ParentTech.Support

https://parenttech.support

Bark, Gryphon Router, other tools can all be found here:

https://www.healthyscreenhabits.org/tools#ProductsWeEndorse

OpenDNS:

https://www.opendns.com/

Hillary Wilkinson: (00:02)

So many guests of who I have on this podcast have found their way to becoming digital wellness experts on one of two paths. Typically, they're either parents who recognized a problem slash became accidental, activists or researchers who are experts on human development, and realized early on that technology is kind of hijacking this human experience and so they're studying it further. But today my guest is neither. He is an expert in talking to parents about tech support because he has literally grown up in this digital age. Today he's going to share info tips and provide tech support for all of us who are trying to figure it out. Welcome to Healthy Screen Habits, Jack Hughes.

Jack Hughes: (01:06)

Hello. Thank you for having me on today.

Hillary Wilkinson: (01:08)

Oh, I'm thrilled. Jack, if you are comfortable now, can you share your background for reference, maybe like the year you graduated high school, what your relationship was with tech growing up.

Jack Hughes: (01:22)

Okay. So grew up with technology. My, one of my earliest memories is getting an iPad for Christmas as a kid. Um, at first I didn't know the password, so my parents would open it up. I’d have like 15 minutes a day to play Minecraft or whatever it was. And then I later got, I believe it was an iPod or maybe it was a phone without a phone number, something like that. And my parents put on parental controls. I think they put on some third party application. This is before screen time. And they wanted to keep me off, you know, the internet. They wanted to keep me off social media. They didn't want me getting games. But me and my older brother at the time, we were very resourceful and we would always, we would spend hours trying to figure out little loopholes ways to get around the parental controls.

Jack Hughes: (02:10)

And we eventually would learn a few of these exploits and we would use certain back doors they get on the internet, certain ways to get apps on our phones that we weren't supposed to have, like games. And so, and then we would always sneak, you know, YouTube to like 2:00 AM or, uh, we would take my mom's computer and use that. Just a lot of times with me getting around parental controls. And so later on, eventually, you know, three, four years down the line, I get caught as, you know, kids, kids will. And then my dad had an idea. I was around 17, 17 and a half around the time, finishing up my senior year of high school. And my dad had the idea. 'cause I, I've been looking to start a business, and that is because I know all those back doors because I have so much experience with parental controls.

Jack Hughes: (03:01)

And I've also helped my parents with my younger siblings. Um, I have a bunch of siblings. The oldest of those younger set of siblings would be 10. Then I have a 8-year-old sister and a 7-year-old brother. And I've helped my parents with their parental controls. And so my dad had an idea if I started a business and how I could educate parents on how to use printer controls because I know all those loopholes because I know all the exploits that kids use, that I use as a kid, um, that I can help educate other parents and how to prevent those and how to, you know, protect their kids online. So that was my mission.

Hillary Wilkinson: (03:44)

Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . So as you're explaining to yourself, I just kind of had this vision of you being like, digital Robinhood .

Jack Hughes: (03:53)

Yeah, exactly. .

Hillary Wilkinson: (03:55)

I'm like, and in my mind you were the animated Robin, Robin Hood, not the Errol Flynn, the fox, Robin Hood. The fox. Exactly, exactly. .

Jack Hughes: (04:04)

Yeah. Almost like the, uh, almost like the bad guy who became the, the, the cop.

Hillary Wilkinson: (04:08)

Right. I, I know. Exactly. Your expertise comes from your background. Yeah. So, um, and just like I, if you're comfortable, can you share the year that you graduated high school, just so people recognize the current age that you're at?

Jack Hughes: (04:31)

Yeah, that would be, year of 2023 to 2024. This is my graduation year, so,

Hillary Wilkinson: (04:45)

Yeah. Yeah. So I'm just, I'm emphasizing that so that people recognize the relevance of what you're talking about. Mm-hmm . You know, for those of us who currently have kids in high school and all of the things, I feel like you have an, your, the service you provide is inherently valuable, but you're, I mean, your finger on the pulse of having just been living, you know mm-hmm . This, this life is so, so valuable and important.

