Florida’s New Social Media Age Rules

Florida is entering a new era of social media rules for kids, and the details matter more than the headlines. Greg Rhodes and Adam Littlefield break down what the state’s law means in real life: no covered social media accounts for kids under 14, and verified parental or guardian consent for 14 and 15 year olds. We talk about the “teeth” behind enforcement, including civil fines aimed at platforms, plus what happens when a parent asks for an underage account to be terminated.

Then we zoom in on the tradeoffs nobody loves talking about: age verification and privacy. If a platform asks for an ID upload, a face scan, or AI-based age checks, what data gets collected, what gets deleted, and what could leak later? We also connect the dots to the next wave of phishing and identity scams, because new rules always create new fake texts and emails claiming your account will be deactivated unless you send sensitive documents. Our rule of thumb: verify only inside the official app or the real website, never through a link that pressures you.

From there, we get practical. We cover what to do with dead electronics sitting in a drawer, why e-waste belongs in responsible electronics recycling instead of a landfill, and how secure data wiping protects you if you recycle, donate, or resell. We also tackle the dreaded “storage almost full” warning by explaining device storage vs cloud storage across iPhone, Android, Windows, iCloud, Google Drive, Gmail, and OneDrive, including the biggest space hogs like 4K video and the “Recently Deleted” trap. We wrap with three email power moves you can start using today: undo send, schedule send, and snooze.

Subscribe for more practical tech help, share this with a parent or anyone battling storage warnings, and leave a review with your take: do these social media limits protect kids, or go too far?

Transcript

Welcome And Tax-Free Tech Deal

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Hey there and welcome to Tech Talk here on WDBO 1073FM and AM580 Orlando's News and Talk. I'm Greg Rhodes, sitting here with technician Adam Littlefield from the Refresh Computer Superstore. You can contact the Refresh Computer Superstore by calling their free tech support hotline at 407-478-8200. Or if you have a comment during the show, use that open mic feature inside the WDBO app. Also check out the website over at Refresh Computers.net or stopping at the Refresh Computer Superstore in Longwood at 820 East State Road 434, just three and a half miles east of I-4. Store hours are Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. until 7 p.m. And now for Adam Littlefield.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Well, thank you, Greg, and I want to say thank you, everybody, for tuning into this episode of Tech Talk with Refresh Computers on Sunday. It's a good Sunday to be listening in. We've got a lot of stuff we're going to be talking about today. We've got, you know, things about social media rules that are going to be changing for kids. We're going to be talking a little bit about what you might be able to do with that drawer of dead electronics that you've just been keeping forever. I know I've got one at home that I've been hanging on to, so I'll talk a little bit about what you might be able to do about that. We're also going to be talking a little bit about, you know, those annoying messages you always get up on your computer and your phone about storage almost full and what you might be able to do about that. We'll get deeper into that as well. And then we'll end off today's show with another tip, you know, about some about your email and some things you didn't know that you are able to do with it.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

I'm sure Dave is smiling while he's out on the road listening to today's show, continuing his cross-country trip all the way to the northernmost point that you can get to here in North America. He's really excited about that.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

All the way to Dead Horse, Alaska. Sure, he's having a lot of fun on that trip. I hope he hasn't had any weather concerns. I know he was worried about the cold headed all the way up there. So yeah, we're definitely gonna keep tracks on him and see what's going on and uh see if we can get a hold of him for next week's show. Get him to maybe call in a little bit, get a little update from Dave. But before I get into these topics today, I want to just remind everybody that's listening right now that we are in the middle of a tax-free holiday season right now. So any computer devices, computer accessories, anything like that, you can purchase right now at Refresh Computers, tax-free. Um, any items that are under $1,500 are tax-free. So I would suggest going to our website, refreshcomputers.net, take a look at our inventory. We are closed today, but look at what we have on the website because if we have it listed there, guess what? We've got it in store. So take a look at it there. Come by Monday and ask us about some models that you might have picked out, and we can definitely show you those. And while you're on the website as well, take a take a look at that podcast link in the top right corner. We got you know, this show, yesterday's show, tons of other shows going back. And there's just so much information in these episodes that we do now. I just really cannot stress how important it is to kind of stay up to date with this. You know, we talk a lot about what's changing day to day, especially with technology. And I know la yesterday's show was pretty big for some Central Florida changes. So I would suggest go listen to that on our website while you're

