What happens when a school bans smartphones? A complete transformation | US education | The Guardian::Teachers say mobile phones make their lives a living hell – so one Massachusetts school barred them

  • SmashingSquid@notyour.rodeo
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    10 months ago

    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.

    • Randomgal@lemmy.ca
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      10 months ago

      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.

      • TORFdot0@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        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

      • erwan@lemmy.ml
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        10 months ago

        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.

        • ozymandias117@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          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

          • erwan@lemmy.ml
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            10 months ago

            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.

            • ozymandias117@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              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

          • SmashingSquid@notyour.rodeo
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            10 months ago

            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.

            • Randomgal@lemmy.ca
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              10 months ago

              Sure they are buddy. Perfect security. Why would anyone think otherwise?

              • SmashingSquid@notyour.rodeo
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                10 months ago

                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.