Jack Hughes: (05:17)

Yeah. In terms of parental controls, I like to say the prisoner knows more about the prison than the prison warden in a sense.

Hillary Wilkinson: (05:24)

So one of the platforms that you've used to help parents is YouTube. And you have all these little great short videos, super easy to follow short videos where you explain potential problem areas for parents that they may not even realize are potential, you know, danger zones. And we think often that by keeping our kids off of social media, we have our bases covered. And, but on one of your videos, you kind of go into the pitfalls of group chats and can you talk about that a little bit?

Jack Hughes: (06:09)

Yeah. So a lot of times, group chats- there's so many people on them, it kind of gets chaotic. Um, a big point I always, I touched on in that video was FOMO, which is fear of missing out. Um, just like, you know, 30 minutes ago I had all my friends on a group chat and they were talking and I couldn't do my work. I couldn't prepare for this interview because, you know, I always, I had fomo. And then another point when it comes to texting, I think it's like only 9% of what we communicate is, uh, verbal and the rest is tone and flex and all sorts of stuff. Yeah. And texting just cuts all that out. And texting makes it easy to be super confident because when I'm texting someone, I can be confident. Um, like for example, whenever I, I would be texting a girl, it's super easy to ask a girl out over text because you can plan it out. You could say the perfect words and it's not scary, but in person you may see the girl in person and you may freeze up and it, it, it creates like a, a false sense of confidence and it's all virtual and fake and it just, it's not right. You know, I'd rather it's much healthier and better to be in person and, you know, to have a full group like that. Yeah. You develop your social skills a lot better.

Hillary Wilkinson: (07:53)

Yeah. Yeah. I think everybody, I, everybody can relate to that at this point. Anybody who, my default to dealing with a lot of things, be it he or not, is through humor. And humor on text is really hard. Mm-hmm . And I have found myself coming across as being incredibly offensive. Yeah. Sometimes. And I just need to like, just keep it straight and dial it back, you know? But unfortunately that's only come from, you know, sticking my foot in my mouth several times. The other thing that I don't, um, know that everybody realize about realizes about the group chat situation is, um, it's kind of a very, uh, common area for let's say salacious content to get shared.

Jack Hughes: (08:48)

Yeah. Yeah.

Hillary Wilkinson: (08:49)

And so I think that's what, you know, people think, oh, they're not on social media, so that's not an issue, but be aware that, you know, photos, videos, et cetera can be shared on group chat. And do you wanna talk just for a second about the whole, you know, iPhone versus Android?

Jack Hughes: (09:08)

Oh yeah.

Hillary Wilkinson: (09:09)

Thing. Yeah.

Jack Hughes: (09:10)

So if you have an Android, you're gonna get the cursed green bubble. And, and you know, photos are a lot lower quality with the green bubbles, you know, you have a lot of less features. So people with green bubbles tend to get excommunicated from group chats 'cause they have the green bubble. Um, and so that's why I think it's like, that's one of the driving factors why so many kids want iPhone today or want, want iPhones today. I think it's like 80% of all teenagers have, uh, iPhones. Um, and you were saying earlier about those salacious texts, once you send that on a group chat, it's not like, it's not like saying something in person once you say that on a group chat, it's there forever. I mean, it's never gonna go away. I mean, how many times do we hear about, you know, or politicians or business people say something and it's out there forever, you know? For sure. They're always part of it. For

Hillary Wilkinson: (10:01)

Sure. For sure. No careers have been ruined over, over images sent, um, . So the other thing that I, um, am remarkably uninformed on, which is not saying much. I'm, I'm remarkably uninformed on a whole lot of stuff, but let's talk about VPNs. Like what are they? How are kids using them to get around controls? Can you just kind of break it down for us?

