[HN Gopher] Ask HN: What is your policy regarding smartphones fo...
___________________________________________________________________
Ask HN: What is your policy regarding smartphones for your
children?
Recently, there are more and more studies that smartphones harm
learning and not a single study with the opposite results. However,
very few parents have the guts not to buy a smartphone for their
child. At what age do children in the HN crowd begin to have
censored access to proprietary software (personal supervision) and
uncensored (smartphone with or without parental controls)? Are
there families where children have access to computers with only
FOSS before they have access to proprietary software?
Author : eimrine
Score : 69 points
Date : 2023-09-01 06:58 UTC (16 hours ago)
| iteria wrote:
| As someone who spent _a lot_ of time playing video games in
| elementary and then every waking moment on computers/the internet
| when I was in middle school, but still had friends, got good
| grades, and have a fine career, I have mixed feelings about
| electronics. I'm old enough to see that clearly some children are
| addicted to their tablets/phones/videogames to the detriment of
| everything, but I also see what impact having no exposure can do
| and it's not great either but in a different way. I think a
| middle grade and understanding your child is called for.
|
| My daughter is only 4, but she's had access to a tablet since 1.
| She's far less addicted than any of her cousins. She will give it
| up in a heartbeat to do anything else. Sometimes just cartwheels
| down the hallway. Her tablet is wall garden locked to amazon, so
| no access to youtube which was honestly a good move looking at
| some of her classmates. I've some apps outside of Amazon's garden
| like Disney Plus. All her stuff has parental controls and her
| tablet operates at my pleasure and before bedtime.
|
| I think that some this is just parenting. I saw a study that
| stated that screen time only correlated with bad outcomes if your
| kid would have been doing something else. So if your kid could
| have been interacting with you, but instead was play games or
| watching streaming then that's where it's bad. If they would have
| just been home doing nothing, then the tablet doesn't hurt and
| can sometimes help.
|
| I've taken this to heart and from a young age I've tried to just
| do stuff with my kid and have her so stuff and make sure she
| understood that while riding in the car with her tablet was okay,
| using it at the park was not okay. Replace park with literally
| anything. I think this is why now, her tablet is more of a
| boredom thing for her and she's doesn't need it every moment of
| every day. She'd rather run outside.
|
| I'm just a sample of one and I know I'm more strict the more
| addicted the child seems to be (I have many niblings). I do think
| that screens are dangerous, but so is sugar and I think like
| sugar you a balance is best. You don't want a kid sneaking sodas
| because you never let them have one, but allowing soda every day
| is probably bad idea. That's my stance about screens. If you feel
| more attached to your phone, etc beyond it being a tool, you
| probably need a longer break from one is my thinking.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| > I think that some this is just parenting
|
| and probably predisposition which is being selected against in
| real time
|
| as in, yes, its an additional distraction that undermines a
| group of human's productivity for the next few generations, but
| not all
| shmde wrote:
| Thread is depressing af. I wonder how many people here had
| unrestricted access to computers and internet growing up ( I did
| ) and I am thankful for that. If a kid wanted to do what they
| wanted to, no amount of restrictions are gonna help.
| javier_e06 wrote:
| No phones until 13 or 14.
|
| Yet, I don't have the courage to make a peep when I see friends
| handing their phones to their kids so they'll let us talk at the
| restaurant.
|
| In my day (back then) they'll send me to buy cigarettes or some
| other errand.
| lvspiff wrote:
| the good ol days when the pizza hut had pac man, guantlet, and
| a cigarette vending machine right next to each other.
| petercooper wrote:
| Quite little except lots of education/dialogue, app
| approval/setup, and parental oversight on demand (i.e. we can ask
| to look at their devices up to a certain age). We have had zero
| problems of overuse, misuse, attitude, or the like. They do have
| lots of extracurricular activities and clubs to keep them
| busy/social though with little spare time (something I don't
| wholeheartedly agree with - being "bored" made me quite inventive
| as a kid - but my wife's methods seem to result in good kids so
| I'm going with it!)
| MarcScott wrote:
| My child (now sixteen) has had unfettered access to technology
| and the internet since he was about four years old. He's had old
| tablets and laptops, and a mobile phone (since about the age of
| nine). I don't monitor his use, or use parental controls. He's
| familiar with macOS, Windows and Linux, and can build his own PC.
| I fail to see any negative effects with my attitude towards his
| use of tech.
| cvhashim04 wrote:
| Open and unfettered access to the internet since age 4 has
| probably given him a warped sense of reality.
| K0balt wrote:
| It really depends on what actually happens.
|
| I raised my kids on a sailboat. Literal death was just a matter
| of standing in the wrong place at the wrong time, or falling
| off when no one would notice for 5 minutes.
|
| They all survived.
|
| They survived because they had a deep understanding of the
| dangers involved and how to avoid them, not because raising 6
| towards old children on a sailboat is perfectly safe.
|
| Was it worth it? Sure. They are all amazing people with a
| global culture, strong risk taking and management skills, and a
| broad range of skills.
|
| If one of them had died, my answer would probably be no, not
| worth it.
|
| With screens at a young age, There is a risk of dopamine-short
| loops and damage to attention mechanisms in brain development.
| If they don't do the thing's that are damaging, they won't be
| damaged.
|
| To be perfectly clear, I am not criticizing your choice. Sounds
| to me like it was the right one. But it's definitely a YMMV
| situation, like sailing the ocean with young children.
| ipnon wrote:
| The "family computer" of long ago ages seemed to attenuate the
| kinds of addiction we see today. It also made computing more
| social since the only resource was shared.
| loudmax wrote:
| I think FOSS vs proprietary software is sort of orthogonal to
| what kind restrictions you should probably impose as a parent. It
| might be more useful to think about what kind of online
| environments your kids are engaging in. Anything monetized by ads
| is sketchy. Unfortunately, that's most of the internet.
|
| My two sons were born in the early 2000's. When they were in
| elementary school, they had access to a desktop computer in our
| living room (running Gentoo Linux). In early elementary school,
| they had whitelist of web sites they could access, with Wikipedia
| as the home page. They each had about an hour a day, under
| parental supervision.
|
| In middle school, they had tablets, which we made them turn in
| before bed time. I installed Minecraft on the desktop. Battle For
| Wesnoth is pretty good too.
