What Parents Need to Know About Fortnite

This summer I'm doing a series on What Parent's Need to Know about *insert some type of online thing here*... because it's not just parents that need to know these things but teachers too AND if there is one thing we all know it's that online stuff changes so often it's hard to keep up (especially when you aren't even using that app/program)!

Today I'm talking about Fornite

Here's the thing about Fortnite (or anyone online games) if you send your child to school with a smart phone they are likely playing it.  As a teacher I've had many students come up to me to ask if I play, to tell me I can join their squad (or something along those lines), and to tell me how far they've come.  It's almost shocking how popular the game became, how quickly it took over all these kids lives, and how it's even still around!

What parents need to know about fortnite

You can download this for free here but in the meantime here are my 3 take aways from it

1) Remember a few weeks ago when I posted about Screen Addiction?  Well this game is addicting (or so I've observed... I haven't experienced the addicting qualities of it).  A game can take about 20 minutes.  If you lost you'll likely want to play another as it's only 20 minutes.  You keep doing this and it wouldn't be hard to use up an hour, or 2 or 3 playing the game until you've won.  And, I can guarantee you it will be near impossible to take that kids device away mid game play. You can however limit the amount of time anyone spends on any app (at least on an Apple device which is worth looking into for situations like this.

2)  You can talk to others in the game.  In fact there is apparently an advantage to having your sound turned on or using headphones to hear others around you.  You can turn off the ability for your child to talk to others... however as far as I know (and correct me if I'm wrong) they will still hear the other conversations around them.

3) Vbucks are the games online currency that requires actual money.  We've all heard of that parent that had $300 charged to their credit card because their card was linked to a device their child was using.  The tricky part with this is you'll likely be happy to occasionally buy your child vbucks... but probably not $300 at a time.  Having never played the game personally I'm assuming there is a way to use an iTunes giftcard for these kids of purchases though?  Using the giftcard would ensure you're credit card isn't linked to the account and your child has a limit to how much they can spend.

Here are some other topics in my "What Parent's Need to Know About -----" series
Snapchat
Instagram
Youtube
The App Store
Age Ratings
Screen Addiction