By Gavin Boyle
Internet safety experts revealed some of the most common ways children get around Parental Controls, whether it is to secretly communicate with others, access the internet unfiltered or to spend more time on their devices.
“I think parents need to just kind of give themselves a hug, breathe and start over,” said digital parenting coach Elizabeth Milovidov. “Parents are incredibly busy. They’re overwhelmed. And then this whole new idea of trying to lock things down is not easy. I remember trying to learn how to program a VCR.”
Meanwhile as parental control options have become stronger in general, kids have become more crafty on how to circumvent them. One way kids may try to sneak in conversations with their friends — or even strangers — without adults knowing is through apps with communication features that are not traditional social media platforms.
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“Here’s how it works: Your child requests an app that they can download, something like a fitness or a religious app. You approve it, and then they encounter — either accidentally or because they know about it — a chat function. Because you wouldn’t think these types of apps are for social interaction, you don’t think twice about it,” explained Haley Zapal from Bark.
Spotify, for example, features the ability to create a collaborative playlist with another person, which allows both users to edit the playlist. Children may make a collaborative playlist with a friend and then update the description to communicate with each other.
Another surprising way children can get around Parental Controls is through apps’ terms and conditions which open a link in Safari or some other internet browser, even if the Parental Controls prohibit the device from doing so. To prevent this from occurring, the app has to be individually blocked from opening the internet, otherwise children can browse the web without triggering any Parental Controls.
As for limiting screen time, children have found a workaround to this as well by simply changing their time zone to trick their device into resetting its limits. Parents are able to limit their child’s use of specific apps or apps that fall into a general category through Parental Controls. Most of the time, these limits reset at midnight every night, so if children set their device to a time zone that has crossed that time, they could reset their screen limits and use these restricted apps for much longer.
While device creators like Apple continuously work to create stronger Parental Controls, kids will inevitable find some crafty workaround. Nonetheless, Apple remains committed to providing parents with new tools to protect their kids from unwanted online experiences.
“First, we are introducing a new set-up process that will streamline the steps parents need to take to set up a Child Account for a kid in their family,” Apple said in March when launching a new aspect of its Parental Controls. “And if parents prefer to wait until later to finish setting up a Child Account, child-appropriate default settings will still be enabled on the device. This way, a child can immediately begin to use their iPhone or iPad safely, and parents can be assured that child safety features will be active in the meantime.”
Parents, however, also need to remain vigilant and up to date with the most common workarounds kids employ today. While the aforementioned strategies are popular, kids will undoubtedly move on to different options in the future when parents and tech companies clamp down on them.
Read Next: Parents and Legislators Agree: Big Tech Must Be Held Accountable to Protect Children
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