Florida Social Media Ban Explained

SPEAKER_00 3:26

there. So today, getting into social media, we are we're beginning a I would say a new era of social media because I remember back when I was a kid, I made my Facebook account, man, when I was probably like 13 or 14 years old. Right. And I remember going through and putting my birth date as like 1980-something. Correct. Because I could not make an account without being of a certain age. And everybody as kids, I would say, when social media first was coming out, we all were vic or not victim, but we were all uh guilty of uh making accounts when we shouldn't have. Those Myspace days were wild after. MySpace, YouTube as well was another one. Yep, yep. We are actually seeing a lot of Florida law changing right now and catching up to start covering, you know, social media. We've got school starting in just a couple weeks, August 10th and August 11th. I know when I was in school, social media was already a big problem. I can't even imagine how it is now.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

Oh, it's ingrained in everything these days. So yeah, you're seeing a lot more in-school bans on even having your phone on you in class. So yeah, no, it's definitely uh evolved into a problem for sure.

SPEAKER_00 4:35

Right now, we actually have a uh house bill that bans kids under 14 years old from holding accounts on any covered social media platforms, and it will actually require verified parental consent for 14 and 15 year olds. So I know this was passed back in 2024, it was blocked going through its later approval stages, and then I believe actually late last year an appeals court cleared the way to enforce it. Well, the case has kind of been continuing. Um, I know the state has been kind of pushing for this because social media, it's you know, kind of how we used to think of the internet as just a broad spectrum of we got to keep kids safe on the internet. There are so many unknown risks on the internet, you don't know who's on there, and now it's evolved a little bit into social media. And I know when I was younger, social media really was engineering a lot of the people I was around. They focused more on making their life look good on Instagram and Facebook when, you know, knowing them personally, a lot of it was falling apart. And that's a big problem with social media today is there's a lot of glamorization about how good life is and how perfect it is for a lot of content creators. And, you know, me as an adult, I can I can see through it. You know, I can see that this person who's got you know all this stuff posted on social media might have some stuff going on in the background that I wouldn't want to post about online, right? Just like they wouldn't. But as a kid, you know, that that kind of understanding is lost. You start to get this glamorization and this idealization that life is perfect. That's how everything should be. Exactly. So let me get a little bit into what this law actually does. So

Age Checks And Platform Penalties

SPEAKER_00 6:19

if you're under the age of 14, nothing. That's it. No account on any covered platform, period. Not a full stop, not even your parents can go and beg them to let you on that platform. So if you're under the age of 14, nothing there. If you're 14 or 15, an account is allowed to be created, but only with a verified parental or guardian consent. So what that can mean varies based on what website it is. I know I've started seeing ID verification now on a lot of different sites that are actually needing, you know, a birth date, a certain age for you to create that account. And they are actually wanting you to upload a picture of your ID. Um, I know some of them are having you take a picture of your face, turn it to the side for verification.

SPEAKER_01 7:07

And they use AI also to kind of verify to guesstimate your age on certain platforms as well. Sometimes that works well, sometimes uh not so great.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Right. And I've seen, you know, numerous ways that people are getting around this. It's something that every day as tech evolves, humanity learns how to get around it. That's kind of what we've always done. And this is something that I think is kind of put the final nail in that coffin that's really restricting what you're gonna be able to do as far as social media comes. Again, with that a with that age verification, I know a popular platform called Discord. Um, it's a communication platform. A lot of kids use it. I've used it since I was about 16, I think, 16 or 17 years old. I still use it, communicate to all my friends, because it's a game, it's almost like a gaming platform for gamers to communicate through while they play something. Right.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

But it's also become me much more than that in recent years as well, utilized because it does have encrypted messaging and things like that. So it's definitely an advanced tool that people are using, and like you said, I've been exposed to since they were considerably younger.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

So that's something that has been free to make. You can make your own Discord server, is what it's called, invite people to it, all of that. And now I I've seen Discord is starting to roll out age verification to require, you know, them to basically verify that you are the age that you have entered or you're at their certain terms of service age.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

Now, all these are great that they're putting these restrictions out there, but they're no good without any kind of teeth. What is the teeth behind it, Adam?

