One of Iowa's favorite celebrities is warning parents of this potential phone hack their kids might use.

Iowa native, Ashton Kutcher and his wife, Mila Kunis, have 2 children under 10 years old. Their daughter, Wyatt Isabelle, is 9, and their son, Dimitri Portwood is 7. Like every other parent, Ashton and Mila are navigating through parenthood, and it appears that their kiddos found a hack that helps them get more screen time on their phones/devices.

It's a different world in 2024 than when I was growing up. When I was in middle school, you might see an occasional kid with a prepaid cell phone, which was, basically, only used to call mom or dad for rides home after practice. Cell phones weren't nearly as popular amongst the youth as they are today.

According to Child Mind Institute, "42 percent of kids have a phone by age 10. By age 12, it's 71%. By 14, it's 91%." I was born in 1990 and cell phones weren't extremely common for kids until I was 16 or 17 years old. By my junior year of high school, most kids had a cell phone. I don't think they were quite that popular amongst middle schoolers back then but almost every high schooler had a phone by then.

There are probably plenty of people reading this who didn't get their first cell phone until they were in their 20s, 30s, or even 40s. It's amazing to see how popular they are before a kid is in middle school!

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In 2024, almost every Freshman in H.S. has a phone. Which is fine. Parents want to be able to get ahold of their kids if needed, so it's understandable. If you're old enough to get a permit to drive a car, you should be old enough to use a cell phone.

Screen Time Hack

One of the navigations parents in 2024 have to deal with is "How much screen time do I want my kid to have?" My parents have 3 kids who are all in their 30s so they never really had to worry about this and there are many parents who have older kids and never gave screen time a second thought.

In 2024, it's an interesting dilemma for some parents to deal with. One of the strategies parents use is setting a limit to the amount of time their kids can spend on their phones.

The issue with this is there is supposedly an easy way around this, according to Ashton Kutcher's Instagram post.

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A post shared by Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk)

Ashton says that kids can change the time zone to "cross the international date line, it appears to be a different day, and therefore they get more screen time."

I'm sure that there are more ways around the "screen time limit" that parents are setting on their kid's phones but this might be one you were unaware of. I do believe with newer versions of the iPhone, kids can't use this hack but I'm not 100% certain.

If you're a parent trying to limit the screen time your kids have on their cell phones, Iowa's very own Ashton Kutcher, wants you to be aware of this hack that they may potentially be using.