|
| In high school, we got them cell phones, and the school handed
| them laptops. We made them turn electronics in before bedtime,
| but we relaxed this as they got older.
|
| I absolutely recommend setting boundaries. Properly instilling
| discipline in children takes a lot of self-discipline as a
| parent, and maintaining these boundaries can be a lot harder than
| it sounds. Be prepared for arguments. For better and worse, their
| cell phones are their connection to their peers, much of it
| mediated by Instagram and Snapchat.
|
| It depends a lot on the kid too. Turning in the cell phone before
| bedtime became a major point of contention with my older son. We
| never had those problems with the younger one. I don't think we
| treated them that that differently, it's just how their
| personalities are. I think the kids turned out okay in the end.
| The older one is now serving in the US Marine Corps and the
| younger one just left for college a few weeks ago.
|
| Love your kids, and stay involved with them. Then slowly let go.
| benjaminwootton wrote:
| Children 10 and 7. We are very anti screentime as it always
| seemed to send ours kids crazy and create behavioural issues.
|
| We started loosening it for the 10 year old, but within 6 months
| of that we had a few incidences of early online bullying so we
| are pushing back again.
|
| I personally hate to see kids and young people zombified looking
| at phones and want to delay, delay, delay.
| baz00 wrote:
| They only do that if there's sod all else to do that's
| interesting. Mine get bored with the phone after 30 minutes.
| The youngest is currently making a necklace, the middle one is
| reading a book and the eldest is getting drunk with her
| boyfriend.
| stevekemp wrote:
| I live in Finland, and have a child who will soon turn seven.
| Finnish children start school "proper" around this age, and this
| is the first time they're able to make their own way to/from
| school.
|
| (Some children walk, some cycle, and others take the regular
| busses and trams, depending on the distance involved. In our case
| the child has to walk a few hundred meters, and not cross any
| roads at all, so it's an easy walk for him.)
|
| Because school finishes around 2pm we've just recently given him
| a phone so he can say "I'm going to play outside", "I'm coming
| [to the empty] home", or "I'm going to friend XXX for a couple of
| hours". It isn't a proper smartphone, but it does allow more than
| an old-school Nokia.
|
| We've generally allowed 30 minutes of "screen time" a day,
| sometimes that has been watching selected youtube videos,
| sometimes playing Super Mario Bros on the nintendo, and sometimes
| it has been watching TV. I expect the dynamic will change a
| little more now, but not hugely.
|
| Parental controls will be setup to allow more access between 1pm
| and 6pm, but I expect that we'll not allow access in the mornings
| or "late" at night, just to ensure there's not too much obsessive
| use.
|
| When/If the child can route around the parental controls I think
| we'll "reward" that creativity with more access. Need to
| encourage the hacker-mindset :)
| rendall wrote:
| What does your child do when he is not on the screen? I'm kind
| of struggling with this with my child (also Finland) (similar
| age).
| stevekemp wrote:
| It varies, to be honest.
|
| When he's left to his own devices he reads a lot of Aku
| Ankka, plays with lego, pokemon cards, and toy cars.
|
| He's quite interested in designing simple board-games, and
| role-playing character sheets. I think he gets that from his
| mother, and also from Minecraft. He'll show me a sheet of
| paper with a bunch of weapons (bows, swords, guns, etc) with
| "points" associated with them, and then tell me stories.
|
| He goes to play with kids in the garden, the park, or at
| their houses often, and every weekend I take him swimming,
| then to sauna. Or sometimes just sauna.
|
| We're doing a bit more "adult" stuff these days, now he's a
| bit older and has an attention span. For example in the past
| few months I've taken him to a 90 minute-long circus show,
| Linanmaki, his first metal gig (hevisaurus), and to the
| cinema to watch the Mario film. I expect it is only a matter
| of time until I take him to watch a hockey match, but I don't
| think he'll be so interested so I've held off for the moment.
|
| I guess other recurring things include going to the allotment
| (palsta) to weed, harvest berries, and random walks in the
| forest. He's been really interested in that this year,
| especially.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| Our kids are ages 5-8, and we limit them to 1 hour per day of
| screen. When not on a screen, our kids play with toys, draw
| pictures, draw/write stories, read books, make stuff out of
| garbage (cardboard, cans, bottles, etc), make mud pies in the
| backyard, and so on.
| bluepod4 wrote:
| There have been a couple similar posts recently.
|
| But in those similar posts and this one, the OPs never mention
| how _they_ were raised.
|
| I think it'd be interesting to know.
|
| Even if it's not a smartphone. It could be a Nokia trac phone or
| whatever. It could be video games. It could be their own personal
| laptop or pc or their own AOL kids or teen account.
|
| It's hard to provide advice when we don't know the baseline.
| javajosh wrote:
| I have a "minimal screens" policy. What screens they do get are
| _creative_. For example, KidPix. I don 't allow games or video
| watching. This puts the screen squarely in the "arts and crafts"
| space, where it belongs, and I don't need to put limits on it
| because they limit themselves.
|
| They won't have smartphones or tablets of their own until high
| school. And even then it will be for creative things, comms with
| friends. No social media.
|
| I will allow them to play some online games, like Fortnite and
| Rocket League, with the chat/mic turned off. My daughter loves
| Astro's Playroom (great game BTW) so she's gonna be a gamer. Game
| consoles aren't the problem. The always on pocket screen that's
| constantly beeping with promises of a dopamine hit is a HUGE
| problem. It may seem like a fine distinction, but it's crystal
| clear to me (and to them). I make a point to show them what
| screens have done to groups in the world, when you see people all
| looking at their phones instead of each other at dinner. We laugh
| at them and pity them, and this is correct.
| dnndev wrote:
| If any of the kids are like the way I was they have two phones, a
| fake phone for the parents to see and control, and then a real
| phone I keep to myself
| yieldcrv wrote:
| useful skillset on its own
|
| as long as you dont really expect to have any control, lower
| your expectations and act surprised
| Slava_Propanei wrote:
| [dead]
| rootusrootus wrote:
| 10 & 12, both have iPads with restrictions - 2 hours/day with
| certain apps excepted, e.g. drawing, coding, other educational
| apps. No smartphones yet, but both have cellular Apple watches.
