YOBY is built on a simple principle: children’s digital wellbeing depends not only on how long they use a screen, but also on what they do with it, why they are using it, who is involved, what the product is designed to encourage, and what the digital experience displaces in the rest of their lives.

This distinction is consistent with the direction of current pediatric guidance. The Società Italiana di Pediatria (SIP) does not recommend a blanket ban on digital devices for all children under 13. Its January 2026 guidance specifically recommends avoiding unsupervised Internet access before age 13, postponing a personal smartphone until at least 13, delaying social media, maintaining adult supervision and dialogue, and limiting device use after age five to less than two hours per day. It also calls for outdoor activity, sport, reading and creative play to remain protected parts of childhood (https://sip.it/2026/01/27/digitale-e-bambini-le-nuove-raccomandazioni-sip/). 

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) updated its policy in 2026 in a direction that is particularly relevant to YOBY. The AAP states that children’s digital experiences cannot be assessed through screen-time limits alone. It distinguishes child-centered digital design from engagement-based design, recommends time boundaries and parental controls, recognizes joint media engagement as potentially valuable, and emphasizes that digital media should not crowd out sleep, physical activity, reading, play, homework or family relationships. For school-aged children, the AAP notes that high-quality digital media with learning goals, used in moderation, can support mathematics and reading learning (https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/157/2/e2025075320/206129/Digital-Ecosystems-Children-and-Adolescents-Policy). 

Research also supports distinguishing quality and context from quantity without pretending that quantity is irrelevant. A 2020 JAMA Pediatrics systematic review and meta-analysis of 42 studies and 18,905 children found that greater screen quantity was associated with weaker language skills, while educational content and co-viewing were associated with stronger language skills (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2762864).  A larger 2024 JAMA Pediatrics systematic review and meta-analysis covering 100 studies and 176,742 participants similarly concluded that screen-use context matters: caregiver-child co-use was positively associated with cognitive outcomes, while age-inappropriate content and some forms of passive or background screen exposure were associated with poorer outcomes (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2821940). 

The World Health Organization adds an important complementary principle: children and adolescents should limit sedentary behaviour, particularly recreational screen time, while maintaining adequate physical activity. WHO therefore reinforces the need to ensure that digital experiences do not displace movement and other health-promoting activities rather than treating every digital activity as interchangeable (https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240015128). 

YOBY should therefore neither present itself as “screen time that does not count” nor claim that educational purpose makes duration irrelevant. Instead, YOBY commits to a more defensible standard: digital time should be bounded, purposeful, age-appropriate, safe by default and designed to support learning and family or school interaction rather than maximize attention.

YOBY is designed for children aged approximately 6–14 and publicly describes private family ponds, parent-managed access, invite-only participation, no contact from strangers, no advertising in the child-facing experience, parental controls, supervised educational environments and videochat that requires adult presence (https://yoby.fun/for-families/; https://yoby.fun/safety/; https://yoby.fun/schools/).  The current product specification adds two important mechanisms: parents and teachers can issue time-limited access links from one to four hours, and a parent can enter the pond personally, then pass control of the child’s duck to the child while remaining present and supervising the experience. These two mechanisms form a central part of this Charter.

This Charter is therefore not a claim that SIP, AAP, WHO or any pediatric organization endorses YOBY. It is a commitment by YOBY to design and communicate the product in a way that takes their recommendations seriously.

The Charter

Purpose Before Attention

YOBY will design digital time around an identifiable purpose: exploration, financial learning, school activities, family discussion, creative discovery and play. YOBY will not treat minutes consumed as the primary measure of product success.

The rationale is straightforward. The 2026 AAP policy explicitly distinguishes child-centered design, which supports meaningful experiences, learning, privacy and wellbeing, from engagement-based design whose incentives encourage prolonged and frequent use. The AAP warns specifically about design mechanisms such as autoplay, endless feeds, intermittent rewards and other features that make disengagement harder (https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/157/2/e2025075320/206129/Digital-Ecosystems-Children-and-Adolescents-Policy).  Evidence also indicates that content, purpose and social context contribute meaningfully to developmental outcomes rather than total minutes acting as the sole relevant variable (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2821940). 

YOBY commitment: YOBY will not optimize the child experience around infinite scrolling, autoplay, compulsive notification loops or artificial pressure to remain online. The end of an activity should be a natural and acceptable stopping point.

