Japanese junior high school student comes up with ingenious way to bypass iPad usage restriction

Kids these days are just too clever for their own good.

Some studies have shown that children who constantly play video games suffer from impaired brain development, leading to a number of modern electronic devices coming equipped with usage limiting functions, to offer control over how much time kids spend playing them.

For Japanese Twitter user @akinorikappa, his younger brother was provided with an iPad by his junior high school. It came with usage restrictions, but the clever boy found a way to bypass it and continued using the device to his heart’s content.

▼ Never underestimate the ingenuity of youths today.
(Translation below)

弟の中学校でiPad配られてんだけど、9時過ぎると自動的にネット接続が遮断されるようになってるのよ。んで今日弟がそれ使ってる最中に9時過ぎてどうすんのかなと思って見てたら、設定を東京からニューヨーク変えてそのまま続行しててクッソ笑った。

—
かわにし (@akinorikappa) October 22, 2018

“iPads were distributed to students at my brother’s junior high school, and their Internet connections were designed to automatically cut off at 9 p.m. And so at nine today I looked over to see what would happen as my brother was using it. The system settings had been changed from Tokyo to New York and it was still connected. I had a good laugh out of that.”

Changing the settings to New York would essentially rewind the clock to 8 a.m., but some netizens were not convinced that a Japanese school would hand out something as expensive as an iPad, instead suspecting @akinorikappa of spinning a story for her 15 minutes of fame.

▼ “I highly doubt junior high schools would give out iPads in the first place.”

@akinorikappa そもそも中学校でipadが配られていることに疑問

—
.SOTEN.tanukioyazi　　タヌキオヤジ (@tanukioyazi1021) October 23, 2018

But @akinorikappa assured them that it was a private school that “encouraged” students to buy the devices rather than hand it out for free.

▼ “It’s a private school and the iPads are actually bought instead.”

@tanukioyazi1021 私立の中学校なので配られるというよりは買ってると思います。

—
かわにし (@akinorikappa) October 23, 2018

Other netizens were impressed at how the younger generation can be so tech-savvy:

“A genius has just appeared.”
“That’s excellent. He has already understood the fundamentals of UTC.”
“Thanks to stuff like these, the new generation will be competent at gadgets.”
“What a lifehack.”
“Such creativity is important. Adults should not be furious at their achievements.”

The learning capacity of children is astounding, and no matter how much they are constrained, they always seem to find ways to spread their wings. Proper guidance is a necessity, however, as recklessness at such a young age can wreak cyber havoc if left unattended.

Source: Twitter/@akinorikappa via Hachima Kiko
Top image: Pakutaso

Credit: