Aug 28, 2014 Kindle Fire HDX Freetime Parental Controls Time Limit Hack - Duration: 0:34. Lorinw00 3,214 views. How to Create Admin Account on Mac, Reset Password on Mac, Restore Admin account on Mac. Apr 16, 2014 It’s here that you can specify how many hours a day each person is allowed to use the Mac, and declare certain hours (like sleeping hours) off limits. To begin, click Open Parental Controls. Mar 26, 2020 Follow these steps: Go to Settings Screen Time. Tap Content & Privacy Restrictions and enter your Screen Time passcode. Tap Content Restrictions, then tap Web Content. Sep 26, 2018 But a Reddit thread spotted by Business Insider reveals that this isn’t the only hack kids are employing. When iOS 12 came out I limited my 7-year old son’s screen time through the family share.
Parents may want to set time limits for their kids to limit computer use, or force them to stop using their Mac when it gets too late. You can set time limits for managed user accounts in Parental Controls. You can set a limit on the total amount of time per day, or have access shut off at a specific time. There are separate settings for weekdays and weekends.Check out Setting Time Limits On Your Mac at YouTube for closed captioning and more options.
Enterprising kids are finding ways to bypass Screen Time limits and other parental controls on Apple devices, much to the chagrin of concerned parents.
First introduced in iOS 12, Screen Time is a “digital wellbeing” feature that lets users monitor their device usage. But it also has more restrictive capabilities meant to help curb screen time, both for adult users and for kids.
Now, about a year after its debut, Screen Time bypasses are all too common. And the Washington Post points out that parents are concerned.
Screen Time Loopholes
Mac Os Parental Controls
The Washington Postreports that kids are finding the Screen Time loopholes fairly easily — whether by their own experimentation or through reading instructions on the internet.
These are not actual “hacks” that require any particularly in-depth technical knowledge. Instead, they’re just simple bypasses that seem to thwart certain aspects of the Screen Time platform. That includes everything from:
- Continually restarting a phone until it “breaks” Screen Time.
- Deleting a Screen Time-protected app and re-downloading it from the App Store.
- Straight up resetting an iPhone to factory default settings.
- Creating a new Apple ID.
- The classic “change time zone” bypass, which people have used for a variety of workarounds for years.
In other cases, kids are simply able to guess or otherwise glean the 4-digit passcode locking down Screen Time.
None of the bypasses are particularly sophisticated. But they all seem to be fairly successful at getting around Screen Time restrictions.
What Parents Can Do
There’s an argument to be made that Apple isn’t doing enough to curb internet addiction among its young users. That argument was likely even one of the reasons why Apple introduced Screen Time in the first place back.
But it’s important to note that Screen Time, or any parental control app, is not a magical fix that can automatically replace vigilance and attention from parents. More than that, they aren’t meant to be.
Technically savvy youngsters with plenty of time on their hands are still going to be able to find a way around certain restrictions. There’s no such thing as a fully “secure” system.
And many of the “loopholes” explained above can be closed by simply implementing the restrictions correctly. Part of the responsibility of parents setting up a feature like Screen Time is to properly understand and get familiar with its features and limitations.
Apple could spend more time and effort implementing fixes for this workaround, and it probably should. But, again, that isn’t a substitute for parents keeping a closer eye on their kids’ internet usage — and it isn’t going to stop kids from finding bypasses in the future.
More than that, for parents having a hard time reigning in their child’s internet usage, there’s undoubtedly no more effective way to curb a child’s screen time than to simply take away the screen.