Jack Hughes: (10:29)

Yeah. So A VPN stands for a virtual private network and essentially is, it's like an extra server. Your phone goes before going to the internet. So let's say I wanna look up CAT videos on a phone without a VPN, it's, their phone is going to go to the website with the CAT videos directly. So it's gonna go from your phone to the website. A VPN is like a little middleman. So the phone will go to the VPN and then the VPN goes to the CAT videos. And so that has some benefits. Some of the benefits are, it's more secure. Let's say there's a hacker, let's say the CAT videos is like a hack thing, right? And once to get your information, it can't get your phone's information because it's actually being searched up by the VPN and the VPN is just giving the information. But that can be negative or that could be bad in terms of parental controls. 'cause sometimes, depending on what filter or what type of parental controls you're using, you can use VPNs to get around filters. A lot of parental controls will use, uh, like a middleman to track what websites you're going. If you're using A VPN, it can kind of get around that. And let's say you have a, you have a filter on that blocks pornography or something, A VPN could potentially get around that. And it depends on what filter you have and what VPN you're using.

Hillary Wilkinson: (11:50)

Yeah. And how easy is it to get a VPN?

Jack Hughes: (11:54)

Pretty easy. Um, it's like, is

Hillary Wilkinson: (11:56)

That something pretty much an

Jack Hughes: (11:56)

App you download?

Hillary Wilkinson: (11:57)

Oh, okay. It's an app. Yeah. Or like, do you just YouTube it, like how to set it up? Yeah.

Jack Hughes: (12:02)

Yeah. Um, computer, you don't need an app, I believe an iPhone. You just download an app and it takes like, you know, I could probably do it in five minutes. Well, most of 'em cost some money. So that's a, it's a, you know, but it's like $3 a month, so it's really cheap.

Hillary Wilkinson: (12:18)

When we come back, let's talk more about what parents can do if they want a real tech back in, but they're kind of unsure on how to start it. 

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Ad Break: Bark

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I'm speaking with Jack Hughes, a Gen Zer who is helping parents with his business Parent Tech Support. The link is absolutely going to be in these show notes. So stick around to figure out how to get to that. Jack, one of the things I really like about parent tech support is you give people actionable tips and tell them exactly how to do things like layer parental controls. Can you kind of get into that?

Jack Hughes: (14:11)

Yeah. So this is one of the best strategies that I've learned. I call it layering. Um, you're essentially layering different parental controls on top of each other. So the first layer is what I call in-app controls. So certain apps like TikTok, like, uh, Roblox will have parental controls baked into the app itself that you can set up. So you set up that layer, and then you set up a second layer, which is, device parental control. So every device, like an iPhone, like Android, will have parental controls baked into the phone. They also then set those up. So that would be the second layer. And then you set up, um, third party parental controls. And so you get like bark, you get, uh, quiz, no, you know, third party parental controls, and that's another extra layer of security.

Jack Hughes: (15:09)

And then you can go on to wifi controls. So wifi filters, setting up a filter on your wifi network itself. And then let's say your child goes to, goes abroad and you wanna set up parental controls on their cellular device or their cellular provider. So that's another, an extra, extra layer. So what is really nice about these layers is, let's say they find a way around one control. They, they find a way around the, uh, third party printer controls. You'll still have two other layers there to meet them, to block them. So it's like, it's like you have a diamond and you put it in a, in a safe, and then you put that safe in a bank vault, and then you put a security team around that bank vault. So it's just extra layers upon layers. And they're not just, they're not just adding, they're not just, it's not just one plus one is two, they're compounding, essentially. So they're getting more and more secure. And so it's a, a big strategy. I really encourage parents to, to use a layering.

Hillary Wilkinson: (16:09)

Yeah. Yeah. Um, for my own understanding, when you're talking about doing the, uh, the wifi controls, would that be something like a Gryphon router? Is that, yeah, so, okay.

Jack Hughes: (16:23)

Yeah. Um, but most routers will have controls just at least a super basic form of control. So you can set up, but the Griffin router is a great, or the bark home wifi, 'cause that's made for parental controls. Okay. Um, you can also use a service called Open DNS, which I also really like. They're completely free and they're really one of the best internet filters I've ever, I've ever seen. Um, I highly recommend them as well.