YOBY commitment: public communications will use wording such as: “YOBY is designed to make children’s digital time purposeful, bounded and age-appropriate — not to maximize the amount of time they spend online.” YOBY will not use language such as “maximum engagement,” “keep children playing for longer,” or similar attention-economy claims when describing the child experience.

Adults Control the Gate

Children should have room to explore, but adults should control when and under what conditions access begins.

This is particularly important in relation to the frequently misunderstood “age 13” argument. SIP’s 2026 recommendation is not “no digital devices before 13.” It specifically says to avoid unsupervised Internet access before 13, postpone the personal smartphone until at least 13, delay social media, and maintain adult supervision, dialogue and control across age groups (https://sip.it/2026/01/27/digitale-e-bambini-le-nuove-raccomandazioni-sip/).  The AAP likewise recommends parental controls over time, contacts, downloads and other aspects of children’s digital environments (https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/157/2/e2025075320/206129/Digital-Ecosystems-Children-and-Adolescents-Policy). 

YOBY commitment: parent and teacher access links will remain time-limited and adult-issued. The normal default will be one hour. Two-, three- and four-hour settings will require an explicit adult choice rather than appearing as the normal or preferred duration. This mechanism is part of the current YOBY product specification supplied for this Charter.

YOBY commitment: YOBY will never communicate the four-hour option as “four recommended hours of play.” Public wording should instead say: “Parents and teachers determine when children can access YOBY and select the access period appropriate to the activity.” Where longer windows are used for schoolwork, teacher availability or exceptional family circumstances, they should be described as adult-controlled access windows, not pediatric recommendations for continuous recreational screen use.

This distinction matters because SIP recommends less than two hours of device use per day after age five, while the AAP says time boundaries should reflect the child, family, school day and type of use and suggests that entertainment media for school-aged children may often fall around one to two hours while explicitly distinguishing entertainment from school-related use (https://sip.it/2026/01/27/digitale-e-bambini-le-nuove-raccomandazioni-sip/; https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/157/2/e2025075320/206129/Digital-Ecosystems-Children-and-Adolescents-Policy). 

One Hour Is a Complete Experience, Not a Target to Exceed

YOBY recognizes that meaningful interactive play takes time. A child may explore family ponds, search for collection fragments, visit the market, make financial choices, complete quests or school-assigned quizzes, and reflect on what happened. A one-hour access period is therefore a practical default that allows an experience to develop without positioning prolonged use as the objective.

Current pediatric evidence does not support reducing every digital experience to an arbitrary number of minutes regardless of purpose. The AAP’s 2026 policy explicitly states that screen-time boundaries can vary according to the child, family needs, school nights and weekends, while emphasizing high-quality content and protection of healthy activities. It also specifically recognizes high-quality, well-designed learning media used in moderation for school-aged children (https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/157/2/e2025075320/206129/Digital-Ecosystems-Children-and-Adolescents-Policy).  At the same time, evidence linking greater total exposure with some poorer developmental outcomes means duration cannot simply be dismissed because an application is educational (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2762864). 

YOBY commitment: one hour will be presented as the standard access setting, not as an obligation to remain online for a full hour. Children may leave earlier without losing status, being punished, breaking a streak or being made to feel that they have failed.

YOBY commitment: longer 2–4 hour settings will remain deliberate adult exceptions. YOBY will avoid public claims such as “children can play for up to four hours” and instead use language such as: “The adult chooses the access window; YOBY does not treat the maximum available time as a usage goal.”

Co-Use When Togetherness Adds Value, Independent Exploration Within Adult Boundaries

YOBY supports two legitimate modes of use: children and adults can experience the pond together, or children can explore independently inside a digital environment whose access and boundaries were established by an adult.

Co-use has particular value when the objective is conversation, explanation and reflection. The AAP states that joint media engagement can contribute to relationship-building and learning and reports that caregiver involvement can strengthen the effects of high-quality educational media (https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/157/2/e2025075320/206129/Digital-Ecosystems-Children-and-Adolescents-Policy).  The 2020 JAMA Pediatrics meta-analysis found a positive association between co-viewing and child language outcomes, while the 2024 meta-analysis found caregiver co-use positively associated with cognitive outcomes; these are associations rather than proof that every shared digital session causes better development, but they support intentionally designing for active adult involvement rather than treating it as an afterthought (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2762864; https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2821940). 

Parental mediation research points in the same direction. A longitudinal study of primary-school children found that active parental mediation — discussion and guidance around media use — predicted lower later problematic mobile-phone use and was positively related to the parent-child relationship (https://doi.org/10.1080/15213269.2021.1981945). 

