Okay, so a little inside info into my husband's and my life. We don't have cable. Do you think we are crazy? Well, we were paying like 80 dollars a month for cable and we are NEVER home to watch T.V. so we decided to do without it. Guess what...we haven't missed it. We ramped up our internet (made it faster) and got netflix. In stead of 80 dollars a month we now pay $7.99 for netflix account. We can send one movie back and forth and have online streaming all we want. We bought a Roku box that allows us to stream all those movies onto our TV. What about current T.V. shows? Well, I don't watch them that much but I can watch the ones that I want on my computer. Most full episodes (like of Sing Off...my favortie show right now) are online. What about OU football games? I have watched every game on ESPN 360 (on the computer) or I went to a friends house and watched it with them. Anyway, I love Netflix but I started to get a little frustrated with it. Here is why. When you turn on the t.v. and then turn on the Roku box (maybe you do it through your Xbox or your blueray player, or apple t.v) you see all the movies that you have chosen to watch and then it shows you all the new movies. Well some of the movies and the pictures that go with them are AWEFUL! I am sad that they make movies like that, but the other night as I was scrolling across to watch Home Alone 2 (advent calender!) I saw some pretty "shady movies" that was not appropriate for anyone! I thought to myself I don't want to see that. I don't want Lee to see that and if I had kids I would not ever want them to see it. Then I started thinking of all of you. I know that some of you have netflix and these devices. So what did I do? I decided to call Netflix and tell them they needed more of a family friendly option. What I didn't know is that you can block certain movies! The people at Netflix were sooooo helpful! Here is how you do it.
Go to your netflix account and log in. When you get to your account it will look like this clcik on
"YourAccount and Help" :
When you do that it will bring you here. Scroll down to Preferences. Click on the Change Parental Setting:
Before you get to this screen it will ask you to log in again. Then it will show this. Pick your rating and save.
Now, I picked PG13 and below because Lee and I love action movies like Bourne Identity and other figure it out movies. So we chose PG-13 for a little action but not violence BUT i realize that there are tons of PG-13 movies out there that can be "shady" and the netflix customer service guy said that there was one more thing I could do to make sure PG-13 was a movie that was appropriate.
Click on the Tab Movies You'll Love and then click on Taste Preferences
Here you can choose what movie not to suggest.
These wont be blocked (unless their rating is one that you blocked by the parental control) but they just won't suggest them to you and you won't see them while you are scrolling to watch your Disney movie. You can choose Never, Often, Sometimes. You can see what I picked below. I said never to "Steamy", "Raunchy", "Controversial" and much more....
It even goes as far to ask you all types of questions about what type of movies you like to watch. It takes about 8 hours for your device to get your updates. I did this yesterday morning. I got home last night (late because our advent calender was to babysit for a family) and turned on my Roku and it worked! I tried to serach for an R rated movie and it would find it for me but it wouldn't let me play it. None of them were on my suggestions and ALL of the movies I "preffered" were suggested for me. No "shady" stuff that I shouldn't be watching. (my rule about movies is...if a kamper comes over and turns on my device would I be okay with what she saw.) Before I knew that I could set filters the answer was no. Now that I know how to filter...YES!!!! Have fun movie watching on your Christmas break. Now you can do it safely!