Hillary Wilkinson: (16:54)

Wow. That's a great tip. Thank you. I've never even heard of them. And I'm in this zone. So, , can you, um, can you lock parental controls? I know I just recently spoke with, um, another guest who spoke about how some parental controls are easy to get around by changing time zones or mm-hmm . You know, just simply turning, turning things off, and then reinstalling. So can you lock certain parental controls?

Jack Hughes: (17:27)

Yeah. So like, as you're saying, the time zones part, I used to do that growing up when my, my parents had a service called Kids Lock on my phone. That was a third party controls. And I, I, I did that all the time. It was a great strategy to get around controls, or I would turn off the wifi and I would have unlimited screen time. Um, but if you set 'em up correctly, like if you set up in a way where it locks, so it locks down, so you can't delete the app. Mm-hmm . So a lot of times kids will just delete the parental control apps and so it would unlock the phone. But on the parental controls, if you lock down their ability to not delete apps and they can never delete the app in the first place. Mm-hmm . Um, so there are ways you could lock down. There are strategies you can use. Um, screen time is is, which is Apple's built-in controls. I use screen time a lot just because, you know, everyone has an iPhone these days. And, um, it's pretty intuitive. Not intuitive, but it's, it's easy for me to explain 'cause I've used it a lot.

Hillary Wilkinson: (18:28)

Okay. Since, let me ask you, 'cause we're an Apple family and one of the things that I have found in using screen time, um, and even with myself, like I, I install controls on myself because I will find mm-hmm. Oh my god, Jack the freaking Instagram, right? The . Yeah. I mean the time blindness is real. It's so addictive. Real. Oh my gosh. And I'm like, I know this stuff. Right? But, um, so I will set up time controls for myself, but it seems like, like, uh, with updates it gets cleared. Yeah.

Jack Hughes: (19:03)

Yeah. A lot of times it will.

Hillary Wilkinson: (19:04)

So, so how, what do you That's part of why I'm asking if you can lock it down. Because like, I, I don't know how, how to, uh, to do that. 'cause unfortunately, I, I figure out that my controls have been undone. Yeah. By the fact that, oh, it's an hour later, you know, not the mm-hmm . 30 minute, the 30 minute time set that I had.

Jack Hughes: (19:32)

Yeah. That's, um, that's actually a, a screen time bug, that I believe Apple knows about.

Hillary Wilkinson: (19:38)

Yeah. And

Jack Hughes: (19:38)

It's been there for like three or four years. They never fixed it. Or maybe they've said they fixed it, but it's still there. Mm-hmm . Um, that's one of the reasons why I recommend that parents, you know, generally always check through their screen time, always look at their parental controls, do a quick 10 minute look at it, because that happens a lot and it's always kind of scary. And, and that happened to me when I was growing up and that was the best thing ever because I had no parental controls .

Hillary Wilkinson: (20:03)

Yeah. Yeah. Well, like always for me, I'm like, oh, this is awesome. Like, I'm really, for me it's like, oh, I must be really relaxed today. I'm just feeling like time is stretching out . And then it's like, oh no, actually time is going by. You're just getting sucked into . Yeah.

Jack Hughes: (20:20)

And a lot of parents won't add a screen time pin to their child's. So when they first set up screen time, they, they set it all up, but they don't ever set a pin because like Apple doesn't make it clear that you need to set up a password to block them. Oh. For like years, my parents thought they, I had, they had screen time on my phone, but I could always just ignore the limit they put in. Oh, gotcha. And once they put that pin in, and the other thing was they put that pin in, but they didn't make it secure and they never changed it. Oh. And so it was, it was, funny enough, it was the same code that we used for the garage door.

Hillary Wilkinson: (20:58)

hahaha

Jack Hughes: (21:01)

So it was pretty easy to guess.

Hillary Wilkinson: (21:01)

Talk about the literal keys to the kingdom. You're like, . Yeah. Like I got it all.

Jack Hughes: (21:07)

Yeah. And it's, I, I also highly recommend that parents change that like once a month. Oh. Because kids are resourceful. I mean, I would even set up cameras looking down when I would ask them to put it in so that I could get the code. 