SPEAKER_00 8:40

So the teeth, you know, talking about what really can get you what's the word I'm looking for here, in trouble. Yeah. How they're going to be enforcing it. So, with you know, talking about these penalties, for example, the main one that I've been seeing is a civil fine. And that could run up to fifty thousand dollars per violation for platforms that knowingly or recklessly break this law.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

Right. So it's not that they're trying to go after the parents or the kid that sets up these accounts, they're going after the platforms that aren't enforcing these new rules.

SPEAKER_00 9:12

Exactly. You know, I I personally would much rather see a platform be fined $50,000 per violation instead of, you know, the individual person. Because if, say, for example, I was a kid and I had eight social media accounts I wasn't supposed to have, that's $400,000 that now my family owes in fines because of something I as a kid decided to do.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

Exactly. And uh yeah, again, we mentioned earlier that you used like the 1980s birth date to sign up for these accounts. Parents can try and be as involved as they possibly can with their kids, but their kids are always going to do things like this behind their back. I did it when I was a kid, you did it when you were a kid, you listening did it when you were a kid. So just keep that in mind. That's definitely the right course is to punish the platforms because it makes them enforce these rules.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

Right. And you know, these platforms they will enforce you as a user to kind of abide by their rules as well. I can't say that they won't. And again, there's a there's a fifty thousand dollar price tag on them enforcing these rules. So they're probably going to enforce them. So you as a parent, if an account was made without authorization, the platform has to terminate that account when a when a parent asks. So it the your child cannot override it contacting and saying, hey, don't don't terminate this account. The platform has to abide what the legal guardian or parent says, whoever is the older one in the situation, as long as you're within those ages of like 14 or 15. So that's the major thing I would say, but I'm sure there are going to be more legal ramifications rolled out as time goes on. You know, like I've talked on this show many, many shows back and all the way up to now, technology's always changing, and us as humans, we change with it. And that's something that is really going to be shown in these next couple of years as we start cracking down, I think, on social media, because platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, just these social media platforms, they are really changing how our youth is now starting to process reality and what it's going to be.

Privacy Risks And Verification Scams

SPEAKER_00 11:21

So that's something I want to just kind of talk on, get out there, and I want to talk a little bit more about what it means for your privacy as well, because you know, this is you are uploading a picture of your ID to these sites. So they are going to have some sort of system that reads it, like you had mentioned, Greg, some sort of AI that verifies it. I know a lot of the services do say they don't store this information. Whether or not that's to be seen, if something, if there's something that happens. You and I, as a consumer, Greg, we really don't know what they're doing behind closed doors.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

Right, yeah. No, we've seen we've seen that song and dance before. Oh, we promise we don't store any of this information, and then five years later there's a giant data leak that includes all that information that they said they can keep.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

And you know, even federal regulators have issued guidance this year to tell platforms that if you're collecting this data to purely check the age, nothing else, delete it and secure that information. So, you know, as we've gone through our time so far with this verification, I haven't seen any major breaks in, you know, data leaks or anything about this information getting out there. So I think so far we're f these platforms are following that rule. But only time's gonna tell if it's still being followed or if they start changing down the road. But one practical rule that I will say only ever do age verification inside the actual app or on the platform's website. Because, like a lot of other things with tech now, what comes with this? Scams. Oh, the scams.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

You're gonna get phone calls and text messages that we're gonna be deactivating your account if you don't send us a picture of your ID in the next five minutes. Exactly. Those kinds of things always seem to come up with these kinds of new rule implementations.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

Right. And that's you know, something with any new law that comes out is scammers figure out a way to, you know, drum up their next their next scam and you know how it's gonna show up, right? And like you were saying, Greg, it could be a call saying, Hey, we need you to text us a picture of your ID. And I've even seen some that are, you know, we need you to verify your age. Please send us a photo of your ID next to your social security card. Yep. And, you know, us as uh regular people, we don't want, we don't think sending that's a good idea. But if you're approached by, you know, and I'm gonna put some big air quotes here, I know our viewers can't see it, a large company asking for this information, it's probably not them.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

I've gotten so many of these texts and calls before, and not a single one of my accounts has been deactivated. So just keep that in mind. Yeah, it's always fake.