YOBY commitment: the parental co-use mode will remain a first-class product experience. A parent can enter the pond, establish the session and pass control of the child’s duck to the child while remaining present. This is part of the current YOBY product specification and is consistent with YOBY’s publicly stated model of private family ponds, shared exploration and parent-managed access (https://yoby.fun/for-families/). 

YOBY commitment: YOBY will also preserve age-appropriate independent exploration. “Independent” must not be marketed as “unsupervised Internet access.” A more accurate description is: “Children can explore independently inside an adult-authorized, time-limited and protected YOBY environment.” Parents retain control of access and family settings, and YOBY’s public safety architecture includes invite-only spaces, no stranger contact, parental controls and videochat that is unavailable without adult presence (https://yoby.fun/safety/). 

This distinction is important. A parent does not need to physically manipulate the controls every second for parental mediation to exist. But because SIP explicitly calls for adult supervision, YOBY should never use its independent-play mode to imply that parents can or should disengage completely from their child’s digital life. 

Quality, Context and Purpose Matter — But They Do Not Cancel Quantity

YOBY rejects both extremes of the screen-time debate. It is inaccurate to argue that every minute in front of every screen has identical developmental meaning. It is equally inaccurate to claim that educational content makes duration irrelevant.

The research supports this more nuanced position. In the 2020 JAMA Pediatrics meta-analysis, greater screen quantity was associated with poorer language outcomes, while educational programming and co-viewing were associated with stronger language outcomes (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2762864).  The 2024 JAMA Pediatrics meta-analysis concluded that type, content, co-use and purpose should be considered alongside time limits and found a positive association between co-use and cognitive outcomes (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2821940).  The AAP’s 2026 policy similarly states that media and children can no longer be understood solely through screen limits and explicitly differentiates educational, relational and problematic digital experiences (https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/157/2/e2025075320/206129/Digital-Ecosystems-Children-and-Adolescents-Policy). 

This is particularly relevant to YOBY because one session can contain several different activities: free exploration, collection discovery, a simulated market decision, a financial-literacy quest, a teacher-assigned quiz and a discussion with a parent. YOBY’s school materials already describe guided exploration, choice, discussion and take-home family activities rather than passive content consumption (https://yoby.fun/schools/). 

YOBY commitment: product analytics and public reporting should distinguish, where appropriate and privacy permits, between educational activities, school assignments, family co-use and recreational exploration rather than collapsing every interaction into a single “engagement minutes” metric.

YOBY commitment: YOBY will never say that educational screen time “does not count.” The preferred formulation is: “Purpose and quality matter, but balance still matters. YOBY is designed to make the digital time a family or school chooses to use more intentional and valuable.”

Nothing in the Pond Should Compete With Childhood

YOBY should fit inside childhood, not compete against it.

SIP recommends protecting outdoor activity, sport, reading, creative play, meals and sleep from inappropriate device use and advises against device use during meals and before bedtime (https://sip.it/2026/01/27/digitale-e-bambini-le-nuove-raccomandazioni-sip/).  The AAP similarly recommends screen-free family time, protection of sleep, movement, reading, play and homework, and specifically frames healthy media management around preventing digital media from “crowding out” these activities (https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/157/2/e2025075320/206129/Digital-Ecosystems-Children-and-Adolescents-Policy).  WHO recommends that children and adolescents limit sedentary behaviour, especially recreational screen time, while remaining physically active (https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240015128). 

YOBY commitment: the product will not penalize children for leaving. There should be no loss of progress merely because a child goes outside, plays sport, reads, eats dinner with the family or returns another day.

YOBY commitment: YOBY will use healthy stopping points and, where appropriate, gentle break or transition prompts rather than engagement pressure. Public communication should say: “Success in YOBY is not measured by how long a child stays online. A good YOBY session ends when the activity is complete and the child goes back to the rest of life.”

School assignments deserve particular care. The WHO’s concern about sedentary behaviour remains relevant even when screen use has an educational purpose, while the AAP explicitly distinguishes school-related media from entertainment media when discussing possible time boundaries. YOBY should therefore avoid pretending that a school quiz creates no physical or attentional load, while also avoiding the misleading claim that an hour completing educational work is equivalent in purpose to an hour of infinite-scroll entertainment (https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/157/2/e2025075320/206129/Digital-Ecosystems-Children-and-Adolescents-Policy; https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240015128). 

