I dont think giving kids access to technology is inherently bad and having a smartphone/tablet/laptop/etc can be a good learning experience. I’m a bit of a nerd who grew up on message boards, uses linux, and enjoys his gaming pc. At the same time I then think about the websites I went to and the things that influenced me when I was younger and I get anxious over how I’m supposed to handle this with my future kids.
Abrasive big message board culture made me into a bit of an edgy jerk and then I found 4chan. I was already 16 when this happened, but even before then I’d already spent my tween years cutting my teeth on edgy and(when parents and family were out erotic) newgrounds content. I’d seen gore stuff on sites like rotten. The porn side of the internet was way sketchier than it was now. A casual search would lead you down malware infested rabbit holes of popups where next thing you know your softcore centerfold pose is next to something illegal like bestiality or worse.
There are tools to fix this, but I worry that these tools would lead to an internet so devoid of content I might as well give them a dumbphone, or it may be loose enough for them to find ways around it. (and if they arent getting their porn from big names like pornhub then their next stop is probably something sketchy and less moderated). As the article mentions as well there’s also the “normal” internet and social media are also toxic with algorithms pushing boys and young men to get red pilled, and girls and young women towards eating disorders.
My child isnt even born yet, and I know all I can do is my best. At the end of it all I turned out alright even in spite of what I encountered online, and that was with two parents who had no idea what I was looking at or didnt really think much about the internet.
This article is super relevant. My daughter entered middle school last year but instead of getting her a smartphone, I decided to get her an Apple Watch which provides her all the communication tools without the internet fluff. It’s been working out so far…however, she does feel a bit left out as all her friends are watching YouTube shorts all day and interacting on TikTok. I explained to her that it’s tough being an outcast but it’ll be better for her in the long term. I hope I made the right decision–remind me in 10 years to come back for an update.
This seems like a smart solution. Have to remember this.
unrelated but I frikkin love NPR text. It’s like a consise daily news RSS.
Applicable to adults as well.
My parenting strategy with tech can probably be described as notifications instead of blocking. Yes I don’t want my kid to use Facebook when they are 7 but if all of her peers have cell phones I don’t want them to be the odd one out. So my plan is to get my network to tell me when the kid goes to Facebook, snap chat, or whatever the new and hip site is going to be then. That way I know it’s time to have the talk about internet and its dangers. At the same time the kid won’t immediately want to bypass my detector because they still get the content they want. And then by the time they are old enough for porn I’ll have the sex talk and remove the detector.
Probably a good strategy. My cousin let his son have a FB account and unlimited internet when his son was 8. By the time he was 9 he was in big trouble. Had his friends over and they were watching porn. The friends told their friends and teachers heard about it at school. You can probably imagine what happened, but suffice it to say they had a visit from the equivalent of CPS.
My daughter is still very young but I’m seeing other families give their kids tablets and phones to play with at as young as five years old. We don’t allow any screen time but I know that as time passes it will be increasingly hard to hold her back.
My nieces and nephew had iPads at 4
My nephew plays COD. He is 8. He sleeps with his iPad.
The nieces are are 6 and 11. They are obsessed with tiktok.
My son is 7 and goes to school with kids that have iPhones.
And my son only watches screens when we are supervising. He watches a lot of TV and plays Switch games though. Never phones and we don’t have a tablet or any of the streaming stuff.
It is very hard not to give in.