Hillary Wilkinson: (21:20)

You are, you are good, Jack. 

Jack Hughes: (21:23)

It was, it was like mission impossible.

Hillary Wilkinson: (21:24)

Next level , I can understand why your dad was like, you need to use your skills for good son. Okay. So what, in your estimation, what do you think are the most problematic websites for kids today?

Jack Hughes: (21:44)

Okay. So, I mean, right off the bat you have all those porn websites that you know, walk kids into all that. That's goes without saying mm-hmm. Um, you have social medias, so you have, you know, Instagram, um, Instagram will create a lot of body image issues, a lot of comparisons, a lot of unhealthy comparisons is, I myself will compare myself to, you know, super jacked guys who look absolutely beautiful, but let's be honest, they're all on steroids and they all doing drugs or Photoshopping their, their looks. So this, it's an unhealthy, stupid comparison. Or you have apps like TikTok, you have apps like, um, you know, YouTube Shorts especially where you just, it ruins your attention span. You can't focus anymore. Um, I mean, ruins your dopamine. I'm sure you know a lot about dopamine. Everyone talks about dopamine nowadays, but it's a

Hillary Wilkinson: (22:37)

It's a real Yeah. But go ahead. Real problem. It's alright. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jack Hughes: (22:40)

A big one that goes under the radar a lot would be, um, uh, Reddit forums. Mm-hmm  I don't know if Discord would be a forum. It's something like that. But, um, Reddit and, and Discord. There's a lot of, um, shady stuff on those, on those sites. Mm-hmm . No one really talks about, or Quora, I believe is another one. Lots of lots of pornography on those sites that, you know, that's

Hillary Wilkinson: (23:12)

A pornography. Yeah. And lots of radicalization of Yeah. You know, any, any direction. I mean, you know, yeah. You

Jack Hughes: (23:19)

Could find stuff like, you know, the Holocaust of Deniers or mm-hmm .

Hillary Wilkinson: (23:24)

Flat Earthers . Yeah.

Jack Hughes: (23:26)

I mean, and that's how it started, right? Yeah. I think it was on Reddit or something like that.

Hillary Wilkinson: (23:29)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's not even necessarily, uh, websites that you're finding problematic. It's the apps that you Yeah.

Jack Hughes: (23:38)

Or, or, um, I was talking to, uh, my, uh, my brother the other day and Tumblr did, you know, Tumblr is a massive spot where people sell drugs and people buy drugs off of, it's not just Tumblr. You can, you can get drugs off Instagram, you can get off, you know, marketplace.

Hillary Wilkinson: (23:55)

Snapchat is, Snapchat's an absolute hub. Yeah. And we have, sadly, horrifically I have interviewed many parents who have lost children due to fentanyl laced drugs bought on Snapchat. They'll start on a different platform and then they'll say they'll move them to Snapchat. 

Jack Hughes: (24:13)

Because it's untraceable. Mm-hmm . Yeah.

Hillary Wilkinson: (24:15)

Yeah. Exactly. So what do you think about the, uh, current recommendations from our former Surgeon General Dr. Murthy and the adoption by Australia that social media should be, you know, not allowed for kids? 

Jack Hughes: (24:32)

Yeah. I think it's great. I think 16 is a great age. Um, I, I, I, almost all my videos what I could talk about social media, I recommend 16. And even then you should know what they're doing on social media. Yeah. I mean, maybe even older. Maybe it's a special like maybe 18 for Snapchat as you were saying.

Hillary Wilkinson: (24:50)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, oh, and, and just so you know, so that, you know, of this resource that we have, we have a four part Stepping Into Social Media. So it's not, it's not like at 16, you don't toss your kids the keys to the car and say, okay, see ya. You know? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Exactly. You, there's, there's training that happens. Yeah. There's a walk-in approach where we have kids like practice posting on your account and, you know, and like, look at things posted together and point out.

Jack Hughes: (25:25)

Build up, build up the resistance to, to like TikTok or something, because if you just, it's like dropped into the ocean and you can't even swim. 

