When spring comes around, everyone gets the unexplainable urge to clean up the spaces around them. Whether it’s the house, the car, or your kid’s backpack that’s full of loose papers, gum wrappers, and that Chromebook charger you thought they lost. But considering how much time we spend online, our digital homes could use an annual cleanup, too.
Today, we have a few ideas on where to start with your tech spring cleaning, as well as some helpful tips along the way. These can be for you, your kid, or anyone with tech. Let’s get started!
Bark’s Guide to Spring Cleaning: Tech Edition
Say goodbye to those old, unnecessary computer files
We know — there’s very little that sounds more boring than combing through old files on your computer. But over the years, a whole host of documents, PDFs, and more get saved to our hard drive and then completely forgotten about. Most of it you likely don’t need, but the rest are likely important enough to organize and put somewhere easy to remember for when you need them. Pro tip: You can even clean them off your device and save them on Google Drive!
Purge the unused apps from your phone or tablet
If you had to guess how many apps were on your phone right now, what would you guess? Just for fun and if you’re curious, you can find the actual number in your phone settings.
On an iPhone:
Navigate to Settings > General > About > Scroll down and find Applications, find the number next to it.
On an Android:
Navigate to Google Play Store > My apps and games > Installed > Find the number in parentheses next to “On this device”
How close was your guess? For many, this number is much higher than they expect. Kids are especially notorious for downloading any app or game they see an ad for or their friend tells them about. So spring cleaning is the perfect time to go through those apps that are never used to give your tech storage some breathing room.
Organize your most important apps
Once all those unused apps are gone, it’s a good time to organize your apps and group them together into folders. You can even get creative with your folders or try adding widgets to your home screen for your most-used apps.
Safety tip: Did you know people can create a hidden app folder on both Apple and Android phones? This may be a good time to check your child’s app folders and make sure they don’t have any inappropriate apps on their device.
Clear out your inbox notifications
There are two types of people: Those who clear out their inbox regularly and never leave it cluttered, and those who have at least hundreds of emails sitting in their inbox at any given point. If you’re the latter, this is your sign to finally face that little red notification dot. And if you’re the former, you may not have a cluttered inbox, but perhaps you have some email subscriptions that you’ve been meaning to unsubscribe from. This will make your inbox upkeep a little easier and faster.
Make some space in your photo album
If there’s one culprit of hogging storage, it’s definitely photos and videos. Most people use iCloud, Google Photos, or some cloud storage service to back up their photos and make room on their device. But what do you do when you start running out of storage even in the cloud? You have two options: pay for more storage or start deleting photos and videos.
Yes, it’s tedious, but you can try making an evening out of it! Grab a snack, maybe a friend or family member, and start reminiscing through old photos even as you delete some along the way.
Keep your device clean, inside and out
So far we’ve only discussed cleaning up your software, but about the hardware? The thing you carry around, spill stuff on, and shove into bags, pockets, and car consoles? All of our tech could absolutely use a cleanup on the outside. But if you still need motivation, consider this: The average smartphone is shown to host 18x more bacteria than a public restroom. Ready to start cleaning?
To clean your tech, you can take a microfiber towel with some distilled water to wipe down the surfaces. Or you can invest in a UV sanitizer for even faster cleaning. It’s also recommended to take a toothpick and gently scrape out the debris from hard-to-reach places like charging ports and earbuds.
Keeping Your Child’s Digital World Safer With Bark
It’s important to keep your devices clean, but so is keeping your children’s devices protected. Bark’s parental controls will help you keep your child safer online, giving you peace of mind when it comes to texts, web browsing, and app usage. We offer a variety of products, including the Bark app, the Bark Watch, the Bark Phone, and the Bark Home. Check out our products page to find out which one is the best fit for your family.
Read more
Bark helps families manage and protect their children’s digital lives.
