Seems like a trusted non-profit should spearhead a working group to come up with clear requirements and recommendations. This parental control spec would be clear for developers to implement instead of each team guessing what should and should not be allowed. This could then be 3rd party verified and parents could rest a little easier. (All of the above has probably been tried in previous instantiations of the Matrix.)
Parental controls aren't for parents
231–240 of 476 posts
Re: Parental controls aren't for parents
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was one of those kids. I got a 300 baud modem the year after Wargames came out. It was a whole different world. My wife and I disagreed about letting my son have my old desktop replacement laptop at a young age. Of course I said yes, based on my own experience, but my wife turned out to be right in the end. He got into some pretty dark places and the toxic relationships he developed with other people his age were b…
My wife was right too. My kids ended up being unable to manage their device use at all, they developed seriously bad habits, lied and deceived extensively to gain access to devices, and repeatedly sacrificed relationships and trust for more screen time. There were years there where I thought surely they'd click with it and develop better habits, make better choices (with our guidance), and so on. Abstinence could be…
You were born in an era where the internet wasn't as addictive as it is nowadays.
Re: Parental controls aren't for parents
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would easily believe that Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc., explicitly staff these teams with childless adults.
Given how easy it is for my 13yo daughter to get around screen time restrictions on iOS in ways I wouldn't believe are possible I'm not sure these people are even adults.
Apple has an engineering base that includes people who were recently children.
Think about it that way: why would they make things harder for who they were in the very recent past.
Re: Parental controls aren't for parents
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree. Parents in the 21st century need to realize the call is coming from inside the house: it's their obligation to protect their child. Unsupervised usage without full due-diligence will lead to incidents like what the blog author describes. The dilemma of online protection is a false crisis because parents would rather let their children play with fire than nurture their babies.
No, we've always had effective societal gatekeeping on what kids can access. Cigarettes, liquor, porn, R-rated movies, all had general barriers to access for kids in the pre-internet world. Parents could rely on most store clerks not selling alcohol, tobacco, or adult magazines to a child. Parents did not have to hover over everything their child did. Was it perfect, of course not, but it worked fairly well and didn'…
> No, we've always had effective societal gatekeeping on what kids can access.
Isn't there still a very simple one, hardware access. If the child doesn't have a smart phone of their own or computer in their bedroom then they cannot use them to get online unsupervised. This is about as simple on/off as you can get and very easy to moderate.
Re: Parental controls aren't for parents
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
My wife was right too. My kids ended up being unable to manage their device use at all, they developed seriously bad habits, lied and deceived extensively to gain access to devices, and repeatedly sacrificed relationships and trust for more screen time. There were years there where I thought surely they'd click with it and develop better habits, make better choices (with our guidance), and so on. Abstinence could be…
You were born in an era where the internet wasn't as addictive as it is nowadays.
Heroin is addictive. Physical compulsion is addiction. What you are talking about is not addiction. It shares some elements, but no one is breaking into cars so they can scroll Instagram.
Re: Parental controls aren't for parents
#236I'm wondering if a firewall is a solution here. Don't mess around with the stupid device settings. Just block the Xbox store, and then presumably Minecraft uses different server IPs, so you can let those through.
Re: Parental controls aren't for parents
#237The issue is, and always will be, 3rd party trust. You cannot assume your child is safe using XYZ until you thoroughly audit the app/game/device and enumerate all their loopholes, plug-ins, and rushed updates. The sensical method would be a device-wide deny all firewall rule, where no TCP connection is allowed in or out without explicit parental consent. E.g. Alice wants to chat with Bob via chatmonkey. Approve this…
To concur, the principle with guarding your children is the same as the principle of guarding your software systems.
Defense in depth. Multiple layers. Calender reminders to audit devices, usage, and look at router logs. Check in with your kids.
Re: Parental controls aren't for parents
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
Gun ownership isn't a terrible example honestly. I would have been probably 8 or so when I was allowed to traipse around in the woods near my dad's house with a BB gun, following extensive safety teaching of course. We would go out in the yard and shoot a shotgun and a rifle around that same age. People are probably not careful enough with guns right now in America given the stats, but it's not at all unreasonable in…
Sure, but do you understand that it's perfectly reasonable to be able to buy a toy gun and not have to explain gun safety to them? Or would you recommend that all toy guns have the ability to be dangerous and all parents should train them because of the prevalence of guns in society?
A few thoughts:
- Perhaps we have different ideas of the appropriate age to wean kids off of toys and teach them to use real (and sometimes dangerous) things. Today's discussion is about guns, but the same could be said for boats, motorcycles, woodworking equipment, etc. I would like my children to be well rounded and well equipped when they become adults. However, I acknowledge that this may not be normal anymore: Many families seem to be content with their teenagers playing games all day long (ironically, games with guns!)
- It sounds like you have the gun in a "toy" category. For my kids, guns are absolutely not in the toy category. They are tools, used for hunting and protection, and access to these tools comes with guard rails and significant responsibility. I would rather my kids never get used to guns as toys.
- This is bigger than just personal decisions: In my state, teenagers used to be allowed to work on construction sites in the summers. By the time they graduated, many of these guys had real skills they could support their family with. In our rush to protect kids, this kind of work is no longer taught in classes or available as summer work for young people. We have made it increasingly hard for young people to "grow up"!
Re: Parental controls aren't for parents
#239It's not an accident that its so hard to get this stuff right, I've heard countless stories like this from friends who are parents. If the market wanted parents to be able to figure this out it would be getting it right. It's obviously a dark pattern that benefits everyone but the parents and their children. If more people stopped to think deeper about this they would and should be very disturbed by what this means.
Well, this is the company that builds Teams.
One axis is if they even want to make parental controls work, which they may well not want to but rather wish to just check some checkboxes.
But the company that builds Teams and Windows 11: I think it's entirely plausible they can't.
Re: Parental controls aren't for parents
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
On a certain level, it’s also a question of different parenting philosophy. > Stuff like online communications will come at a later age. Absolutely no reason to start explaining that to a 5 year old. I agree, but I also see absolutely no reason why 5 years old children would have access to a gaming device. Pretty much any other activity I can imagine is better for them.
> I agree, but I also see absolutely no reason why 5 years old children would have access to a gaming device. Pretty much any other activity I can imagine is better for them. I suggest expanding your imagination skills. There are definitely worse activities, like watching TV. And there's physical limit to how much physical activity one can be doing. There's definitely a point of diminishing returns there. And the ski…
> And there's physical limit to how much physical activity one can be doing
Do you hang out with many 5 year olds? They're made of energy.
> I could have him do math but it's a lot more boring
I did Math all the time with my 5 year old and he loved it, but then I also love math, and it's easy to make fun.