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Comment by kemayo | Hacker News Reader

> Somewhere along the way, I realize that apps like TikTok and Instagram are impervious to Apple’s Screen Time limit. They work even when the rest of her phone shuts down. To keep the peace, I let it slide.

The author is completely wrong about this, so I can only assume that their kid is indeed being creative and has manipulated them into believing it.

Overall... this does seem like an "onset of adolescence" thing. 20 years ago this author would have been bemoaning that their teenage daughter spent all day on the land-line with her friends.

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I actually noticed this the other day. I set a 10 minute time limit on Instagram, and while I'll get the "5 minutes left" reminder, it won't kick me out of the app the way it does for other apps. Running iOS 14.2.

Can anyone from Apple or an iOS dev chime in? What is the screen time limit supposed to do? Are apps required to abide by it, and these ones are circumventing that somehow, or is it optional for the app to shut down?

This seems fixable, either on the dev side or with better communication about how the feature actually works. There's no reason to dupe people.

Also 14.2, I went and checked this on my own phone. It both gave me the 5 minute warning, and then locked the app when the limit expired.

Could be a bug somewhere that I'm not being hit by, of course.

Also, could be the article writer using parent-controlled screen time limits and having accidentally(?) unchecked the "block at limit" option in the rule, which would let the phone-user hit the "ignore limit" button for it.

> Overall... this does seem like an "onset of adolescence" thing. 20 years ago this author would have been bemoaning that their teenage daughter spent all day on the land-line with her friends

This time it is so different. On the landline with friends you could talk but not be manipulated by external actors. Landlines are not exactly skinner boxes and also they cannot be thrown into one's pocket and be with them virtually everywhere. This time it is different.

2000 years ago and Plato would say that books ruins creativity.

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