| Texting only with contacts, I manage the contacts. We've
| consistently drawn the line at 9th grade for their first
| smartphone, which is fairly late compared to our contemporaries.
|
| They have lots of other things to do, too, of course. We have a
| Switch, Xbox, trampoline, swimming pool, hot tub, and a
| neighborhood full of other kids their age. They would probably
| spend more time on YouTube than I'd prefer if I didn't put a cap
| on it, but it's been basically fine so far. We do have a rule
| against iPads in bedrooms with closed doors, though that is
| starting to relax a bit with the 12 year old.
|
| Kids grow, you kinda have to roll with it and adjust to fit the
| situation. You can't keep them innocent forever, and if you try,
| you will not get the well adjusted adult you're aiming for. We
| have some family who are hard core home schoolers (for religious
| reasons) and it turns out a disaster more often than not. They're
| so worried about public school indoctrination but are then
| surprised to find their own kids refuse to be indoctrinated at
| home.
| rbultje wrote:
| I have 2 boys, 10 & 12. The 12YO has an Apple Watch which is
| useful to keep track of where he is and being able to reach each
| him (or him reach us). No social media or games, which is what
| most people are worried about at that age. So it seems like a
| decent trade-off. You can set it up to not allow phone calls or
| messages from unknown numbers, which means no scam
| calls/messages.
| dariusm5 wrote:
| We have a 2 year old and we don't use our phones or devices when
| she's around unless it's a video call from family or an important
| phone call.
|
| We're happy with the results so far since she's turned out to be
| a very patient, intelligent, and attentive child. She finds
| enjoyment in books, puzzles, drawing, cooking, gardening,
| cleaning, unloading/loading the dishwasher, laundry, and all
| sorts of activities her overstimulated peers would find boring
| nowadays.
| [deleted]
| MKais wrote:
| I have two 13-years-old kids. No mobile phones. Most friends have
| phones. Pressure is high. Kids can use their mother's phone to
| answer some class group messages. Kids still surviving and
| thriving. Parents still resisting. Good luck everyone.
| irrational wrote:
| They can have one when they get a job and can afford to purchase
| it (and a data plan) on their own. So far that has happened
| around 17+ years old.
|
| At home we use Circle. If they want their phone to be on our
| wifi, it has to have the circle vpn installed. I assumed they
| would just want to use their own data, but so far all of them
| have voluntarily chosen to have the circle vpn installed.
| quietthrow wrote:
| I keep talking to my older kid (pre teen) about the harmful
| effects of phones and screens. Kid seems to get it(for now) But
| the real test is yet to come - middle and high school where most
| kids have a phone. I am hoping that my kids will be ok being
| mavericks. I realize that hope is not a plan but the reality is
| that my environment is against me so there isnt a sure fire way
| to protect children unless you are ok with sheltering them to a
| point where it eventually becomes debilitating for them to
| operate in the real world.
|
| To the OP: people typically have a herd mentality. HN is no
| different in that way. All you can do is try to instill trust
| between you and your kids and hope they will listen to you. You
| should also be super transparent with them about why you take the
| position you take. Give examples of people's addiction to their
| screen/social media and how it's distorts their view of reality
| to only make them feel bad about their existence. I am sure you
| can find a few in your own extended family or surroundings.
| Generally speaking , going against the grain takes a high degree
| of belief in something. Overcoming one's minds transient desires
| requires strong intellect. That can be developed but it's not an
| overnight thing and it's certainly extremely hard when most
| People barely have any time to themselves or their kids - at
| least in USA (where real wages have been stagnant for 30+ years
| but cost of living has not[1]. The US deserves the birth rate
| decline it's facing. It's going to be a while before free markets
| and capitalism can evolve to solve this one)
|
| [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/08/07/for-
| most-...
| camhart wrote:
| The mental health issues our youth are facing have significant
| roots in smartphones/social media. The longer you can delay it
| without having your child be ostracized from their peers the
| better. Each child will likely need a different approach, but I'd
| encourage heavy involvement and oversight by parents. The bad far
| outweighs the good, but if monitored you can hopefully mitigate
| the bad.
| yumraj wrote:
| Smartphone in high school, not before.
|
| No social media _apps_ on the phone. Parental control (iOS) so
| need Parent permission before installing apps
|
| At home most/almost every non-professional social media is
| blocked via pi-hole
|
| I'm not on FB, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok etc. I think this is
| very very important for the above since kids see that parents are
| also not on social media. Most people, IMHO, run into trouble
| when they use it but want to restrict kids.
|
| This mostly worked for a kid who just went to college. Will see
| if it works for the other.
|
| Edit: have Switch and PS5, but multiplayer internet games are not
| allowed. Offline games only.
|
| Edit2: I occasionally remote login into computers to tell the
| kids that I can do that. I think/hope it reduces temptation.
| jiofj wrote:
| [flagged]
| djtango wrote:
| What don't you like about online gaming?
| yumraj wrote:
| I made a rule. Bought most games I was asked for, was never
| pushed back for online gaming.
|
| So it worked. If there had been much push back for a game, I
| would have dug deeper.
|
| At the very least, conversations can be rather profanity
| laden and so can be the user names.
| Hayvok wrote:
| Behavior from fellow players can range from day-brightening
| to absolutely appalling. Not taking the risk.
|
| Even in multiplayer games without chat/audio, the other
| players will find creative ways to exhibit behaviors I find
| intolerable for my kids.
| balaji1 wrote:
| might be obvious - online games much more tempting than
| offline single player games. I have not played single player
| games in decade+ but have played several days the latest
| multiplayer games.
|
| Does it mean online games are more addictive for kids or
| affect them worse than offline games? probably not. But I
| have observed (many) kids who can power thru single player
| games tend to be more unyielding on other tasks.
| gizmo385 wrote:
| As a person who grew up and found very valuable social
| connections in online spaces, connections that helped me figure
| out who I am as a person, these feel very controlling and
| overbearing to be a bit blunt. For kids who don't fit society's
| typical mold, whether they be queer or whatever, being able to
| meet people who have lived their experience is invaluable.
| oppositesexact wrote:
| How old are you? To be a bit blunt -- things have changed
| significantly since those of us in our (late?) 30s and up
| grew up dialing into BBS Compuserve AOL.
