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by cgearhart 820 days ago
> put parental controls on your kids devices

We did that. My kids (twins) pooled their allowance money for a few months and had a friend at school buy them an old iPhone that they shared in a locker at school. They went wild on social media once they were set loose, to the detriment of everyone involved.

There was a government report in the last couple years that concluded (paraphrasing) “the ideal amount of social media for teens is greater than zero and less than ‘all day’—but it’s not clear where it becomes harmful.”

TL;DR-nature, uh, finds a way…
1 comments
squigz 819 days ago
> They went wild on social media once they were set loose

Do you think keeping them away from it initially drove them to this faster?

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cgearhart 819 days ago
I have wondered about that, but we didn’t keep them strictly from it. They had Instagram and a couple other things—with screen time limits and we knew their account handles. That was apparently enough friction for them to find a workaround. “Went wild” in this context means they signed up for dozens of accounts on dozens of different services—SnapChat, Discord, Instagram, and others I’d never heard of at all.
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squigz 819 days ago
> we knew their account handles

I would've taken offence to this bit too, FWIW. Privacy is important.

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cgearhart 819 days ago
> Privacy is important.

I strongly agree, but it needs to be balanced against being 14 on the open internet.

And you can't have it both ways here–it can't be "be a parent: control and limit your kids' on the internet" and "you have to give your kids complete privacy on the internet". My goal has always been to support their growth and development by giving them progressively more responsibility and autonomy as they grow up.

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squigz 819 days ago
> And you can't have it both ways here–it can't be "be a parent: control and limit your kids' on the internet" and "you have to give your kids complete privacy on the internet".

Well I don't think I said otherwise, but not only is this rather absolute, it's not true. I don't see how limiting screen time, for example, precludes respecting their privacy.

May I ask: Why is it important to know their account handles?

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