Some interesting Screen Time hacks here. Here’s just a taste:
His son, a seven-year-old, deletes the games he’s been locked out of and then re-downloads it from the App Store. With iCloud, he doesn’t miss a beat, as all of his games are stored on a server waiting for him to resume play. Apple, unfortunately, overlooked this clever hack entirely. Once the game is re-downloaded, it starts the clock over again for the day.
Kids!
Thwarting aa parental control is not something to cheer about. Kids!
Great thread.
The bottom line is, the technology will improve but it’s not a substitute for parenting. With my 3-year-old, we always accompany him with any screen (iPad, Apple TV) time he gets, and avoid using phones in his vicinity when he’s awake.
It means I’ve basically stopped watching all sports at this point and I’ve gone from someone who could tell you every single player on every MLB team to someone who only barely knows which teams are in the playoffs, but hopefully it’s worth it. When he’s older we’ll revisit baseball 🙂
I’ll add that the Apple Watch is incredibly useful for this. It means I can remain in communication with folks without taking out my phone everywhere. It’s also good for /me/ in that I’ve broke the habit of pulling out my phone nonstop. The Series 4 with its larger screen makes it surprisingly powerful; I’ve re-discovered the Mail app on it, and it’s manageable to triage email now! I was debating the 44mm, but it is perfect. Really impressed with it.