SPEAKER_00 13:55

So the the bigger thing, you know, really want to talk about is uh a statute like this, it can gate an account, but it's not gonna teach us our judgment. You know, us at the end of the day as people, we have to take into account what's our best decision to make for keeping our family safe, for keeping our kids safe. And, you know, going through and doing something like this, I think is going to be better in the long run to keep our children just safe on the internet.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

It's just a step to help enforce that policy. So hopefully these are the steps in the right direction. But what do you think? Do you think this is infringing upon the First Amendment right of free speech? I'd love to hear it. Use that open mic feature inside the WDBO app. You've been listening to Tech Talk right here on WDBO 1073FM and AM580. Hey there, and welcome back to Tech Talk here on WDBO 1073FM and AM580, Orlando's News and Talk. I'm Greg Rhodes here with Adam Littlefield, a technician from the Refresh Computer Superstore. You can contact the Refresh Computer Superstore by calling their free tech support hotline, 407-478-8200. And if you have a comment during the show, we'd love to hear it. Use that open mic feature inside the WDBO app.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

And now back to Adam. Well, thank you, Greg. And I want to say thank you, everybody, for listening to Tech Talk with Refresh Computers. We had a really good uh segment at the beginning of the show. So if you missed that, we were talking a lot about social media and laws changing with that. I would suggest going to our website, refreshcomputers.net, check out our podcast link that's there, and listen back to this show in its entirety. You know, we don't get any ads on this show when we put it up as a podcast. So we also do an AI summary of everything that we talk about. And that's gonna be something I think that's really important just to look back on. Is that's a a recent law that's changing, and I think a lot of our listeners need to kind of know what's coming up with that. In this segment,

Recycling Dead Electronics The Safe Way

SPEAKER_00 15:58

we're gonna be talking a lot about you know, your dead electronics. A lot of us, I'm sure, are guilty of having a drawer full of iPads or tablets and phones and cables, hard drives, you name it, you know, a laptop that died in 2016. All of us are probably guilty of it in some way, shape, or form. Get out of my closet, Adam. And I was gonna mention I've got a box in my closet that is filled with old game consoles and cables and just everything that's mismatched. And I'll tell you what, none of it's organized.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

And I'm getting rid of none of it unless you can convince me in this segment.

SPEAKER_00 16:32

But for something, you know, like all of that, if you are ready to kind of get rid of it, Refresh Computers does do free electronics recycling. We are able to recycle tons of different devices, and you know, there's something that you gotta kind of think about with those devices, is even though they're dead, you haven't charged them, they still kind of do have your information on them. Oh, yeah. So, a main thing I want to mention with our recycling we do at Refresh Computers is we do a confirmed DOD wipe on these drives. So any of the data that is on them is destroyed. So when we go through and recycle these and the hardware is split out to whatever avenues it's going to go to back in that environment, we make sure that those drives, if there's anything stored on them, we're gonna make sure that nobody, whoever has that hand, their hands on that drive will be able to get your information. So that's something that I want to talk about. There's no cost as well to this recycling program. So if you've got 10, 15 computers that you just want to drop by, come by, come in, tell one of our technicians that you've got, you know, this many computers that you just want to drop off for recycling, we'll get one of our carts to come out and help you unload them, get them into our uh building. And this is something that right now I would stress is important to do. Yourself as a consumer, myself as a consumer, you know, even businesses out there that are just getting rid of some stuff is if you throw these devices into the trash, where's it gonna go? To the landfill. Yep. And I can tell you what, I know that plastic at least takes a couple thousand years to break down in a landfill. I couldn't even begin to tell you what some of these electronics take to break down.

SPEAKER_01 18:14

And when you get into the meat of it, some of these electronics really do have some very toxic materials that are built into them. So as they degrade, as they begin to finally break down, they're then releasing those out into the environment there at the landfill and making for dangerous environments for people to work in. Exactly. But also not great for the planet either. So this is a great option for you to be able to get your devices and data properly wiped if you're going that route with items, but it also helps the planet too.

SPEAKER_00 18:39

Right. And you know, that's that's a great way to put it, is it really does help the planet. You know, we've talked a lot about hardware shortages that we have going on right now due to all of this AI expansion. Recycling your computers does get more hardware and more resources back into the just construction environment of computer electronics. So, you know, that tech sitting in a drawer, you know, a recycling company company can find something to do with it more than it just taking up, you know, space in your drawer. Because I'll tell you what, I'm sure those electronics aren't paying you rent to be sitting in that drawer right now. No doubt. You could put a lot of other stuff in it.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

So but if you are someone that's looking to maybe sell some of these things yourself online or you're gonna donate it to somebody online, what are some steps that they should take on their own?

