Screen time controls that actually work

January 3, 2021 10:33 AM

Here's what I want to do: (1) dole out screen time in 15-60 minute increments that apply to all apps (e.g., I type in the password and they can use it for a certain amount of time, then the phone locks up again), (2) have screen time unavailable during the lunch hour and after 5:30 except to parents. How?

On iPhone, you can set a bedtime, so I set that at 5:30. The problem is that you can ask any app for one more minute. The child in question will literally go through all ... 60? 80? apps at one more minute each. If we want to let him use it, we have to give 15 more minutes app by app. (Also, if a parent wants to use it, you have to type in the password for literally every web page, i.e., every news story, so we end up disabling it entirely and then forget to re-enable it.)

On Pixel, I found a way to set daily screentime allotments app by app. But ideally, I don't want him to blow through the entire allotment without check in points, hence wanting to have to check back in at no more than one hour. I haven't tested the Pixel's bedtime function.

Has anyone figured this out? I'm open to other solutions that achieve roughly the same goals.

posted by slidell to Computers & Internet (10 answers total)

I'm in the same boat as you, and there are two ways to approach the problem:

1) You can lock the device down using Screen Time so that only the apps you choose are functioning. A device-based approach.

2) You can lock down the device's internet connection so that nothing works on the phone except local apps. A network-based approach.

Now, the downsides:

1) Device approach: Apple's Screen Time is worthless. Like you, I was constantly shifting "bedtimes" to try and keep the kids focused on classroom time since "bedtimes" are the only thing that locks a device down on demand or by schedule (not even a large on/off switch, Apple? C'mon!)

But there are loopholes and bugs and ways around almost everything in Screen Time. All the kids share and know all of them and they will always be ahead of you on it. I've given up on this approach other than keeping a single bedtime for the times they need to be asleep, and password-locking that all down so they can't modify it. But this doesn't cover daytime use.

2) Network: I've used Circle before, which was good for locking out certain websites/apps. I'm now using an eero mesh network which can close off single devices or preassigned groups of devices, but that's still a manual process (but easier to do than Screen Time). Still, it's better than Apple's thing. eero won't adopt Circle but they seem to be adding more features in this area.

I've recently combined the eero with a Pi-Hole which can sink DNS lookups by domain, which effectively shuts you out of a lot of apps since they can't call home. This is the same approach Circle uses, with a much higher learning curve (sorry). But even this doesn't stop someone from, say, downloading a entire film from Netflix and watching it later while offline. And it's still a manual process, but Pi-Hole has a nice web interface to let you switch domains in and out of the blacklist.

So my short answer to this data dump is to try and time the network, not the device, then lock it all down at night. That seems to work better in my experience.
posted by JoeZydeco at 11:02 AM on January 3, 2021 [1 favorite]

Google Family Link?

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.kids.familylink&hl=en_US&gl=US
posted by kschang at 12:30 PM on January 3, 2021

Google Family Link is for Android phones. You can set time limits for each app or mark a particular app as not available. Youtube is automatically disabled (kid can only use Youtube Kids). You can set a daily cumulative time limit, but the individual app limits still apply. You can give out bonus time if this daily limit is reached. There's a setting for bedtime, but you can unlock the phone with a parent password after bedtime. IMO all of this works best if the device in question is dedicated to kid's use and not shared.
posted by gakiko at 2:41 PM on January 3, 2021 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I’m using a paid app called screen time on my iPhone to manage my daughter’s access to her iPhone and our iPad. It has an adult override password. I’ve set it up to allow certain apps 24/7 like photos and WhatsApp, other apps only during her allowed time. She can ‘earn’ additional time and request approval. It’s been several months and I’m happy with it. I tried several other apps but this was the most straightforward.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 4:09 PM on January 3, 2021

Response by poster: Google Family Link?

Do I have to create their own Google identity and sign into apps in their own name? I'm not sure I'd want to get Google specifically tracking my kid's activity, but maybe that isn't necessary?
posted by slidell at 5:34 PM on January 3, 2021

We do something very similar with an app called Kidslox.

We set it so it doesn't turn on until 7am (because our almost 8 yr old would wake up at 4am to watch cartoons, I swear) and then you can set limits for each day. At any time, you can also (from your phone or on the device itself) give or take away more time in 5 min and 10 min increments.

You can make it apply to all apps, but you can also turn off access completely to certain apps (we do that with YouTube a lot). It also has content filtering built in which is really helpful.

When you want to use the device, you put it into Parent mode. When your kid uses it, it's in Child mode. When it's locked my kid can still pick it up and listen to Apple Music as I know Apple makes it harder for these apps to control their own apps.

KidsLox uses a VPN which it routes all of the internet traffic through for that device.
posted by jdl at 6:09 PM on January 3, 2021 [1 favorite]

We pay for OurPact (https://ourpact.com/) to set time limits, schedules, allowed apps, etc. for both of our kids' Apple devices. HTH
posted by xiix at 11:24 AM on January 4, 2021

Do I have to create their own Google identity and sign into apps in their own name?

You create a Google-Lite (under 13yo) account for them in the process, and the device uses that account. I guess signing in depends on the app(s) in question (I could stay signed in as myself on my kid's device in some apps), but yes, I think it works best if the kid's account is used for everything on that device.

I remembered one more thing: if you're using Family Link, you can't install Google Play Games on the Family Link-controlled phone. Some games don't like this.
posted by gakiko at 12:28 PM on January 4, 2021

Response by poster: Thanks! I'll check out a few of these. Appreciated!
posted by slidell at 4:38 AM on January 6, 2021

Response by poster: I haven't tried all of these, but I did just manage to set up what I wanted to do on an app called Screen Time: Parental Controls. Thanks for flagging that one, dorothyisunderwood. I put most of the day on the schedule as blocked. Then it will allow me to override the block for a given number of minutes very easily. So I can create a schedule of when screen time is allowed, but at any point I can also say "you can watch videos for 10 minutes now." Possibly all the other apps have this same feature, but that was the key for me. Thanks!
posted by slidell at 11:37 PM on August 23, 2021 [1 favorite]