A number of existing smartphone apps aim to control kids' activity on phones, but could be disabled by tech-savvy children.
Researchers from University of South Carolina in the US and Zhejiang University in China found that automated age-range detection would prevent kids from stumbling upon an inappropriate website or get into a work e-mail account.
The researchers observed two big differences between how children and adults swipe phone screens.
Since kids have smaller hands and shorter fingertips than adults, they often touch a smaller area on the screen and make shorter swipes, said Xiaopeng Li, a graduate student at the University of South Carolina.
To gather data on these differences, researchers built a simple app, the 'MIT Technology Review' reported.
They asked a group of kids between the ages of three and 11, and a group of adults between 22 and 60 to use it.
The app had participants unlock an Android phone and then play a numbers-based game on it, so that the researchers could record a variety of taps and swipes.
They also tracked things like the amount of pressure applied by a user's finger and the area it encompassed.
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