SPEAKER_00 19:26

Bet the best thing I would say if you're looking to resell it just online to do a factory reset on it. I know a lot of recent smartphones, they are decent at doing factory resets, but sometimes, you know, that decent isn't certain if you're not sure how old it is. So if you have any questions, give us a call or come by. Um, our phone number is 407-478-8200. That's a free tech support hotline as well. So give us a call if you have any questions. Um, you know, what we can recycle, what we can't, and we can try to help you guide from guide you from there.

SPEAKER_01 19:59

You've been listening to Tech Talk right here on WDBO 1073FM and AM580. Hey there, and welcome to Tech Talk here on WDBO 1073FM and AM580, Orlando's News and Talk. I'm Greg Rhodes here with Adam Littlefield, a technician from the Refresh Computer Superstore. You can contact the Refresh Computer Superstore by calling their free tech support hotline at 407-478-8200. Or if you have a comment during the show, we'd love to hear it. Use that open mic feature inside the WDBO app. You can also check out the website at refreshcomputers.net or stop in at the Refresh Computer Superstore in Longwood at 820 East State Road 434, just three and a half miles east of I-4. Store hours are Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. until 7 p.m. And now back to Adam Littlefield.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

Well, thank you, Greg. And I want to say to everybody that's listening right now, thank you for tuning into this episode of Tech Talk with Refresh Computers so far. Um, if you've missed anything that we've talked about in the past couple segments, like Greg was saying, check out our website, refreshcomputers.net. We have a podcast link on the site there that has the this show and tons of other shows going back years of just tons of different good information. We've been giving Windows tips, phone tips. So I would really suggest looking back at some of those episodes because there's there's a lot to be learned from them.

Storage Full Warnings And Fake Fixes

SPEAKER_00 21:31

And in this segment, you know, we're gonna be talking about one thing that I don't even think I've really got to give a a hook to to have everybody understand the the frustration from this one, and that is your storage being full. Storage almost full message. I can see it right now on my phone. Right. It's it's something that, you know, I can say myself I've never been plagued by, but I'm I'm very, very particular about what I store on my devices. I always make sure I've got enough space. So it's not something I I personally get wrapped into, but you know, a lot of our listeners right now, your phone, your computer, you've probably seen it pop up at least once saying your storage is almost full. And I can almost guarantee you that you were never told what storage is almost full. Because there's a couple different storages that we can fill up now in this day and age with technology. But before I get into that, I want to talk just a little bit about what can happen with your storage being full. Your phone won't take a picture, maybe. Some devices, I know your emails may stop arriving, something that you need to update says critical update, and you can't download that update because you've got no space on your device. That's just some of the things that you can encounter, you know, with the storage almost full message. Now, I will first off put this out there that there are a lot of scams that run through this message too. Good point. There are a lot of scams that use this message that says your storage is almost full, and you there's a pop-up that comes up, you tap on it, and it'll take you something else. And now it's saying your device has a virus.

SPEAKER_01 23:06

Download a new storage manager and all these other steps that don't make a lot of sense when you're doing them. But yep.

SPEAKER_00 23:12

And for a lot of people that don't really understand, you know, the idea of what your storage being full means, you know, a lot of these scams utilize you not understanding what it means. And I've even seen some of these go for so far as to say, you know, click on this link to download more storage. And if that sounds funny to a lot of our to any of our listeners, it's probably because you've heard the the thing of downloading more RAM way back in the day for your computer. It used to be a site to download more RAM and it would make your computer faster. You're you're cracking up, Greg, because you're probably remembering it now. Oh yeah. So let me get into this because again, there are two types of full when we're talking about your storage.