| yumraj wrote:
| I hear you. In an ideal world I would have supported that.
|
| Unfortunately in the current social media, the choice is
| between letting the kids wade in cesspool of crap and hope
| they find some lotuses, or support them in person till they
| are mature enough.
|
| It's a hard decision. I made the one above.
|
| Edit: to clarify, if my kid ever comes to me as queer or
| whatever, I'll make sure to find in-person connections that
| can help. Relying on social media still feels a little iffy.
| I'm really glad you were able to find meaningful connections.
| I have a feeling not everyone is as lucky as you.
| eitally wrote:
| I think it's important to differentiate social _media_ with
| social networks. I would vigorously argue that Instagram &
| TikTok are media setup for doom scrolling, and almost
| nobody gets anything positive from the experience (unless
| they're selling something). On the other hand -- and
| perhaps I'm dating myself but I ran a dial-up BBS in the
| early 90s -- platforms that lend themselves to formation of
| meaningful relationships aren't all cesspools. I think it's
| important to have open conversations with one's children to
| assess what they need in their lives to become open-minded,
| rational, compassionate and helpful contributors to
| society, and that's impossible without cultivating the
| right relationships.
| shmde wrote:
| Sounds draconian af. This would just... make a kid hack into
| the iPhone and find out ways to remove restrictions.
| yumraj wrote:
| That'll be cool. I would love it for my kid to do that. So
| learn new skills.
| gwnywg wrote:
| I haven't bought smartphones for my kids. Some of their friends
| have smartphones and this sometimes leads to complaints and
| longer conversations, for now they accept my list of reasons, I'm
| yet to see what will future bring.
|
| As for computer access, I gave my kids access to my old PC
| running arch linux with some open source games, like minetest or
| supertuxkart. There are complaints that games are not as slick as
| they have seen when visiting other kids, but similarly to
| smartphones- they tend to accept my reasoning.
|
| I don't let my kids to watch youtube unattended, I'm not happy
| with youtube recommendation system and more importantly with ads
| they serve. Luckily I got to the point where each time my kids
| see something weird on the internet they are either turning off
| or switching with some funny comment about the content.
| l33t7332273 wrote:
| >I gave my kids access to my old PC running arch linux with
| some open source games, like minetest or supertuxkart
|
| I do wonder why you aren't okay with mainstream games like
| Minecraft.
| mksybr wrote:
| Minetest is both free and fairly comparable to Minecraft, if
| you use (Minetest) mods.
| pixelatedindex wrote:
| Could you share the reasoning that you provide your kid? This
| is a concern of mine as a future parent and would love to know
| what effective reasoning looks like.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Our policy is we don't have children
| omnicognate wrote:
| I have a whitelisting proxy for my kids at home (squid based).
| Later I will change it to blacklisting, then just logging before
| eventually giving them uncontrolled access. I don't have a
| timetable for it and will change it whenever it feels
| appropriate.
|
| I also use Wireguard to route my own mobile phone traffic through
| my home network. When the time comes to give the kids smartphones
| (which I'm in no hurry to do) I will initially give them managed
| devices with always-on wireguard to the home network, so traffic
| goes through the same proxy. The set of available apps will also
| be restricted.
|
| We talk a lot about the complexities, opportunities and dangers
| of the internet and the kids are accepting of the restrictions.
|
| The technology exists to manage this. It's the same stuff
| companies use for byod. It's just that nobody makes it easy for
| parents to do it.
| hash07e wrote:
| Not until 15
| mfgs wrote:
| The kids in my family attend a school where the parents have all
| verbally agreed to not get their kids a smart phone until 16.
| This removes the peer pressure element of owning a
| phone/instagram/etc. When that's removed there is little downside
| and huge upsides to the kids not having phones.
| strangattractor wrote:
| After having raised a child to maturity with no policy I would
| recommend no devices at all for as long as you can maintain
| sanity. Eventually you will have to break down simply because
| they do provide a certain utility but until the utility to
| distraction ratio exceeds 1 don't do it.
| eli wrote:
| > _Recently, there are more and more studies that smartphones
| harm learning and not a single study with the opposite results._
|
| 1) It's much more nuanced than you're making it out to be. There
| are a lot of studies that show _overuse_ of phones ( "phone
| addiction") is bad for academic performance. Going beyond that
| runs into some serious correlation/causation problems. For
| example, children in lower income families spend significantly
| more time in front of a screen than middle-class families.
|
| 2) Is "learning" the sole issue you're concerned about? There are
| studies that show cell phone _bans_ are harmful in other ways:
| reducing social interaction, student happiness, and feelings of
| safety.
|
| If you look at the above two points together I think you can draw
| a conclusion that smartphones, like most other things, are fine
| in moderation and potentially problematic at the extremes.
|
| Here are the AAP recommendations about screen time:
| https://www.aap.org/en/patient-care/media-and-children/cente...
| AAP has a reputation for being conservative and evidence-based in
| what they recommend.
|
| EDIT: I found a high-quality study from just last year that
| should no association between the age a child acquires a phone
| and depression, grades, or sleep quality.
| https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cdev.13851
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Presumably safety could be addressed with a dumbphone; I don't
| think that's an argument for smartphones.
| eli wrote:
| Sure, though I'd note that _feeling_ safe is potentially
| about more than just having the means to make a phone call.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Another option in the same vein is a watch with cellular. One
| advantage is that it's harder to lose.
| max_ wrote:
| I think this is something that has not been well integrated into
| smartphone devices & computers
|
| Here is what I would want.
|
| - Access to my child's browsing history
|
| - Access to my child's YouTube watch history
|
| - Require my (remote approval) before a child wants to install an
| application
|
| - Give me the remote ability to turn off acess to certain
| applicationsy child use for a certain period
|
| - The ability for me to block certain sites from my child browser
| like shock sites
| peddling-brink wrote:
| - use a DNS profile, this gives you the websites they visit.
| Eg. NextDNS
|
| - block YouTube. Mirror content you approve of locally. Yt-dlp
| + Jellyfin
|
| - iOS has these last three built in to screen time. DNS can
| help with the last one too.
|
| I'd urge you to resist attempting total control. Trust and
| verify can go a long way.
