Make your teenager a family affair (without invading their personal lives)

Whether you are a parent or teenager, online life and technology use are filled with navigation obstacles and it can often feel that there are few technology companies around the world that do not do a little to facilitate anger.

Most of the technology children use – from smartphones In social media – it has never been designed with them specifically in the mind. The Finnish HMD phone manufacturer aims to change this and in MWC 2025 introduced his new family portfolio with Fusion X1Phone designed with children and for children.

Thehe telephone was designed in collaboration with Xplora, a company best known for its comfortable smartwatches. Both companies have made a phone that allows teenagers to request permission from their parents to download apps from the Google Play Store. In the meantime, their parents can remotely control their access to all applications and features through the cover application, while adjusting and tracking the time and location of the screen.

Read more: MWC 2025: All phones, wearer, robots and AI live from Barcelona

While most parental control phones either rely on an application that can be deleted or surrounded, or their own operating system that does not give children access to the same applications that their friends use, the Fusion X1 combines applications -based controls, baked deep in their version of Android OS. This creates a locked safe space where children can still have limited access to Snapchat, WhatsApp and Tiktok-if their parents agree.

The flexibility provided by Fusion X1 is to create options for families who know that their children will need access to technology, but may want to do it at their own pace and according to their own rules. “The idea is to provide a device that is a step,” says HMD global product leader Adam Ferguson to CNET. “In the end, a parent can give way to control of this control of the device itself, so it is part of a gradual growth.”

This is an idea that already makes waves and attracts the attention of many people, not least actor and talk show, Drew Barimore, who talks at the HMD event at Camp Nou Stadium in Barcelona. “What is right for me may not be appropriate for you,” Barimore said, to give birth to his two daughters, who are at 11 and 13 at the moment they have no smartphones.

Barrymore talks about his own experience from growing up without borders and protection against the many dangers of the world, but also realizes that teens do not appreciate to tell them what to do. She said HMD is a company that thinks it understands what it means to help parents navigate the introduction of teenagers into technology. “It’s very personal to me,” she said. “It’s a very emotional journey.”

The Fusion X1 will be available in May for £ 229 (approximately $ 290), but you can order in advance.

Better phone for children

HMD announced its A project better phones Last summer, and after interviewing 25,000 teenagers and parents, he found that both adults and children want some restrictions and boundaries about using the phone and even have nothing against their parents to track their location. This came as a surprise for the company – and for me. As a teenager at Noughties, all I wanted to use the internet was to talk to boys from school through MSN Messenger and I certainly didn’t want my parents to look over my shoulder.

But 52% of the children with whom HMD has said that at one point they have turned to a stranger online, proving that the risk to young people on the Internet is powerful – and that they are aware of it. “We are on a mission to help to provide a much more fascinating environment, knowing that there is no silver bullet, but there are certainly things we can try to do better,” says James Robinson, HMD’s SVP on HMD.

Through its research, HMD also realized that there were three phases through which children move when they began to use technology, Robinson says. First comes the initial relationship, in which they can be between 8 and twelve and begin to build healthy habits. Next are 13-16-year-olds who begin to use more phones with features, but which may not be ready for unlimited access to the entire Internet to offer. Then there are older teens who are likely to go to more adult experience.

Due to the flexibility of parental controls, the Fusion X1 can potentially be suitable for any of these age groups. “It’s a device that grows with the child,” Robinson says.

Probably teenagers and parents will have a unique combination of worries everywhere that could cover factors such as screen time, pornography, harassment and safety. It will be families to understand how children enter and occupy the digital world, and a phone like Fusion X1 can help them do it under their own conditions.