Device Storage Versus Cloud Storage

SPEAKER_00 23:52

The first one is the physical device itself. That device you've got in your hand, on your lap, that has a drive inside of it that has a physical amount of storage space. Think of it as almost like a warehouse inside of it that you're storing all of your data inside. And when that warehouse is full, well, guess what? You can't take a camera and put or take a picture with the camera on your phone and stick it outside that warehouse. Because that warehouse only stores inside. So, you know, that's one type, which is your physical storage. But we also now are seeing a lot of cloud storage. Your cloud account is full. So that could be Google, Apple, Microsoft. I know things like Dropbox as well. All give notifications that when they're out of space on their end. And for, you know, say Google or Apple specifically, that's why your emails may stop arriving and your photos may stop backing up. Because not a lot of users know if you have a Gmail account or an Apple iCloud email, those actually utilize your cloud storage for your emails. So something to kind of consider about, you know, me, myself, I'm sitting on, I think probably I want to say 80,000 unread emails in my Gmail. And instead of going through all those, I just bought more cloud storage. I'll be just forward with that. That's what Google was banking on.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

And that that is what Google banks on. Now you see, I I'm someone who, yeah, I don't go through. I have a specific email that I use for all those things that I know are gonna spam the heck out of you. Right. I know I know I'm gonna get a lot of emails from these companies and things like that, but I wanted the discount anyways. So I use that email specifically for that, and then I never look at it, and then once a year I just go through and do a massive delete of everything. But I think the the bigger thing here is that it when it comes to using those cloud services through someone like Apple and Google and things like that, it is tied to some of your main storage because a lot of those anymore, especially photos and memories, are directly backed up to that immediately.

SPEAKER_00 25:51

Right. Yeah, you know, Android devices I know go directly to your Google photos. I know Apple devices directly upload to iCloud. Those are the two main ones that I'm sure a lot of our use our visitors, not visitors, our listeners, you know, can really kind of level with is, you know, with these kinds of devices, your cloud account getting full, it's not really explained to you as the end user well. Right. You know, you set up a Google account, they don't tell you, oh, your Gmail is going to be using your five gigabytes of free cloud storage. If you ever need more, clean out your emails. They don't really tell you that until the storage is full and there's you know a big message coming up saying, hey, you need to, we're not gonna be backing up unless you clean up space. Right. Going back to that scam angle as well. I know I've been seeing a lot of emails that look like they come from Google, from Apple, saying, Your cloud storage is full, and if you don't upgrade immediately, we're going to delete your data.

SPEAKER_01 26:52

Which is ironic because usually inside those email applications that you're reading those in, they have your full breakdown of where your data is actually being stored and how much it is still available. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 27:03

So, you know, I want to just put that out there. If you get an email from one of these big companies threatening that they're gonna delete your data, that's probably a scam. Yeah. You know, more than likely, that is a scam. And if you if you can't really tell, give us a call. 407-478-8200. That's our free tech support hotline. You know, we could have you forward us that email so we can take a look at it. You could take a screenshot of it. You know, there's a lot of different ways that we can get some information out of it to try to help you deduce if it is a spam email or not, or bring your computer by if you want to take a look at that as well. We can also take a look at, you know, what is using some of that storage space because there are some pretty quick ways to look through it and see what's taking it up. I'll go through that actually right now. So on your iPhone, if you go into your settings, you go to general on the left-hand side, there's an option that says iPhone storage that'll show the device that you're currently using. And you hit settings, you tap your name, and then iCloud, and that'll show the cloud. So that'll show you what's on your device versus on what's up in the cloud. So you kind of have an idea what's running out of space. Android, it's a little bit of the same setup. You go to settings, storage for the device, and you can see the storage there. It'll break it down like iPhone into videos, photos, data. I know specifically on Android devices, this is also in the device care area where you can see a more detailed audit of what's taking up the space. So if you are using a Samsung device, you've got a little bit more digging you can do. And if you want to check your cloud storage, you can open up the Google Drive app on the on an Android device. Most of the time, if your storage is full, when you open up that app, the first thing you're gonna see is a notification saying, Hey, your storage is pretty full. You can also go to one.google.com, that's o-ne-e.google.com, and log into your Google account there, and you can see a breakdown of where everything's being stored as well. On Windows, it's even easier. You go to settings, system, and then storage, and that'll show you right there how everything's broken down, your documents, pictures, and one drive has its own separate number in that area. So it'll list as a, I think, a little blue, like part of the line that'll tell you what's take what's taken up with OneDrive.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

Now I know we talked about emails, and usually it's the attachments to these emails that take up so much of the space in there. But what are what's really the the thing that kills your storage space? What takes up more than what you really think it should?