| NoZebra120vClip wrote:
| I believe there's plenty of apps which will give you most of
| that, but generally they are termed "stalkerware", and the app
| stores will remove them based on their utility to abusive
| domestic partners and the like.
| max_ wrote:
| I don't want to install 3rd party software.
|
| I want these features to come with Firefox, Chrome, MacOS,
| Windows & Linux
| prepend wrote:
| macOS and iOS have it built in. Look for "parental
| controls.
|
| Windows has it built in but I've found it pretty non-
| functional.
| NoZebra120vClip wrote:
| Well have you looked into Google Family Link? https://suppo
| rt.google.com/families/answer/7680868?sjid=9290...
|
| Google offers you the ability to set up children's accounts
| with parental controls. I believe it offers some or all of
| this functionality. It appears that you actually need to
| access the child's account to view their history (doesn't
| seem different than an adult's in that respect) but you can
| definitely enact parental controls and whatnot. You can
| block or whitelist websites and apps for sure.
| eimrine wrote:
| You know what's really funny? The government of the United
| States has a complete list of everything you have listed. As a
| topikstarter, I want to tell you that you missed the point of
| the question asked. Not to mention that you want to re-test
| what is already being checked by competent people, instead of
| wanting to _positively_ influence learning.
| l33t7332273 wrote:
| >The government of the United States has a complete list of
| everything you have listed
|
| Is this a logical conclusion/hunch/feeling, or is this
| documented somewhere?
| tflinton wrote:
| My kids share an iPad and you can enable screen time and
| parental controls to do everything you've mentioned. Also for
| YouTube just install YouTube Kids it has no ads and prescreened
| content for kids 8 and less. Parents can also block channels on
| it.
| whateverman23 wrote:
| Unless we're talking about very very young children, I have an
| extremely hard time with this. I had none of that as a child,
| and I assume neither did most adults here. Because I had none
| of that, I'm a software engineer making hundreds of thousands
| of dollars a year. In no world would I be where I am today with
| those limitations.
|
| - What am I going to do with my child's browsing history except
| snoop? Are we still worried about porn in 2023?
|
| - What applications are they going to install that I'd want to
| override that couldn't be solved by not giving them a credit
| card number?
|
| - What are they going to watch on Youtube that can't be solved
| by simply limiting device time?
|
| - Shock sites? Surely every one of us experienced that at some
| point in our childhood, and I haven't thought about them in
| years. And are they even in vogue these days?
|
| - Stories like strangers trying to meet up with children seem
| on par with poisoned halloween candy. It happens incredibly
| infrequently, often ends up being a known family member anyway,
| and people forever fear it as if it's actually something to
| fear in their daily lives.
|
| I think communication, education, and limiting screen time at
| certain ages is the only healthy thing to do. Giving children
| (yes, even young children) some privacy is important. Your
| suggestions I believe fall into the "helicopter parent"
| territory.
| User23 wrote:
| > Are we still worried about porn in 2023?
|
| I guess that the percentage of people who approve of their
| preteen children watching porn is still a rather small
| minority. In fact globally I'd bet the majority of adults
| don't even approve of themselves watching porn.
|
| More broadly speaking, assuming we're roughly of the same
| generation, I'm not sure our parents' borderline neglectful
| approach to children (latchkey, ads at 10 PM to remind them
| we exist, not being let in the house during the day) is one
| that's worthy of emulation.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| >> I'm not sure our parents' borderline neglectful approach
| to children (latchkey, ads at 10 PM to remind them we
| exist, not being let in the house during the day) is one
| that's worthy of emulation
|
| Latchkey is a little after I grew up, mid Gen X, I think
| the premise is that these kids with working parents would
| run home alone and lock themselves inside in terror because
| some kid somewhere got abducted and it made the news. I
| don't know what statistics there are around it, but that's
| my memory of it.
|
| But I was a beneficiary of the borderline neglectful
| approach to children, and I'm certainly glad I grew up that
| way. I got kicked out of a bar for the first time when I
| was 10 or 11, and when I was 14, I would go to hardcore
| punk shows a hundred miles from home and my mom had no idea
| where I was. "I'm sleeping over at Joe's house tonight".
| Maybe "Joe" existed, maybe he didn't, but either way, I am
| at a show learning how to stage dive.
|
| So it's weird reading how closely people watch their kids
| these days, and I'm not criticizing, people raise their
| kids how they raise their kids, none of my business. But I
| am reminded of one friend whose house I stayed at a couple
| times, he actually had two parents, if you can believe
| that, and they monitored everything he did, asked him
| questions about everything, and he had to ask for
| permission for everything. On one hand I could tell he was
| lucky he had parents who cared about him and wanted the
| best for him, but I also remember feeling so, so sorry for
| him.
| whateverman23 wrote:
| I'm a millennial, for context.
|
| So much to unpack here.
|
| These restrictions just don't make sense to me. I was a
| pretty reserved child, so I can't imagine getting over all
| the hurdles needed to grow as a person and foster my love
| for programming/tech:
|
| - Asking for permission to read all the random Perl forums
| or IRC chats I stumbled upon just wouldn't be a thing I
| would have done.
|
| - My parents probably wouldn't have understood what it all
| was and denied my request. Early on I probably wouldn't
| have even been able to explain why I needed that access.
|
| - Remember installing linux for the first time? Sorry, not
| going to happen because the stalkerware doesn't work on
| linux.
|
| - You want access to a website called "hacker news"?? No
| way! (HN wasn't really a thing I think back in my childhood
| but you get the idea).
|
| -----
|
| Second, I was a latchkey kid. Having two working parents is
| neglectful? What would have been the alternative?
|
| And my point with the porn is that it's not worth locking
| everything down for fear that your child is going to see
| some boobs. It's not worth it, and it seems that it's the
| driving force or a lot of these restrictions.
| User23 wrote:
| > see some boobs
|
| That's either a stupid or a dishonest description of the
| Internet pornography we're talking about here.
| whateverman23 wrote:
| Please focus on the core message of my post rather than
| three words.
|
| If you're so concerned with Internet pornography that you
| want to lock down your child's digital life and know
| every single thing they say and do, then so be it. We
| probably won't change each other's minds.
