Policing Your Home Internet

When someone asks you about your health, how often do you say, “Blood Pressure? Great.  CholesteroI? Super. Internet? Healthy!”

I must admit, I never actually thought about the internet in terms of my family’s health until I was introduced to a company called myi (short for “my internet”).

I first met myi, a Nominum, Inc. company, when I was in attendance at Mom Congress 2011 and I guess you could say, they “had me at hello!” With 2 children in our home, both of which are tech savvy, one of which is a tween, and both raised completely in the computer age, myi’s solution to internet health made complete sense to me and I knew right then that this was something I would absolutely want in my own home!

It not only helps to protect my family from the ugly parts of the internet, but it also teaches them to respect it for what it is and help us manage what we want it to do for our family. 

Palatine was recently introduced to myi when Lorie Boyd and Natalie Salinas dropped in from Redwood City, Calif. to give a sneak peek of their soon to be available apps to help families manage and maintain a healthy online lifestyle in their homes.

What attendees learned was that myi will bring, to us, as internet users, a suite of more than 30 apps that help us manage our connectivity from anywhere we have an internet connection. These apps can allow us to set a household internet bedtime, set limitations and restrictions to age appropriate sites when we are away but our children are home, “ground” children - and adults alike - from internet usage, or allow Crunch Time to lock up sites, like Facebook or Twitter, when you have work to get done and need the distractions removed for productivity purposes and most of all, it will help us bring unconnected family time back to our homes.

While other internet companies offer services which sound similar, myi offers apps and cloud technology to control all your home devices including your iPad, computers, Wii, cell phones, iPods  - anything that connects via your home network to the internet. 

For example, we have all read the multitude of studies that have shown that we, as a society, are not getting enough sleep. (I know I am often guilty of staying up working online, way too late some nights!)

But with myi I can install the Bedtime app that alerts me that it is time to go to bed and it will then actually shut down my internet, at my chosen time, until it turns back on the next morning, per my settings.

Can you imagine knowing that your kids are actually in bed and not on their iTouch sending emails to friends after they are supposed to be asleep? Or better yet…actually being told, as an adult, that it is time to call it a night and, for your health and well being, go to bed.

Or imagine the ability to limit the sites your student can access during their study time. How many times has your student needed to go online to research a project or report and you have found them playing a game on Club Penguin or browsing another website instead?

When the internet gives them so many options at the click of a mouse it is certainly tempting to check it all out. Myi offers an app called Study Hall that will set study only times and allow only approved sites (for research, education, etc) to be used during that time. Wouldn’t it be nice to know they are using their time wisely? 

The service is free to users. The apps, just like other apps, are a minimal - $1.99 to $3.99 each. However, if you look at it as an investment in your family’s online health it certainly makes it a reasonable option. The best way to check it out for yourself is to get online and sign up to be in the know as soon as myi launches (July 11 is the scheduled launch date).  If you go to www.myi.com and sign up (for free) you will be notified when myi apps are available for your household to download so you can start designing your very own internet healthy home.