Hillary Wilkinson: (25:33)

Totally. And the ocean is, uh, you know, I mean deep. It's deep, and it's designed to pull you under. Yeah. It's, I mean, it is, is designed by some of the best minds of our time to pull you under. So we're getting very dark. Jack, let's take a break.

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Ad Break: HSH Website

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Hillary Wilkinson:

I'm speaking with Jack Hughes. He is the president of Parent Tech support, an organization whose mission is to help parents protect their kids online. So parent tech support does that by providing free, straightforward content that educates parents. I've learned much by watching his videos, and he also has a personal connection by helping parents set up parental controls and providing support. I just, I think everyone would find you incredibly relatable, Jack . So on every episode of the Healthy Screen Habits podcast, I ask each guest for a healthy screen habit. And this is gonna be a tip or takeaway that listeners can put into practice in their own home. So what's yours?

Jack Hughes: (26:53)

Um, I would say one of my most important tips after, especially after you've set up parental controls is to generally, you know, let's say maybe it's once a week, maybe it's once a month to look through your child's screen time to look through what they're doing on their phone, um, to kind of just a general 10 minute glance through, um, maybe their social media, social media accounts.  You know, a general sense of knowing what they're doing on their phone. A lot of times kids will, you know, hide stuff like that. It's a, it's a just a general habit of just going to do their phone. That will do miracles. That's one of the ways you can spot if they're getting around printer controls.

Jack Hughes: (27:40)

I know my parents, they never looked through my phone, they never looked at my screen time. If they would've looked at my screen time, they would've seen that I spent, you know, five hours a day on a workout tracking app. And the reason why I spent five hours a day on a workout tracking app was 'cause I was using that app to get around printer controls, to get on the web, to get on Google, essentially. Oh. So there's no reason why someone should be on a workout tracking app, you know, five hours a day, um, seven days a week,

Hillary Wilkinson: (28:09)

They were probably thinking, wow, he's so healthy. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Okay, so I'm gonna circle back a little bit. Um, so recognizing that every family's different, there's no cookie cutter approach, do you to parenting? Um, I should add, let, do you have an age that you think parents should stop using parental controls?

Jack Hughes: (28:35)

Um, I'd say, I mean, when they're an adult, when they go to college, I mean, at that point you're not really their parent just when you're not their parent anymore, I should say. Um, I mean, that could be, that could be 18 or 19 when they leave the house. I think, you know, when you stop being the parent, I think you always should have some level of printed controls. Um, I don't have printed controls in my phone anymore, but I mean, my parents don't really have that degree of authority over me anymore, if that makes sense.

Hillary Wilkinson: (29:09)

Right, right, right. So, so

Jack Hughes: (29:11)

I'd say 18 is a good age,

Hillary Wilkinson: (29:13)

Right? Yeah. Um, yeah. And, and you know, and it's, you know, there's, there's 18-year-olds and there is 18 year olds. It's just, like I said, there's no cookie cutter approach to this whole thing. Yeah. It's just this is a general, a general,

Jack Hughes: (29:26)

Or there are some 16 year olds who are as mature as an average 20-year-old. Totally. Or vice versa. 

Hillary Wilkinson: (29:31)

Absolutely. Completely, completely agree with you. Within the same family, , you know. Yeah. So, as always, you can find a complete transcript of this show, as well as a link to parent tech support by visiting the show notes for this episode. You do this by going to healthy screen habits.org. Click the podcast button and scroll to find this episode. Jack, thank you so much for being here today and for, for using your powers for good.

Jack Hughes: (30:03)

Yeah, you should, you should see all my, uh, my TikTok and Instagram comments. They're all kids, you know, 16 year olds calling me Snitch and and, uh, you know, wise bro snitch and all, all my comments are like that…

Hillary Wilkinson: (30:15)

Fun. It's, I'm sure it's not, bro. I'm sure it's bruh . Yeah, it's . Okay. Well thank, well thank you Jack from all of the parents. Thank you.

Jack Hughes: (30:28)

Yeah, thanks for having me on.