UNDER CTRL

Examining student and parent opinions on parental controls

BY ANIKA BHANDARKAR AND MEGHA MUMMANENI

The clock struck ten, and sophomore Lotus Wu found herself unable to continue studying, as the parental controls on her device lock at 10 p.m. each night. Wu felt a sense of urgency as she needed to finish a project and study for a test by the next morning. Despite waking up early the following day and frantically trying to finish her assignments, in the end, Wu wasn’t able to submit the level of work she intended, leaving her disappointed.

Junior Gale Whittle, who has controls on his iPhone, limiting the amount of time he can spend on social media and restricting 18+ content, has also experienced feelings of panic when parental controls take effect. He has frequently texted people “as [quickly] as possible, then [closed] the app after to not run down the timer,” treating his screen time as a “precious resource that [he] needs to conserve.” Whittle also mentions that disabling his phone at night, which was originally intended to encourage him to go to sleep earlier, ultimately proved ineffective.

“A lot of my friends are online at night because that’s the only free time we have now that we’re super busy,” Whittle said. “I personally hate being isolated, and it was scary to be without contact.”

Similarly, MVHS parent William Lee recognizes that time restrictions are inadequate because his child “winds up staying up to study,” and the controls end up getting in the way of his kid’s ability to do so. He permanently turned off the restrictions once they became more of a hassle than a safeguard, though he still chooses to keep content restrictions on his child’s phone, having enabled them after an information night for parents when his child was in middle school.

“At this age, you need to be more vigilant about what your kids are looking at online,” Lee said. “It’s not a time to give less oversight. You need to give more oversight because there’s a lot that can happen — there’s a lot of bad stuff out there.”

MVHS PARENT

Wu, who has the same iPhone restrictions as Whittle, also addresses the positives that come with safety controls. She is a fine balance between parental controls helping a child be safe online and being overly controlling. While Lee doesn’t restrict his child’s screen time, he plans to lift the safety restrictions he has implemented only after his child turns 18, since he believes that kids should be able to “have that

Ultimately, both Whittle and Wu agree that a crucial part of setting up restrictions is having conversations between parents and their children prior to enabling the controls. Whittle emphasizes the importance of communicating with kids about having healthy relationships with screen time from a young age and teaching them the importance of being able to control the time they spend on their phones.

51% of MVHS students have had or currently have parental controls on their device(s)

*According to a survey of 106 people

49%