This is because software engineers never actually use devices that have parental controls enabled. Most parents either don’t enable the controls, or never use devices while those controls are active. It’s a user experience that is not tested in real world conditions very much.

And the people that do experience it, children, obviously don’t want it enabled whether it works or not. They’re not going to go reporting bugs, lol! What parents consider bugs are actually features for the children.

Only the kind of adult that wrote this blog post actually uses devices that have parental controls enabled, and sees how they actually work.

The author suggests that companies should make their parental controls work to stave off government regulation. I think there’s actually a midway solution.

I don’t want to see a government put its hand on the wheel and do the controls themselves. Instead, the government should regulate the companies and use the force of law to get them to make their parental controls work. Create a standard for parental control features that must be offered, tested, and working. If a platform doesn’t have the controls available that actually work, then you can’t sell it.

If a government tells Apple it can’t sell iPhones until it fixes these problems with screen time, or that Nintendo can’t sell switches until it fixes their issues, then you can be damn sure they’ll be fixed within the week.