181–190 of 257 posts
I think, YouTube is a double edged sword. There is so much interesting and inspiring content on there but it's tainted by 95% slop. What I'm doing for myself is having an adblock, blocking shorts and redirecting the homepage to subscriptions. This is of course no child protection but at least it helps me to not kill too much time.
Ah, an optimist.
Some of the things my wife and I have provided for our kids: - lots of bookcases with probably >1500 books (including lots of kids/picture books) - what we've collected over the years - a family laptop (2012 MacBook Pro) with no internet connection, pre-loaded with Pages, Sheets, Affinity Photo/Designer, a few small games, and some coding tools (Python, Ruby, VSCode, Scratch, etc.). - Lego Spike and Spike Prime robot…
This sounds very interesting and very much in-line with what I’ve been musing as a soon-to-be father. One question that comes to my mind is do your kids compare their experiences to their friends? If their friends have access to a laptop with internet, or a music subscription service with all the music constantly available (a la Spotify), do they not compare and ask you why their experiences must be so limited? Why d…
We got my daughter an FM radio when she was around 9. Turns out it's a novelty among her friends and she really enjoys using it. I find local commercial radio insipid but apparently the music they play is acceptable to her. The music on broadcast FM is tame enough that I wasn't worried about subject matter.
For context I was born in 2005, so obviously much later than most people whose childhoods were enriched by technology, but all the same mine was. That is how I know succumbing to the Bad Side of the Internet is not inevitable. As a kid I would spend hours every day on forums, playing games, watching videos, programming, discovering new tech, fiddling with programs, OSs, emulators, hardware, you name it. The most amazing thing about the Internet to me was the infinite possibilities, how any topic I could choose would have endless resources, learning material, and discussions surrounding it. Whenever I got passionate about something, be it programming or space or Android or a band, the Internet was there for me to share that passion with, to learn, grow, explore, embrace, understand!
There still is, in 2026, a Good Side of the Internet (we are currently on it), along the Bad Side. What this post proposes is limiting access to the discovery mechanisms that would allow you to find the Good Side in the first place. By limiting your childrens' access to technology to only things you know are good, you are preventing them from exploring and finding their own interests and passions.
As someone who grew up in the 90's, I think seeing the live progression of tech was really helpful for my own understanding. For instance we saw: - CDs moving to Mp3s moving to the ipod and finally streaming - Games moving from 8bit to early 3d graphics to where they are today - Family computer moving to laptops and eventually to ipads - Landlines to early cell phones to the iphone today All of these experiences help…
Yep, with video games, we started with SNES and have been slowly moving higher fidelity. We've got a VOIP landline for the kids, as well as a CD player. It's been working pretty well. For computing, they have a desktop Raspberry Pi 400 running Raspbian, terminal-centric setup.
As someone who grew up in the 90's, I think seeing the live progression of tech was really helpful for my own understanding. For instance we saw: - CDs moving to Mp3s moving to the ipod and finally streaming - Games moving from 8bit to early 3d graphics to where they are today - Family computer moving to laptops and eventually to ipads - Landlines to early cell phones to the iphone today All of these experiences help…
Most kids that grew up during the timeline you described had no interest in computer architecture. The small minority that did care is probably the same size now. The other 99% who were into yoyo-ing back then are now into TikTok, that's all.
I think this is a misguided approach. Obviously children should not be let loose in this current digital world, but the restraints should be a very conservative blacklist, not a whitelist. For context I was born in 2005, so obviously much later than most people whose childhoods were enriched by technology, but all the same mine was. That is how I know succumbing to the Bad Side of the Internet is not inevitable. As a…
Some of the things my wife and I have provided for our kids: - lots of bookcases with probably >1500 books (including lots of kids/picture books) - what we've collected over the years - a family laptop (2012 MacBook Pro) with no internet connection, pre-loaded with Pages, Sheets, Affinity Photo/Designer, a few small games, and some coding tools (Python, Ruby, VSCode, Scratch, etc.). - Lego Spike and Spike Prime robot…
For phone, we might use a Bluetooth to home phone adapter I had got my uncle in the past, not sure yet how things will look in a few years. Then we can have a shared family phone when home was my thought.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This sounds very interesting and very much in-line with what I’ve been musing as a soon-to-be father. One question that comes to my mind is do your kids compare their experiences to their friends? If their friends have access to a laptop with internet, or a music subscription service with all the music constantly available (a la Spotify), do they not compare and ask you why their experiences must be so limited? Why d…
It can be important to tell kids early that comparisons don't matter, that everyone's diffferent, and that's ok, and every family's different and that's ok.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a line to toe - each kid is different, but with my daughter she went from a flip phone in middle school, to a smart phone in high school. We didn't turn on mobile data for her smart phone (hand me down pixel) until about a year ago. She is very responsible with it and it hasn't been much of an issue. She had no problems making friends, and if her phone was filtering shallow people out her friend pool a bit th…
I like lineageOS but it feels cruel to give a kid who is dying for a smartphone a nexus5 with lineageOS on it.
It's about as cruel as the 10yo MacBook I gave my daughter when she was younger. She loved that thing.