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Parental controls aren't for parents

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Re: Parental controls aren't for parents

#121

Post by krosaen »

Descon wrote: post #89
krosaen wrote: post #44

Assuming you go down the path of allowing online anything, seems like, after doing your best with parental controls, the most effective thing is time boxing screen usage. Only so much can happen in, say, 2-3 30 minute sessions throughout the day, and the chances of a kid deciding to blow their precious minutes responding to some random person seems much lower than if bored and checking messages idly. Being nearby dur…

neil.fun is porn ads neal.fun is what I think you meant to link

Ha whoops. But yes, the ads on the neal site I meant to link to had the aforementioned problem

Re: Parental controls aren't for parents

#122

Post by bryan_w »

One thing you can do: glue the device into a dock, hook it up to the family TV then set the expectations that they can only use it when an adult is around (or take the power adaptor when you leave if you need to be strict about it).

But the author is right, it should be easy to set appropriate limits out of the box.

Re: Parental controls aren't for parents

#123

Post by xg15 »

fn-mote wrote: post #63

Dear All, As you post, please be clear what age range child you are discussing. There are a lot of posts here advocating strategies that make sense for a 10 year old but are ridiculous for a 15 year old. Remember: once the children have friends with unrestricted cell phones (essentially all 14+ year olds in the us), there are many many more options for them to go online. Also, I got my start as a “hacker” gaming, che…

Parent: All I want is an off switch!

HN: No no no let me stop you right there

Re: Parental controls aren't for parents

#124

Post by epiccoleman »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #120
epiccoleman wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They don't get to use them unless we let them, but we mostly use them to learn how to type, write, draw, play learning games, Khan Academy, and to mess around in general. That seems fine to me. What I'm referring to above is that the kid literally just has an iPhone with, as far as I can see, virtually no restriction. I imagine you would not let your kids use their device to scroll through Youtube Shorts for an uns…

> That seems fine to me. What I'm referring to above is that the kid literally just has an iPhone with, as far as I can see, virtually no restriction. I imagine you would not let your kids use their device to scroll through Youtube Shorts for an unsupervised 2 hours, for example. Yes, they aren’t allowed to watch youtube shorts at all (nor do either of the parents), but we’ll look up nature or physics videos, and if…

> (nor do either of the parents)

This is key, in my experience. I've told my kids that if they catch me scrolling shorts or reddit, they have the right to confiscate my phone. A big part of instilling the values I referenced above is embodying them myself. (obviously, but it bears repeating).

> But they also play games with non gambling mechanics

This is important too. There's so much genuinely great media out there - TV shows, video games, movies, books. It's not that I don't want my kids to experience that stuff - I just want them to learn how to focus on the stuff that's quality rather than the stuff that is slop.

Re: Parental controls aren't for parents

#125

Post by Aurornis »

alembic_fumes wrote: post #69

This pervasive desire to block, protect, monitor, and control your children's online activities through nebulous supervision tools seems like a particularly American solution to a particularly American problem. Much like how little Timmy simply can't go out to play without a GPS anklet and an air tag behind each ear, so too can't he go online without a supervised account on a supervised device on a supervised connect…

> to a particularly American problem

The Internet and mobile phones are not a particularly American problem. They’re literally everywhere.

Re: Parental controls aren't for parents

#126

Post by mfld »

lucumo wrote: post #57

Family Link is kind of funny like that as well. As a parent you can limit which apps your child can use, and even how long they can use them. My child is above the age we can monitor their every move, but they're below the age where we can trust they won't spend all day playing games when they need to study. So that feature is nice. Except you have to allow the Google app. And you have to allow it unrestricted time.…

Similarly, the Play Store cannot be limited and so for a kid it's easy to spend time on promotional app videos there. So the app limits are mostly useless, since you have to fully lock the phone to disable this.

Re: Parental controls aren't for parents

#127

Post by xg15 »

hnlmorg wrote: post #26

I really want to sympathise with the author but this feels more like a one-sided rant piece than a constructive article. For example, in one paragraph they complain that “I don’t want my son to get online” then literally the following paragraph they complain that they need a Switch Online membership to get their son online. If you want your Nintendo Switch to “behave like a Gameboy” then don’t get the online membersh…

Not a child, but I have a Switch myself and I held off for a long time getting a membership. Of course you can do it, but the Switch will put up lots of passive aggressive roadblocks where it will let you know that you could use this additional feature in the game now if you just had a membership.

There are also unreasonable restrictions, like not being able to play user-created maps in Mario Maker unless you have a membership.

Re: Parental controls aren't for parents

#128

Post by mjg2 »

This HN post fits into the category of "Pithy blog title with casually anecdotal content."

Software companies will never earnestly attempt to protect children because that action ("acknowledging children are in danger by using our product") acknowledges risk and introduces liability. (VCs hate that shit, especially Silicon Valley VCs.) In the United States, decades ago, laws were introduced to induce accountability of online platforms in regard to IP and child protection laws in the context of user generated content (forums, markets, chatrooms). Basically, these websites/corporations bulked at the weight of accountability ("how are we to monitor every user's action all the time?", "We'll be sued immediately by trolls.", etc.). The parties involved eventually came to a resolution that there's a "notice period" that organizations use to enforce this behavior on its communities.

If I were to write a blog titled "Parent Controls Aren't for Parents", my opening salvo would be "They are minimal-effort guardrails to protect corporations from being sued by negligent parents for post-incident harm."

Re: Parental controls aren't for parents

#129

Post by xg15 »

mothballed wrote: post #82
mjg2 wrote: post #75

Earlier 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.

It's the parents obligation to educate their child. It's the child's obligation to use that education wisely. There were no trackers on cars when I started driving at 15 so my parents drove with me for a few months and after that I was on my own. There were no gun laws against kids having guns when I was 7 so my dad showed me how to use one safely and after that I was set loose upon the countryside armed on my own. T…

Ah yeah, it's the parent's responsibility, the child's and probably the pet's as well, the only one who has no responsibility is the tech industry.

Re: Parental controls aren't for parents

#130

Post by logicchains »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #83
alembic_fumes wrote: post #69

This pervasive desire to block, protect, monitor, and control your children's online activities through nebulous supervision tools seems like a particularly American solution to a particularly American problem. Much like how little Timmy simply can't go out to play without a GPS anklet and an air tag behind each ear, so too can't he go online without a supervised account on a supervised device on a supervised connect…

Europeans have trouble understanding in part because social trust is still high in many parts of Europe due to regional monoculturalism.

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