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What happens when a school bans smartphones? A complete transformation | US education | The Guardian
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2024
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Technology
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I watched the first generation that got personal unrestricted mobile phones for themselves. Somehow I thought it was a good idea at the time. It fucked them up mentally, and then Covid-19 came and doubled the effect.
Now I think that a parent who gets their under 12 year old kid a smart phone should be treated roughly in the same way as if the parent gave the kid cocaine.
We got an iPhone for my niece who is 8. It’s locked down so all she can do is text, call, and take pictures/video and she can’t contact anyone not in her contacts list. She has some games but can’t use them for more than an hour per day and they won’t open during school hours.
A big issue is parents not bothering to learn how to use and set up parental controls.
Controls like these don't work if the kid is smart, determined or the parents are too tired or uninvolved. There's more to the cellphone issue than the actual cellphone.
It depends on how heavy handed the approach is. A kid could learn about using a vpn or proxy service to bypass dns or dpi based content filtering but if you properly configure the parental controls on iOS or android there is pretty much nothing they are going to be able to do. If they are that determined, I think you need to have a conversation about making good choices themselves and trusting them not to consume harmful content.
I was able to bypass the content filters on the PCs when I was in high school because it was a shitty content filter that could be bypassed by killing the process in an unelevated task manager. My kids are going to have to be more resourceful than that
It doesn't matter if the kid is smart and determined, parental controls can't be circumvented.
Unless the parent is stupid enough to leave their phones unlocked or lax enough to unblock the phone every time the kid asks for it.
I think you’re being a little naive…
Circumventing parental controls that “couldn’t be circumvented” is what I did as a child that led to me being a computer programmer
We're not talking about the dumb parental controls from the 90's or 2000's and run on Windows, we're talking about smartphone OSes (iOS and Android) that are locked down to start with.
Security is really hard, and these operating systems are built with new features and release dates as the primary concerns
If you’re trying to follow proper security practices as of today, ensure the device is up to date and rebooted daily
Use the parental control features as one part of parenting, but don’t expect them to be infallible
oh no...anyway...
No, they literally can’t be bypassed unless they figure out the passcode. Parental controls on iOS are part of the OS, not like the easily bypassed software you would install on a computer.
Sure they are buddy. Perfect security. Why would anyone think otherwise?
Apple screen time parental Controls were created because third party software was using MDM which Apple didn’t like. If Apple can lock down a phone with mdm for companies to give to their employees why exactly do you think software built into the OS is easy to get around like net nanny?
Googling found an article about getting around it.
Nothing on there an 8 year old would do and there’s directions on how to prevent any of it. You can lock down changing system settings or even stop them from editing their contacts.
Cool story bro.
One of the ways I got around my parent’s settings after getting caught by simply resetting their password was by using alternate operating systems on livecds
Saying they literally can’t be bypassed is why I’m saying it’s naive to trust them implicitly
So… are you going to link the live cd that works on iPhones or just going to continue talking about the net nanny days? iOS is locked down. Nothing is bulletproof but a child isn’t going to find a way around it.
I only know how to get around my employer’s device settings for iOS. I would have to have access to your phone to try to get around them
The issue I have with your comment is “a child isn’t going to find a way around it” I was much more motivated to find a way around settings my parents set on devices when I was a child, and I definitely shared how to do it with my friends
Maybe your settings are secure, but it’s not trivial for most parents
Yeah, I haven't gotten to that point with my kids but he's getting a flip phone first if I can find one. I see other kids on his bus (elementary level) with smartphones and I think it's insane.
12? Those kids get phones at 8-9 around here as far as I saw.
I lent my 8yo my old phone, heavily restricted and with Family Link installed; She's only allowed 2 hours a day and isn't allowed on stuff like YouTube. There are ways to do it responsibly.
There are a few things to consider.
She's just 8, so you have an easier time controlling what she does (I say this with the experience of rising 2 children to adulthood)
She might not be susceptible to these things
You just might be a better parent for any arbitrary reason
So as an anecdote your situation is valuable, but as a guideline to how the whole society should handle this problem possibly not so much.