Videos Downloads Apps The Real Hogs

SPEAKER_00 29:41

Well, it's probably something that I'll tell you a lot of our listeners don't really think about could be it, but it's your videos. Yeah. Now, videos nowadays on smartphones can be taken in 4K resolution, 60 frames per second, and that gets you really great videos. But you are taking 4K resolution that's basically the equivalent of taking 4K resolution photos 60 times a second to create that video. So, you know, long 4K videos can take up hundreds of gigabytes, you know, before you even know it, depending on how long you're recording. You know, one video uh one minute video can eat through what hundreds of photos would eat through. So that's a that's a really good point, Greg, to bring that up. Is you know, it's not something we think of every day. Our phones, you know, we can take better quality photos. I know with my phone specifically, I've got a hundred times Zoom I can take photos with. And it it's taking up more and more space. And you know, smartphones are now also being offered in larger storage capacities as well.

SPEAKER_01 30:48

But that goes by so quick, especially when you're making videos. Think about the videos that you have on your phone here just for a second. Kids playing, you're taking a stroll with your loved one, you're recording it in 4K, maybe a minute of a video. That's a gig. Yep. One video, one minute, one full gig of storage. And what your phone maybe has 256. Yeah. That seems to be the standard right now.

SPEAKER_00 31:10

That's the standard. I know I've seen um some smartphones may actually be only maybe dropping that and the 512 storage variant being the default because of this flash storage shortage that we've been in. So that's something to think about as well. You know, the fact of that you got a phone that's 256 gigabytes of storage. Well, if you're taking one-minute 4K videos, you can only get about 250 videos of your loved ones before that phone is full.

SPEAKER_01 31:38

Or if you have a toddler who likes to log into your phone and take 4K videos of himself just staring at the phone, like my son, right, on my phone right now.

SPEAKER_00 31:47

They take up a lot more space than that because it's the same video 15 times. Right. And you know, even situations like personally, I had my my mom, she puts her phone in her pocket, but she'll forget to lock it. It started recording a video, and before she even knew it, she had like a four-hour long video of the inside of her pocket.

SPEAKER_01 32:04

A black 4K square.

SPEAKER_00 32:06

Yep. Of her talking in that, you know, at home or cleaning up stuff. Yep. So it it happens. We're humans, and it's if you ever are getting these messages, again, go through the steps I just talked about to do a little bit of an audit, see where your space is going. I know you also mentioned, Greg, that email attachments can take up a lot of that space. Your downloads folder, too. And you know, that's something that myself, I don't even really go through my downloads folder on my computer. If there's something important that's in there, I move it out of the downloads folder and I just delete the whole folder once a month. Yep. And if there's something that was in there that was important, well, shame on me for not moving it in a month. But it's something that a lot of our customers that come in that are using up a lot of space. I I had one gentleman, he had almost 200 gigabytes of just downloaded stuff in in downloads, just sitting there. So it's it's important to go through and look at that kind of stuff. Same thing on your phone. Maybe you've got a couple apps you don't use. Yep, iPhone has a uh offload used apps setting that will remove apps but keep the data. So if you need to use it, you can re-download the app quickly, so it has all of your data and kind of saves up space. Android has a similar function as well. You know, I I look at my phone and I'll watch an app go gray, has a little cloud icon next to it, and I'm like, oh, well, I haven't used that app in a while. I guess I'll just delete that entirely, and that's it. But here's a sneaky one, and I'm gonna I'm gonna get this in before we go to our break here. You go through your whole phone, you delete those hundreds of hours of videos you don't need, or those photos that your your your infant son has been taking, they go to a new folder. They don't delete automatically, they go to your recently downloaded folder where they then sit for 30 days before they're automatically removed from the phone. So if you're if you're you know going through your phone, you deleted all that and it still says storage full, check the recycling bin. That's exactly what that is, is it's a recycling bin. Just like on your your computer, our phones have it too. So, again, what I always recommend for our customers, take an audit of that storage. And again, cloud storage is not a bad thing if you are using that as your main backup system. I would suggest purchasing some additional storage. You may pay monthly for it, but I'll tell you what, in this hurricane season, with how risky things are right now with our devices in our homes, that cloud copy is gonna be the one that survives if your house doesn't.

