41–50 of 232 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm curious, can you elaborate what kind of disturbing pieces popped up?
Giant plastic spiders chasing kids. Momo. Kids behaving silly in front of camera and playing silly games. Kids with masks of superheroes. Something about SCP.
Honestly they looked like cartoon shorts that belong on adultswim or something. It's hilarious that they were unironically being watched by kids, but also not.
My opinion: children don't need access to the internet, period. There are plenty of ways to let them explore, learn, and play, without giving them any access to the internet. I plan to host an entirely off-line copy of Wikipedia, a bunch of other resources, video games, programming tutorials and libraries. Basically a whole bunch of content that will let them learn about computers and the world, without having access…
Imagine your 8 - 11 years old daughter's social circle, and the school she is at where her classmate were allowed very little Internet at home or school. Then you wouldn't have a problem enforcing whatever internet rules.
Now imagine everyone of her classmate were playing Minecraft, and she is the only one being left out.
The point is, if everyone at her school is spending time on god damn stupid Chinese TikTok, then a 10 - 15 minutes Tik Tok for her would be a necessary evil.
So far most of the Internet stuff are entertainment only. So stuff like Pop Music, Anime, Viral Videos etc. While not productive, they are harmless. And educating them not to use real names and talk to strangers on the internet seems to have worked so far. And only keep track of topics they looked into. ( At least before the age of 12 or 14 ) Generally speaking the internet is still fairly safe under some guidance.
But I have witness teenagers ( son of my close friend ) wondered into politics and culture war at the age of 14+. And it is absolutely destructive. The age where they start doing things without telling you, and going on to Reddit or whatever Internet forums. I dont have a good solution to that.
Part of the reason why I have been thinking about Age restricted participation on web forums. You could only reply if you are over the age of X.
When my kids were small, I was fighting with crazy Youtube videos. Kids started with something innocent and soon were watching sick and disturbing pieces. So I built an app to control their Youtube consumption, which later turned to a cool small business https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1431645198
I'm curious, can you elaborate what kind of disturbing pieces popped up?
1. No internet access 2. A tablet with a few select apps and no games. 3. A tv with a Raspberry Pi running xbmc with a few videos I've curated.
Access to the tablet and tv are limited to certain times, say when we're driving or when my wife's cooking. At some point I'll probably use a PiHole or something like that to give them whitelisted access to a few sites. Not sure where I'll go after that. I don't plan to secretly monitor any conversations but I think I'll stress that I don't consider online and messaging communications to be private and they will be monitored.
As for the money, I'd address the goals separately. Have investment accounts which aren't touched and a performance-based allowance which they can spend completely. I think the Dave Ramsey "when the money's gone it's gone" lesson is something that's supremely important to learn early. And if they need some more money they can always make an appeal to the local VC (you).
I have friends with children in the age of 12-14, one of which excessively monitors his son's online behavior. He's shown me results of his monitoring and it pretty much ended the debate. Weird old guys contacting his son, excessive cyberbullying, swearing (fine by me, but still), being drawn to the wrong kind of "friends", hate speech, general addiction and obsession with games and in-game items, the list goes on. D…
Could you provide some explicit examples to what you linked above?
> Weird old guys contacting his son
This one sounds a little weird, but the rest could just be the kid isn’t following modern western progressive values (and being obsessed with games depending on how much is just being a kid).
> swearing (fine by me, but still), being drawn to the wrong kind of "friends", hate speech
I’d need specific examples here, but it sounds like the kid is just rebelling against the current cultural norms. Much like most of us rebelling against conservative norms growing up.
My opinion: children don't need access to the internet, period. There are plenty of ways to let them explore, learn, and play, without giving them any access to the internet. I plan to host an entirely off-line copy of Wikipedia, a bunch of other resources, video games, programming tutorials and libraries. Basically a whole bunch of content that will let them learn about computers and the world, without having access…
Counterpoint, if your child grows up and isn't "internet native" they will be like people who "don't get computers" over the last decade. It's very limiting.
I've had a career ranging from telecom and supercomputer chips to mobile, desktop, and web dev. I do not think my lack of exposure to the internet at a young age has limited me.
My kids are under 10. 1. No internet access 2. A tablet with a few select apps and no games. 3. A tv with a Raspberry Pi running xbmc with a few videos I've curated. Access to the tablet and tv are limited to certain times, say when we're driving or when my wife's cooking. At some point I'll probably use a PiHole or something like that to give them whitelisted access to a few sites. Not sure where I'll go after that.…
What a wonderfull dystopia we are building here together. And then we wonder why the average people don’t care about privacy. Perhaps because they were conditioned from a young age to expect none?
Every child is different. As parent only you can make the right decision in context. We select and watch film together unless its clearly kids content. Personally I do not encourage spending. Money is a vile thing.
There is no silver bullet.
As always, going for education is the only thing you can do to reduce risks.