| User23 wrote:
| Why should an ISP know more about a child's Internet
| activity than the parents?
|
| For what it's worth my personal philosophy would be
| trust, but verify. That necessarily entails some way to
| verify.
|
| Furthermore, in many jurisdictions parents are civilly or
| even potentially criminally liable for their childrens'
| activities. If you're in one of those jurisdictions you
| have a duty to prevent your child from breaking the
| relevant laws or other rules.
| whateverman23 wrote:
| > Why should an ISP know more about a child's Internet
| activity than the parents?
|
| They shouldn't. Fight the ISPs.
|
| > For what it's worth my personal philosophy would be
| trust, but verify. That necessarily entails some way to
| verify.
|
| Again, trust what? Do all roads lead to porn?
|
| > Furthermore, in many jurisdictions parents are civilly
| or even potentially criminally liable for their
| childrens' activities. If you're in one of those
| jurisdictions you have a duty to prevent your child from
| breaking the relevant laws or other rules.
|
| Really grasping at straws here. What laws are you worried
| your child will break that would reasonably reach the
| level you're worried about?
| robertlagrant wrote:
| This might be a surprise to some, but the highly paid
| engineers who invented the internet did not have access to
| the internet when they were children. Correlation is not
| causation, and in this case I can't even imagine the causal
| link in your claim.
|
| Also until extremely recently, almost no one saw adult
| material unless they found a magazine of utterly tame (by
| today's standards) printed nudity.
| whateverman23 wrote:
| You can't become a highly paid engineer today with just
| books and punch cards. I don't know why any of that is
| relevant.
|
| So porn _is_ part of the issue? Really?
| robertlagrant wrote:
| No one mentioned just a book and punch cards.
|
| > So porn is part of the issue? Really?
|
| Isn't that your claim? You needed access to sites your
| parents wouldn't have allowed to become the engineer you
| are today?
| whateverman23 wrote:
| See my other comment below for a more detailed answer
| but: no, my claim is not that I needed porn to become the
| engineer I am today. But the level of restrictions
| proposed by the top level comment in this thread would
| have, and it seems blocking porn is a driving factor in
| those decisions.
|
| Social media addiction, etc. can be helped by restricting
| time without restricting access.
| balaji1 wrote:
| if you and your kids use Chrome, you can log into the same
| email id as their device (in a separate chrome profile on your
| device). You can access browsing and YT history. Believe
| there's a way to turn off incognito also. Might work on other
| browsers too.
| watwut wrote:
| Most of these exist on android.
| mocmoc wrote:
| The issue is not the phone the issue is how you use it. The
| problem are not books the problem is what you read. The issue is
| not tv te issue is what choose to watch. The issue is not sugar
| the issue is what choose to eat
| Lerc wrote:
| As a slightly different perspective. I live in Christchurch on my
| child's 7th birthday we had a 7.2 earthquake in the middle of the
| night. A few months later a 6.8 hit much harder in the daytime.
| More than a hundred died. Kids were at school. After that event
| people prioritised empowering their children with communication
| tools.
|
| More recently when much of the inner city was in lockdown, those
| tools proved invaluable. Even if it were just for kids
| communicating to other kids in lockdown in the room next door.
| brudgers wrote:
| [Random parenting advice from the internet]
|
| My child is grown but grew up during the iPhone era.
|
| Anyway, I had a policy.
|
| It lasted until middle school.
|
| Then we had a conversation.
|
| And worked things out together.
|
| That's my recommendation because in the long run, conversation
| and negotiation are the only tools you really have.
|
| Good luck.
|
| ----
|
| Appendix:
|
| 1. FOSS is your value. Your child is not you. If your child
| thinks FOSS is cool, it's cool. If they think it is lame, you are
| being lame.
|
| 2. Parental controls are only as good as someone else's parents.
| Your child can look at naked people on someone else's phone.
|
| 3. Around middle school, your child's peers begin to have massive
| importance. It is not that you cease to be important. But you are
| going to have to share influence. Even if you try to forbid such
| sharing.
|
| 4. It is better if parents grow as their children grow. Growing
| is on you because you are the adult.
| xivzgrev wrote:
| good info here: https://www.waituntil8th.org/
| eitally wrote:
| We got our kids smartphones when they started middle school --
| for our convenience, not their entertainment. I control what they
| install and I set time limits on when they can use them. They are
| not allowed to have social media accounts, and thus far my only
| bugbear is the fact that I have to allow browser access but that
| then allows unfettered access to Youtube.
|
| I generally trust my kids and they're pretty responsible, but
| there's a lot of stuff out there they could inadvertently wander
| into, and while they probably aren't at elevated risk, I don't
| want it to happen sooner than necessary.
|
| They have Android phones, btw, and are practically the only ones
| in the school who do. The result has been that they use Messages
| + Telegram for chat. They barely acknowledge the fact that their
| Google accounts mean they have email accounts, and even if anyone
| sends them anything they don't read it. App-based push
| notifications are a requirement if you want tweens'/teens'
| attention.
|
| We bought them phones as a safety precaution because they 1) ride
| their bikes to school, and 2) we're all over the place in the
| evenings with sports practices, some of which don't end until
| 9:15pm. We appreciate them being accessible -- by us -- and
| giving them the ability to communicate with us and their friends,
| too.
|
| Phones are not allowed in bedrooms or bathrooms in our house,
| either, for adults or kids. :)
| santah wrote:
| 9 and 12 boys.
|
| They carry dumb phones for calls only (we gave them one when they
| started going on multi day trips from school or outside of it at
| age like 6/7).
|
| They both have laptops and can game on and communicate with
| friends and classmates.
|
| They have old iPhones they sometimes use at home (with no sim
| cards). Those don't leave the house and are very rarely used
| (mostly to chat in friends groups).
|
| They don't watch youtube (except for music sometimes). They know
| what TikTok is (because all their friends watch it), but they
| don't (currently) have interest in it (mainly because we've had
| long talks about how terrible doom scrolling social sites and
| short videos is).
|
| If at some point we give them smart phones with sim cards, we'll
| heavily restrict social media sites and apps, but I plan on
| keeping the dumb phones in use for as long as possible (hopefully
| until 15-16).
