Kids and the intermanet

[Apoc]

While some may not *have* kids, they all *were* kids, and a perspective shared with someone who didn't grow up with a ubiquitous online technology from someone who did about someone who will might be useful...

We're not that old.

Polen - My kid isn't going to have a wifi enabled device outside the house at age six. Why wouldn't I have filtering at home to prevent him from accidentally ending up somewhere objectionable?

I think the problem with the chikdless perspective here is everyone talks like all kids are born at age 15 and with a smartphone in their hand (cause their memories are from that age). There's about 10 years of interneting before many of the YEAH BUT THE BUS STOP is even relevant. That's what Evan is reacting to.

[Steve85]

Oddly,  a lot of opinions from people who dont have kids.  

You would be one of those middle aged women in community colleges starting every sentence with "Well, as a mother..."

Stay in your lane,  white privilege male patriarchy

While some may not *have* kids, they all *were* kids, and a perspective shared with someone who didn't grow up with a ubiquitous online technology from someone who did about someone who will might be useful...

While I agree to an extent, the advice so far seems to be pretty narrowly focused on later years with a sense of absolutism. I think it's healthy to have different rules, conversations and age appropriate restrictions (and again, not just for content, but time, time of day, etc.) in an attempt to build healthy habits. "Restrictions don't work" may be true at 16, but I can guarantee you they do work before that. Just because my 15yr old might see something at a bus stop doesn't mean I shouldn't have restrictions on what my 10yr old can access, and perhaps more importantly, who can access him/her. 

So I would reiterate the points Evan, G, and Chris made. This isn't just about content, no one solution will work, and if you aren't talking about solutions and strategies based on age/maturity then you are just thinking too narrowly.

[JPolen01]

I think we all were talking about middle school kids because the thread was started by Dave specifically about his daughter who is on the verge of getting a smartphone. You all switched gears to toddlers and iPads.

If we are talking about all ages then yeah I get the censorship aspect for the younger ones. Carry on.

[.RJ]

We're not that old

Yes we are.

[CaptainHenreh]

We're not that old

Yes we are.

We totally fucking are.

You're older than me and I was 12 before my house got DIAL UP INTERNET. You know, where you had to wait 10 minutes to download a tiddy and you traded sexy pics with your little cabal of hoodlums on goddam 3.5" floppy disks. Our risks were completely different. Our threat exposure wasn't even comparable. 

Shit, I learned to operate a computer on a Tandy 2000. 

We are definitely that old.

[Apoc]

We're not that old

Yes we are.

We totally fucking are.

You're older than me and I was 12 before my house got DIAL UP INTERNET. You know, where you had to wait 10 minutes to download a tiddy and you traded sexy pics with your little cabal of hoodlums on goddam 3.5" floppy disks. Our risks were completely different. Our threat exposure wasn't even comparable. 

Shit, I learned to operate a computer on a Tandy 2000. 

We are definitely that old.

Your experiences are not mine, so maybe don't assume as much. I was downloading porn from BBCs, cybering on Prodigy, and meeting people from chat rooms in person before I could drive... and before most of the 20-somethings were born. I agree the risks are more ubiquitous now, with things like phone cameras, but I'm not just learning the perspective of a teenager with free access to the interw3bs when I read this thread. Frankly, I think my parents should have had WAY more control over what I was doing.

It seems most everyone agrees that age appropriate controls are key when they're young and education/reasoning is key when they're older. I'm just hoping people don't employ their survivorship bias and give their kids free reign. I've seen bad outcomes because parents weren't proactive about it.

[.RJ]

We're still fucking old.

[ScottyB]

10 minutes to download a tiddy

you really had to be picky and savor the digi-tiddy back then for the anxiety you had to go through to obtain it. a truly different sense of accomplishment.

[JPolen01]

you really had to be picky and savor the digi-tiddy back then for the anxiety you had to go through to obtain it.  

Nothing was worse than waiting hours for a video to download on limewire and it turns out to be that fucking fake Bill Clinton recording about Monica Lewinsky. Fuck that was awful.

[Sijray21]

video? shit, how about watching the pixels come in line-by-line for a tiddy picture? or being online then your mom or dad picks up the phone on the line you were using...

[Evan]

Grown ass men cant stay off porn sites at work knowing full well that they will get fired for cause if they get caught.

But you people think a horny 13 year old wont log onto a porn (etc) site by himself on his laptop because you had a talk with him.


There is no right answer. Your kid is a human, not an app, or a widget, or a pet. But the *best* answer isnt any one thing, and its certainly not just a "talk". It starts with a conversation, a continual conversation about these things day in and day out, a relationship of care, trust and accountability, AND yes after that you still need to set your kid up for success by preventing him/her from tripping and going down a deep dark hole. Yeah, parenting is hard, hard work.
If you don't understand that, then I dont know what to tell you other than to please not procreate.

[Apoc]

video? shit, how about watching the pixels come in line-by-line for a tiddy picture? or being online then your mom or dad picks up the phone on the line you were using...

Back in the BBS days, they employed UL/DL ratios by file size. I'd get so pissed when I'd upload n kb of pictures only to download n/5 kb of a bullshit file.