Parental controls aren't for parents • Hacker News Board

Re: Parental controls aren't for parents

#431

Post by selectively » Sat, Jan 03, 2026, 3:44 PM UTC

lovich wrote: post #393

lovich wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are the faangs hiring people with skills sans the credentials? Everyone I’ve talked to at faangs has basically described it being the next step after college for everyone they hire, other than Amazon

Ah, too late to edit but this is another sub year account making statements like > 22 is recently a kid. We have nothing further to discuss; you are unreasonable. Using a semicolon correctly while claiming another human held position is unreasonable. Definitely regular human activity. @dang, is this forum just going to be humans talking with a forest of bots are you guys going to have any moderation

You remain an awful person. I am happy to go through any form of humanity/identity verification that staff want me to. My posts are written by me and never AI - I strongly oppose genAI.

Re: Parental controls aren't for parents

#432

Post by sneak » Sat, Jan 03, 2026, 3:51 PM UTC

LanceH wrote: post #112

sneak wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would a 15 year old warrant a mobile phone, much less an unrestricted one?

By high school there is definitely an expectation that everyone has a phone. They will literally miss out on a normal method of communication between friends and classmates. They miss out on the social group and then fade away from it and just become "that one guy in our class." The last time I mentioned this several people argued that, "true friends would stick together" or some such. Well, if you already have those…

You think that missing out on talking to high schoolers is worse than missing out on the harms of smartphones?

We must have very different views of the world. I would never let a child for whom I am responsible have a smartphone. They are not required, despite what you may have been told.

I’m an adult and I’ve been experimenting with leaving mine behind when I go out. It’s more than fine.

Re: Parental controls aren't for parents

#433

Post by DoctorWho70 » Sat, Jan 03, 2026, 4:21 PM UTC

master_crab wrote: post #416

rsync wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are not mistakes. These are not implementation errors or miscommunication between different business units. What you are witnessing is an intentional setting of a revenue dial to the maximum allowable setting that still permits the original sale.

This is why you have government regulation. It’s not perfect, but at least a government is accountable to something other than a profit motive.

In the US, the government is expressly prohibited from regulating video games sales on the basis of content, per the First Amendment (with an exception existing for pornography). This was the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Entertainment Merchant’s Association (2011).

Re: Parental controls aren't for parents

#434

Post by up-n-atom » Sat, Jan 03, 2026, 6:17 PM UTC

I have a wonderful collection of retro consoles and games that I let my nephews play when I babysit without much worry or trouble. Sure some of it is considered obscene, offensive, gory for today’s standard, but I can definitively say the internet and connected games are far worse but let the modern parent be fooled.

I prevented a lot of IRL fighting over the holidays. I tell them, if they want to fight each other that they can only do so in game (their preferred fighting game is primal rage) and it gets their aggression and hyperactive tendency out. Beyond fighting games they love to battle out in racing simulators like Daytona USA or controller swap Crash Bandicoot and Sonic. They have Switch 2 at home and can play it here as well but it’s not sick as Neo Geo, Sega Genesis/Saturn, NES, GameCube, PlayStation, Virtual Boy, and many others. 67

The biggest benefit of offline gaming is that friends interact IRL. You either get invited or invite friends and have real interaction, share snacks, etc. which often leads to outdoor activities when gaming is a bore or over. We need to bring that back. If the companies are unwilling it’s time to hack the offline switch or speak with our wallet.

Re: Parental controls aren't for parents

#435

Post by mschuster91 » Sat, Jan 03, 2026, 6:31 PM UTC

pixl97 wrote: post #336

mschuster91 wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Usually when those discussions come up, there are plenty of people recognizing both that 1) parents do need to be more responsible, but also that 2) we need sane parental control systems. Dunno. My generation grew up to be generally fine people, without parental control software crap (and the poor sods who had parents insisting on it only became better hackers for it). Back then, there was things such as rottencom,…

>My generation grew up to be generally fine people, [Look at current voters in the US] Ya sure about that?

Yes. Even Harris, as unpopular as it gets with the youth (the whole being a cop thing), still got 13% more than Trump did [1].

If there is one group of voters to blame for the current situation in the US, it is Boomers and older. This age bucket not only skews heavily towards Trump, but also hoards by far the most wealth [2].

[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/06/26/voting-patte...

[2] https://www.empower.com/the-currency/life/average-net-worth-...

Re: Parental controls aren't for parents

#436

Post by junto » Sat, Jan 03, 2026, 6:34 PM UTC

veonik wrote: post #73

spicyusername wrote: post #24

This is such a sore spot for me. Technology is amazing and I want to raise my children in such a way that they learn to use it to improve and enrich their lives. Video games are amazing. Art has never been easier to create. Being able to spend time with your friends when they are not physically present is incredible. There are so many great podcasts for children. But silicon valley seems directly opposed to enabling…

Not sure about Google but Apple has per-app time limits, per-app type time limits, overall screen time limits, time of day limits, parental review before app install, parental review before purchases can be made, etc. I've found it to be quite robust in managing my kids' access to the internet.

I’m continually impressed by my 12 year old son’s ability to get around those restrictions. He recently got around his time limit with Brawl Stars by having his friends sending him Brawl Stars view links via WhatsApp. This opens links using Safari’s underlying engine (SFSafariViewController), which does not get considered by the safari app time block.

Re: Parental controls aren't for parents

#437

Post by nicoburns » Sat, Jan 03, 2026, 6:55 PM UTC

mothballed wrote: post #66

nicoburns wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My parents did the no phone until 16 rule, and it was awful. Completely cut me off socially.

This is going to show how naive I am. Because I am middle aged, do not have a cell phone, and still to this day just show up at people's houses unannounced if I want a social experience. This still is possible for me, surely it is possible for kids.

> This still is possible for me, surely it is possible for kids.

I think there's a real generational divide here. What is normal in my parents generation (I'm in my early 30s) is not normal in roughly my generation downwards (which coincides both with mobile phone ownership amongst children/teens becoming common, and children/teens becoming much more restricted in how much freedom they had in terms of being allowed outside by themselves).

Even amongst people my age, people would consider weird and probably even rude if I turned up unannounced (a "What are you up to?" text message would probably be the norm). And I think that's more exaggerated amongst younger generations. Perhaps that's different if you live very close to your friends. But a lot of people don't.

Re: Parental controls aren't for parents

#438

Post by baq » Sat, Jan 03, 2026, 7:12 PM UTC

hn92726819 wrote: post #404

baq wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How does she get around the restrictions? I'm not aware of a way to do that on iPhone

uninstall app when limit runs out, reinstall used to work.

Re: Parental controls aren't for parents

#439

Post by sjducb » Sat, Jan 03, 2026, 7:51 PM UTC

philips wrote: post #297

I have been using (and contributing to) on an open source project called Zaparoo[1] that lets my kids (5-8) play retro games, watch videos, and listen to music using NFC cards. The whole thing runs on a Raspberry Pi running Batocera[2]. I program the cards using the mobile app and my kids like cutting and pasting the cover art on the cards. All the media is local to my house- I am the librarian who curates the select…

I’ve set up a gaming raspberry pi for mine too. I suspect it only works for little kids. Someday they’ll realise that supertux isn’t cool

Re: Parental controls aren't for parents

#440

Post by sjducb » Sat, Jan 03, 2026, 8:04 PM UTC

selectively wrote: post #235

anothereng wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They are lying and stealing from their parents to “scroll instagram”