| eimrine wrote:
| Thank you for sharing! Music is a pesky topic because all the
| really good music is always on torrents. There are no good
| music on yt because of at least lack of organization of
| tracks/albums/discography, lack of lossless and of course lack
| of a decent search. But as we perfectly know, there is no way
| in exposing the child to the torrents but not to a porn.
| guilherme-puida wrote:
| > There are no good music on yt because of at least lack of
| organization of tracks/albums/discography, lack of lossless
| and of course lack of a decent search.
|
| I don't think children care too much about any of those
| problems, though. I used to listen to music on a cheap radio
| player with an usb stick and I thought it was the greatest
| thing ever.
| garrickvanburen wrote:
| WiFi tablet / Chromebook before then say 5th or 6th grade.
|
| I've 4 kids, so you can imagine that once it's on the house, it's
| in the house and anyone can access the device.
|
| Phone with a SIM card in 8th grade.
|
| If they create a social media account (including chess.com and
| TikTok) they have to "friend" us - their parents.
|
| This is working well for us, especially on the family logistics
| side: shared calendaring, family iMessage thread, shared shopping
| lists.
|
| I've also enjoyed seeing how each kid uses the device
| differently.
| jcpst wrote:
| High school. We were able to keep our oldest from having a
| smartphone until then. She's in college now.
|
| The external pressures are nuts. It got to where she was just
| staring at the screens of her friends phones.
|
| My next oldest starts middle school next year. She has a
| smartwatch set to "family mode" for when she wants to walk to her
| friends or the park without an adult. She has access to the
| internet on a home computer. I think that better because she just
| ends up researching her curiosities over "engaging" with some
| mobile app. I get a report of her search history to make sure
| there's nothing that is a code red.
| dicriseg wrote:
| My child is 11 and starting middle school next year (US). They
| walk to and from school. They have an iPad and a PC at home, with
| a lot of freedom, but I also have pretty solid DNS filtering for
| ads, malware, and some other junk. Social media isn't allowed,
| and their email account is forwarded to us. iMessage is allowed
| contacts only but it's just a matter of asking us. We want some
| oversight. But no phone - the iPad stays home, and they have an
| Apple Watch that lets us keep in contact, know where they are,
| but has no real distraction apps and no camera. We don't really
| know when we'll allow a smartphone but not soon.
| jraby3 wrote:
| 11,9,5 year olds.
|
| The 11 year old is addicted to his phone/switch. But he
| constantly plays with friends so when we block it he ends up
| being somewhat isolated. Seems like a can't win situation but he
| is also pretty active with sports and does great in school.
|
| 9 year old doesn't have restrictions but seems to get sick of it
| after an hour most days (more on weekends). She only games with
| her brother usually watches YouTube.
|
| 5 year old gets 1-2 hours of tv time a day. Usually because she
| wakes up first and turns the tv on herself, and then right after
| daycare while one od us is preparing food.
|
| It's really challenging. The younger ones get jealous of the
| older one if he gets more screen time. The older one is very
| social and suffers when he's isolated from his friends when we
| turn off his screens.
| l33t7332273 wrote:
| >The 11 year old is addicted to his phone/switch. But he
| constantly plays with friends so when we block it he ends up
| being somewhat isolated. Seems like a can't win situation but
| he is also pretty active with sports and does great in school
|
| Just looking around the room I'm in, I see 3/5 of the people
| with laptops/iPads but also on their phones. I think phone
| addiction is common, but maybe addiction isn't quite the right
| word if it's not negatively impacting their life as you mention
| with school and sports.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| 10 y/o - No phone, tablet, computer of any type. (Combination of
| Reggio Emilia and Montessori schooling, so almost no technology
| at school either.)
|
| We're right on the cusp of giving her a laptop w/ some flavor of
| desktop Linux and LibreOffice. She has expressed interest in
| typing versus hand-writing schoolwork. I'm also considering
| giving her an offline copy of Wikipedia, and perhaps a typing
| drill app. Edit: No network access, though. Strictly an offline
| machine.
|
| She has sent text messages to me with her mother's phone a few
| times and had a lot of fun. I wish she had a phone for emergency
| calls and perhaps text messages only with specified contacts.
| (There are times I find myself wishing I could email or text
| her... >smile<) Her mother and I are Apple phone users, albeit
| w/o iCloud accounts and minimal interaction w/ the Apple
| "mothership". I wish their parental controls didn't require using
| iCloud.
|
| Edit: Her mother and I already had a "no phones in restaurants"
| policy before we had the child. Having her around has helped
| reinforce that since we didn't want to be rude and effectively
| ignore her at restaurants. (Although once she learned to read
| she'd just read her book and ignore us. >smile<)
| wiradikusuma wrote:
| I use Android, and it has Family Link. Basically parents can
| (remote) control their kids' phone. No 3rd party app required.
|
| You can set very granular things, like which apps they can open,
| for how long, and what permissions are allowed. For app installs,
| the parents can remote-approve it, or allow kids to download only
| free apps (not good idea).
|
| You can see adjust the restrictions on the fly, like oh you've
| done your homework, I'll give you extra hour. You can see usage
| report.
|
| My kids are still using it to watch youtube. So I'm not
| successful yet.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Regardless of what rules we choose, one thing I don't see here in
| the comments much is the practice of setting a good example for
| your kids. Kids can easily identify hypocrisy. A parent can't
| tell their child to not get addicted to a smartphone if the
| parent himself is addicted to a smartphone. So as parents we set
| ground rules for our own conduct before even thinking about
| policy for the child: We should not sit there mindlessly
| scrolling, especially in front of the child. If we need to use
| the phone for some task, take it out, do the task, and _show_ the
| child that you 're using the smartphone as a tool to accomplish
| something, not for passive consumption.
|
| If you limit your kid's screen time to some arbitrary amount that
| you yourself cannot even achieve, you're transparently sending
| the message that you're full of shit and kids know when you're
| full of shit.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| On top of that, if kids think you're a hypocrite, or even
| judgmental, they won't be transparent with you. They'll go
| behind your back and you'll lose the majority of your influence
| on them.
| apsurd wrote:
| +1. "because I said so" and "when you're an adult..." are
| short-sighted non-fixes.
