[SoftTalker]

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't require constant monitoring. You could let your kids go to the mall and be fairly sure that they would not be let in to an R-rated movie. They could ride their bikes to a convenience store and the worst thing they could buy was candy.

With online accounts and apps, everything needs review and permission. Every. Single. Thing. That is the main complaint in TFA. He wants a single device level setting so that he doesn't have to constantly vet everything.

This is precisely why many parents support age verification laws for social media and adult sites. Tech companies could have solved this on their terms but they just punted it to "parents" with an insane level of complexity, and the parents don't like it.

[hnlmorg]

> Parents did not have to hover over everything their child did. Was it perfect, of course not, but it worked fairly well and didn't require constant monitoring.

Except kids from families without respectable parents would always be the ones to find access to alcohol, cigarettes, and porn. There were always a few kids in every class that had an older brother, uncle, or friend who would give them access to stuff they shouldn’t have.

It really wasn’t that different in the 80s in terms of parental responsibility.

> You could let your kids go to the mall and be fairly sure that they would not be let in to an R-rated movie. They could ride their bikes to a convenience store and the worst thing they could buy was candy.

That’s still true now.

[LexGray]

Sure the old social there was the kid with porn mags and cigs in his treehouse, but you were never at his house 24/7 and that limited exposure almost inoculated against long term addictions and you experienced it with peer input. Parents would eventually isolate you from those bad elements due to neighbors gossiping and the like.

The new social is your neighbors don’t even know you have kids much less who they are talking too because they are on their phones and kids don’t have peer interactions because you don’t let them outdoors fearing people will report you are exposing them to a dangerous world.

Tech should absolutely have filled that void with a simple age appropriate pediatrician approved on/off with advanced controls available for those that want to tighten or loosen the reins.

I do not have kids, but would envision something like under 5 have no advertising and no network connection without a manual unlock, under 9 should only have access to content with heavy moderation and manual review of advertisements with only approved social contacts and parental alerts for potentially problem content, under 12 restrict unapproved contacts within local school district with problem content blocked with a manual unlock for a set duration, and for under 18 just do an machine learning scan on content and the kid can choose themselves if they want to reveal it with on device warnings about adult content, bullying, scams, and grooming with suggestions to discuss with parents.

[hnlmorg]

> Parents would eventually isolate you from those bad elements due to neighbors gossiping and the like.

That’s my point. Some Parents now expect technology to do their parenting for them in ways they were expecting to do themselves previously.

> I do not have kids,

I do have kids. So my opinions are based on what I’ve personally seen work with my kinds and my peers.

Parental controls shouldn’t be seen as a way to absolve the parents of their responsibility to monitor what their kids consume.

Yeah there will be occasions when things slip through, but that’s always been a risk even before smartphones and the web. What matters is you’re there, as a parent, to ensure leaks are not tidal waves, and to ensure children develop responsible use of technology.

This has always been something parents have had to manage. Both in the 80s and equally so now. Blaming technology is just another way of saying “I’m too lazy to keep tabs on my children”

[eikenberry]

> 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.

[SoftTalker]

In my analogy that would be like forbidding your child from having a bike because they might go somewhere that would sell them beer, rather than simply a general, mostly-reliable prohibition on selling beer to kids.

Or, if you do let them have a bike, it requires you to follow them around everywhere to be sure they don't go to a liquor store.

It's a completely over the top level of control. Yes it would work but also do as much harm as good.

[eikenberry]

The bike analogy depends a lot on where you live. There are places where you would not let your kids ride anywhere they wanted without supervision and there are places where the opposite is true. The internet is one "place" and you'd need to adapt your bike analogy to that place.

[Yossarrian22]

Until the school assigns online homework, homework that takes 3 hours a night

[eikenberry]

I didn't say no computer/internet access. They could do their homework on a computer in a common room.

[soperj]

and then they reset the settings regularly and you have to redo it.