Kids are creative and persistent. From building forts out of cardboard boxes to finding new ways to annoy their siblings or parents, they’ll do what it takes to get what they want. What many parents are discovering is that screen time limitation apps are no different. While parents are using apps like Apple’s Screen Time, Amazon’s FreeTime, or any one of Google’s digital wellbeing apps, kids are finding new and innovative ways to hack or bypass these apps and continue scrolling, watching, and playing on their devices.

“The problem has bedeviled parents who have struggled to strike a balance between allowing smartphone access for schoolwork and basic social interactions and protecting their children from the pitfalls of the mobile world.”

How Do They Find Out?

Kids are the masters of finding loopholes and ways around the boundaries their parents have set. This is no different from the decades of teens sneaking out past curfew or saying they’re staying one place and actually staying at another. However, these technological hacks are often so far over parents’ heads, they don’t even know it’s happening. And what’s worse? Kids who found those loopholes share how they do it with their peers!

YouTube Videos

There are many videos online that demonstrate step-by-step instructions on how to bypass screen time regulations set in screen time apps.

Reddit Threads

In case you haven’t heard of Reddit, it’s an online forum site where people can share questions, thoughts, images, etc., and others can respond or repost it. There have been several threads discovered that have detailed explanations of different ways to hack screen time limits.

While Reddit is specifically mentioned, kids can go onto almost any social media site and find this kind of information.

Word-of-Mouth

As much as we’d like to blame everything on technology, we can’t ignore the good old word-of-mouth technique. While this is less of a concern during the current pandemic guidelines, things will eventually return to normal (hopefully), and this will again be another way to learn the hacks.

In our next posts, we’ll explain the methods kids are using to hack the screen time limits like:

• Device hacks
• App exploits

Learn about an eye vitamin designed to support children’s eyes during screen time.