Michele Wyman, an Apple spokesperson, says that Apple is “committed to providing our users with powerful tools to manage their iOS devices and are always working to make them even better” if this was true, then why can my 14-year old little brother bypass parental controls in less than a minute?
Now, I may be wrong, but I don’t think Joey or any of the kids in his freshman class are smarter than the engineers and software developers at Apple (yet). So, why aren’t Apple and other software companies actually committing themselves to protecting young eyes from the uglier side of the internet? I have two theories: 1. These companies make money the more consumers spend time on their devices so why would they create software that restricted that? And 2. The parental controls must be simple enough to use and disable for the average parent or they wouldn’t be able to do it themselves. While, the first theory is more likely the second raises some more interesting questions. Will the younger generation always be more tech savvy than those who came before them?
First, we must distinguish the youngest generation from their parents. Gen Z is an entire generation of children being born directly into a technological era. While older generations while they may be accustomed to the technological era they will never have the natural skill of a child born in 2001 when it comes to resetting the WiFi router. I even think that there is a difference between adjacent generations. Millennials while certainly tech-savvy still adjusted to iphones at an older age.
So, to close, enjoy being better at technology than your parents while you can because soon your kids will be the savvy ones.