Safety and Privacy Are Defaults, Not Optional Settings

A child-focused digital environment should make the safer state the easiest state.

The 2026 AAP policy calls for safety and privacy by default, including minimizing engagement-prolonging mechanisms, reducing unwanted interpersonal contact, turning chat off by default where appropriate, avoiding targeted advertising to minors and limiting harmful algorithmic exposure (https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/157/2/e2025075320/206129/Digital-Ecosystems-Children-and-Adolescents-Policy).  SIP similarly emphasizes continuing adult supervision, dialogue and control rather than giving children unrestricted Internet autonomy (https://sip.it/2026/01/27/digitale-e-bambini-le-nuove-raccomandazioni-sip/). 

YOBY already publicly commits to invite-only family ponds, parent-led access, no stranger contact, no advertising inside the child-facing experience, content filtering, privacy-first design and videochat only when an adult is present (https://yoby.fun/safety/; https://yoby.fun/for-families/).  Its school environment is similarly described as supervised, age-appropriate and closed rather than an open social network (https://yoby.fun/schools/). 

YOBY commitment: these protections will remain part of the default architecture rather than premium safety features that families must discover, purchase or activate.

YOBY commitment: no future feature designed to increase growth, monetization or engagement should be allowed to weaken the principles of adult-controlled access, child privacy, bounded social interaction or safe disengagement. YOBY’s own roadmap already expresses the principle that children come before product metrics and that a feature which grows quickly but weakens safety does not belong in the product (https://yoby.fun/roadmap/). 

Be Precise and Honest About Digital Wellbeing

YOBY will make evidence-based claims and resist the temptation to turn pediatric guidance into marketing.

No pediatric organization cited here has endorsed YOBY. No peer-reviewed study cited here has tested YOBY itself. Research showing associations between co-use, educational content and better outcomes does not prove that any product labelled “educational” is beneficial, and the AAP itself stresses that much of the digital-media evidence is observational and therefore cannot establish simple causal relationships (https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/157/2/e2025075320/206129/Digital-Ecosystems-Children-and-Adolescents-Policy). 

At the same time, public discussion should represent pediatric recommendations accurately. Saying “pediatricians advise against devices for everyone under 13” is not an accurate description of SIP’s 2026 guidance. SIP distinguishes personal smartphones, unsupervised Internet access, social media, total device exposure, adult supervision and healthy offline activities (https://sip.it/2026/01/27/digitale-e-bambini-le-nuove-raccomandazioni-sip/).  The AAP goes further in explicitly asking families and product designers to consider child, content, context, crowding-out and communication rather than reducing the entire subject to a stopwatch (https://www.aap.org/en/patient-care/media-and-children/center-of-excellence-on-social-media-and-youth-mental-health/understanding-the-new-AAP-digital-media-guidelines/). 

YOBY commitment: YOBY will not say, “Pediatricians approve YOBY,” “educational screen time is harmless,” “YOBY time does not count as screen time,” or “children should spend one to four hours a day in YOBY.”

YOBY commitment: YOBY’s preferred public statement will be:

“YOBY is a digital experience, and its use is screen time. We therefore design it to be purposeful, adult-controlled, age-appropriate and bounded. Parents and teachers decide when children enter and how long access lasts. Families can use YOBY together, including a parent-supervised mode in which the adult enters the pond and hands control to the child, or children can explore independently inside an adult-authorized private environment. Our goal is not to maximize time on screen. It is to make the digital time a family or school chooses to use safer, more meaningful and more conducive to learning and conversation.”

And when addressing the specific “under 13” objection, YOBY’s preferred wording will be:

“Current pediatric guidance does not amount to a blanket prohibition on all digital devices before age 13. The Società Italiana di Pediatria recommends avoiding unsupervised Internet access and postponing a personal smartphone until at least 13, while also setting limits on device use and maintaining adult supervision. The American Academy of Pediatrics similarly emphasizes child-centered design, high-quality content, parental controls, time boundaries, joint media engagement and protection of sleep, movement, play and family life. YOBY is designed around those principles: adult-controlled access, private environments, parental co-use, educational purpose and deliberate limits. That does not make screen time irrelevant. It makes responsible design essential.” (https://sip.it/2026/01/27/digitale-e-bambini-le-nuove-raccomandazioni-sip/; https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/157/2/e2025075320/206129/Digital-Ecosystems-Children-and-Adolescents-Policy).