked people, while blocking videos that don’t have anything bad or even a swear word in them. Bark is a pima (code word if you watched Young Sheldon), and it really bothers me that a company saying they protect kids allows poison into kids with porn ads on YouTube. Examples: web comic books or some app like that. They aren’t doing a good job protecting kids.

I am 12 and I have a girlfriend but I don’t like to tell my parents stuff they both found out and told everyone

This app is problematic, especially for controlling parents. It creates a trust barrier between the parent and the adolescent and with that comes negative emotions. I am not going to lie I have done some pretty messed up stuff on the internet but I am now 16 and I feel like I have become more responsible, for me it’s different because I am homeschooled so I don’t get a lot of social interaction. I was hoping social media could connect me to other homeschoolers so I would feel less alone with my ongoing mental illness issues. I understand why some parents feel the need to get this app for their child but why for a teenager 16 and up? This kind of makes me feel like I’m still a little kid it’s very uncomfortable and could be embarrassing.