SPEAKER_01 34:40

I know I made fun of Adam earlier in the show for actually purchasing the cloud storage, but sometimes it is well worth the investment. Coming up, we're gonna have some more tips for you and your PC. Three email buttons that you maybe didn't know you had. We'll have more on that coming up next here on Tech Talk. You're listening on WDBO 1073FM and AM580. I'm Greg Rhodes, sitting here with Adam Littlefield, a technician from the Refresh Computer Superstore. You can contact the Refresh Computer Superstore by calling their free tech support hotline at 407-478-8200. And don't forget to check out the website over at refreshcomputers.net. And now back to Adam.

SPEAKER_00 35:37

Well, thank you, Greg. And I want to thank all of our listeners that have been tuning in to this episode of Tech Talk with Refresh Computers on Sunday. You know, it's it's nice that we've been doing these two different shows. We get a lot of information out. And if there's any of that information that you have missed from this show, you've tuned in late, go to our website, refreshcomputers.net, listen back on this show at the podcast link in the top right corner. While you're there, check out the inventory that we have. We are closed today, Sunday, but our website has all of our available inventory. We're in the middle of a tax-free holiday season. So this is the window, this is the time that if you've got to replace that old Windows 10 computer, this is the time to do it. So check out our inventory there. Any computers that are and accessories under $1,500 through all or through August 20th right now, you know, the clock is ticking, but there is time. So check it out. You know, it's a day of rest. Come in by maybe Monday if you have any questions or if you have a model you want to see, and any of us at our store, we're gonna be able to help you out. In this segment, I'm gonna dig in a little bit more about one of our uh quick tips that we've been doing with our shows at the end. And this one is about your emails this time.

Three Email Tools You Forgot

SPEAKER_00 36:48

Some uh buttons you didn't even know that you had for your emails. So, this first one I'm gonna get into, and this is one I've had to use. I I'll say I've used a couple times, is the undo send button. You can take that email back that you just sent. And I know in Gmail specifically, right after you hit send, there's a little undo button that appears. You can tap it and that'll grab the email before it's ever sent out. And I'll I'll tell you what, it saved me from sending out an email with a couple typos. Maybe I put the the wrong information link into that email. So maybe I didn't even put attachment. I'm sure a few of us listening are guilty of saying I've attached this item to this email, and you send it and you never attached it. All the time, Adam. All the time. Yeah. Well, there is an undo button that lets you do it. So that's uh that's a big one that I wanted to get out there. Another one that I actually really like using is our schedule is a schedule send function. I use this all the time. I do too. You you write that email now, you get the thoughts out now, and then you can deliver it later.

SPEAKER_01 37:53

When I'm here at four o'clock in the morning and have to send an email to somebody, I don't want to send it and wake them up. I schedule send for 8 a.m. when they're gonna be back in the office or something like that, because nobody else is really up at 4 a.m. in their office like I am for the morning show. So definitely a convenience thing for me and for the receiver.

SPEAKER_00 38:11

And you know, that's a good point. This is a setting that is really good for the dedicated employee that is sending out those emails that you know, the late wee hours that none of us are awake, but Greg definitely is awake. You know, he's he's thinking about you. He's not sending that email and waking you up. And you can do that too with any of the emails that you're sending. So all you have to do is instead of hitting send, there's a little arrow next to it. You can click it, you can choose the date and time to send it. I've even done this with text text messages before on my Android device.

SPEAKER_01 38:42

So that's one of those that's one of those things that Apple users get jealous whenever I do a schedule send. They're like, How did you do that?

SPEAKER_00 38:49

And this something too is really good if you are sent or getting an email sent that may have some information that could change on the drop of a dime. I know myself, uh, me and Dave will talk back and forth about you know notes of what we want to talk about on the show. And if there's a story I want to follow up on, I'll schedule send it, and maybe news comes out in half an hour. I can go back, stop it, tweak what I put in it. Yep. So it's it's good for that. And a third final one, and this is one that I like because I have ADHD. I sometimes do just forget I got an email an hour ago I couldn't respond to. You can snooze them. So go through, you can snooze it, and what that does is it leaves it in the in the inbox and then it returns at the time you choose right back at the top. So it's almost like you got a new email immediately. I know on my phone specifically, it pushes me another notification as well. So I think that's all the time we have time for today in this episode. Again, if you missed this episode or yesterday's episode, where we talked a lot about, you know, autonomy and these driverless cars in Orlando, go to that refreshcomputers.net, click that podcast link in the top right corner. My name has been Adam Littlefield. We'll be getting to you guys again next week, and uh hopefully we'll have a little insert with uh Dave here as well.