|
| I'm an uncle to a 5 and 7 year old. They call you on your
| bullshit all the time! And even as a non-parent I get that it's
| hard to always have to debate a 5 year old, but they DO
| recognize and intake consistency, even if they don't have the
| capacity to understand logic and rationality. yet.
|
| You gotta set a consistent and reputable example. Or else
| you're just making a human that understands power.
| floren wrote:
| This is something I think about a lot, whenever I'm holding my
| infant and trying to maneuver my phone into my other hand --
| what behavior am I modeling? It's made me more cognizant of how
| I'll pull out the phone at any free moment, even just for 20
| seconds, so I can occupy myself by opening the browser and
| seeing _something_ , _anything_.
| waprin wrote:
| I have a 2 year old daughter and even though I intuitively know
| it's important to set a good example, I've already been shocked
| to the extent this is true.
|
| My daughter loves grabbing our phones and watching whatever she
| can pull up on them, dialing people. If you take it away she
| gets upset. At first I was thinking, wow phones are very
| addictive on a primal level, she's addicted to just the flashy
| screens.
|
| I think the flashy screen being tempting might be a little
| true, but then I came to a different conclusion about why she
| was so fascinated with the phone.
|
| I noticed she also "changes" her stuffed animals diaper
| including pretending to apply rash cream, pretends to read
| books laying around she's seen me read, fidgets with the same
| household items she's seen me fidget with. That's when I
| realized what may be obvious to people experienced with kids -
| they constantly imitate the adults in their lives.
|
| So my daughter was probably obsessed with staring at a phone
| because she saw her parents obsessed with staring at their
| phones and wanted to imitate them.
|
| Of course this may be more relevant for very young kids moreso
| than teenagers, where the smart phone addictions work at a
| higher more cognitive level. But it did drill home the message
| that our children can be a reflection of ourselves so if you
| want to improve their lives, improve your own.
| graemep wrote:
| Very true. Be honest with your kids.
|
| Also, talk to them. Tell them what the dangers are, tell them
| what they need to talk to you about.
|
| I
| prepend wrote:
| I did no devices at all until kindergarten. I have a tv connected
| to Plex via appletv in my living area and would watch a few shows
| with them.
|
| Gave unlimited books and magazines.
|
| Elementary school- bought an iPad with screen time and "no
| devices upstairs" (all bedrooms were upstairs). 30 minutes on
| school days, 60 minutes on weekend. Wi-Fi rules to shut off at
| night. Pihole to block porn and YouTube.
|
| Middle school got laptops with same controls. And a gaming pc in
| the living room.
|
| No instagram until 13. This was hard because all other kids got
| at 10 or earlier. Am trying to push this to 16 with later
| children.
|
| High school- same laptop, little more screen time and later Wi-Fi
| turnoffs.
|
| Phones with data when they have jobs and can afford to pay
| directly.
|
| Hard to tell if this "works." Have done some tests of how much
| screen time and apps and behavior was very different for the
| worse with more screen time. Things like more arguments. Less
| time creating art or playing in person with friends with more
| screen time.
| l33t7332273 wrote:
| I think by middle school it's probably okay to not turn off the
| router.
|
| Maybe I've got brain worms because I had more or less
| unrestricted internet access since the time I was able to use a
| computer, but it feels like it wasn't overly harmful.
|
| I spent far more than an hour behind a screen and I think I'm
| better off for that time. I spent a lot of time learning to
| program, learning mathematics, and consuming general knowledge
| content via things like vsauce, scishow, minute physics, cgp
| grey, crash course, etc.
|
| However, I also spent a lot of time on reddit which I'm certain
| wasn't ideal for my social development. I understand this case
| may not be typical and maybe not even reproducible given the
| addictive content machines like tik tok, reels, and shorts, but
| I think having the freedom I had was a net positive.
| dgunay wrote:
| I had unrestricted access to the internet too from maybe age
| 10 or so, but it was a different time in the late 90s/early
| 2000s. Massive social networks, YouTube, etc were not much of
| a thing until I was in my mid teens. No smartphones, and PCs
| were clunkier to use than today. Playing videogames, hanging
| out on forums and reading news & Wikipedia were about the
| most engaging things I could do at the time.
|
| I saw plenty of violence and sex earlier than I should have,
| but like you said I feel the internet is a different beast
| these days. At the time, it was merely an unrefined double-
| edged sword of time wasting and free information. Now it is
| more addictive, filled with experiences designed by morally
| degenerate PhDs to prey upon our basest psychological
| weaknesses to make money for megacorps.
| sinclairX86 wrote:
| > _I had more or less unrestricted internet access since the
| time I was able to use a computer, but it feels like it
| wasn't overly harmful_
|
| I have the opposite experience. - I've been
| addicted to pornography since I was 12. - Late computer
| use caused me to never get enough sleep. - Programming
| early started my career, but it also isolated me socially.
|
| YouTube and Tik Tok scare me; as a grown-up, I can still
| waste hours just swiping and swiping. I suspect that getting
| this behavior early on will make you more docile. My siblings
| raise their kids with tablets, and it impacts their learning
| ability and sociability tremendously.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| or maybe its like other easily abused substances: having a
| social circle navigating the same thing makes people not be
| maladjusted and have moderation
|
| different set of norms but just different
|
| abstinence only education doesn't work, no need to become
| your parents just because of a new thing to have a knee
| jerk reaction to
| baz00 wrote:
| Got three kids. They all got a smartphone at 11. But a locked
| down iOS device initially. As trust and responsibility is built
| they get given more capability.
|
| I am 100% against completely banning them from using it as it
| excludes them from important social situations and an anti-
| technology policy hurts them in the long run.
|
| They're here to stay: be a responsible parent and help them use
| them safely. Reward what they do well, don't punish them up
| front.
|
| Edit: my eldest is 2nd year at university now. Without the
| technology focused upbringing she would have the burden of
| learning that on top of the education. Now she zooms around on
| her iPad Pro / Apple Pencil as an extension of herself. No
| technology is a barrier to her.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| I'm making him read the Linux kernel line by line (he shouldn't
| run any software he can't audit). So far it's not working out
| very well, but I have hope.
| MiguelX413 wrote:
| Rare sighting of humor on HN.
| koolba wrote:
| I find it funnier that I didn't read it as a joke.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-09-01 23:00 UTC)