With smartphone and tablet users getting younger, new apps can help parents of two-to-13-year-olds monitor and control their children’s use of the internet.

A Pew Research Centre study shows that more than one-third of American teenagers own a smartphone, up from more than a fifth in 2011. For nearly half of these users, the phone is their main way of getting online, making it difficult for parents to supervise their behaviour.

“When you have a smartphone, you basically have the internet in your pocket wherever you are – away from your parents’ eyes,” said Anooj Shah, a partner in Toronto-based company Kytephone, which develops apps.

Kytephone’s namesake app allows parents to control the apps and sites their children use and the people they receive texts and calls from.

The company on Monday released Kytetime for 13-to-17-year-olds. The new app has many of the same features as Kytephone but does not include the ability to block calls.

Earlier this month, Net Nanny, a monitoring software company, released a browser app for Apple Inc’s iOS devices to filter Web content and block profanity. (Reuters)