I know this is tangential, but the article got me thinking again about "How can we help protect children and introduce them into the social internet in a safe and remotely functional manner?" I...
I know this is tangential, but the article got me thinking again about "How can we help protect children and introduce them into the social internet in a safe and remotely functional manner?"
I recall when AIM really hit mainstream as a kid in the 90's. The vast majority of interactions were only done with people you already knew IRL, as you kinda needed to specifically hunt out the more widespread communities.
But now every platform is an international platform and Eternal September gets worse, and I think stopping it is the only way to severely reduce internet toxicity. And the only way I think that might be able to be accomplished is by decentralizing and federating the internet. And I think mimicing a BBS system might be the ticket.
Suppose we set up a new layer of the internet, perhaps call it LWEB. The LWEB is hosted by and managed by the local public schools and libraries, to stave off the sensationalist toxicity to capture ad revenue. It provides all of the major social components (email, chat, media sharing), and as people come online they must graduate from the LWEB to perhaps the county/state/national/international in a tiered and limited fashion.
Invite only from existing members in higher tiers, with younger kids requiring authorization to 'graduate'.
As far as a technical means to accomplish such, I have no clue. This is a social problem and getting there is going to take substantial convincing of a public that barely cares, and doesn't comprehend the problem.
I've got no idea. Probably not possible completely. I learned about computers in order to bypass and disable any parental controls my parents tried to use. Kids are smarter than adults tend to...
I've got no idea. Probably not possible completely. I learned about computers in order to bypass and disable any parental controls my parents tried to use. Kids are smarter than adults tend to give them credit for, whatever cracks there are will be found and exploited and passed on. Ended up spending far too much time on 4chan and being groomed. Reflecting, education is the only thing that could've helped, and neither the schools or my parents gave me knowledge beyond "don't share your name or address." Of course, there are far more things that can fuck you up than just someone finding out where you live.
cw gore mention, cp mention, ed discussion
god, just flashbacks to watching beheading videos and shit. had forgotten about that. no clue why I was doing that. also realizing that in some of those massive libraries of cp floating around, I'm probably in there. haha 🙃 not to mention the racist, sexist, transphobic mire that seemed normal.
just remembered also the horror that is proana (pro-anorexia) communities. dipped back into those recently as a "reality safari" also nostalgia also idk, something else. not doing so hot. the new thing is "meanspo" wherein (mostly) 13-16yo people are mean to each other about their perceived fatness on purpose to further their weight loss. and it's like totally consensual, they thank each other for it. there's group fasts/fasting competitions and people post what they eat and weigh or give tips on purging. those kind of communities were horrible for me when I was at the height of my struggle and they only seem worse now. I think.. I think we have to accept we can't protect the kids 100%, even from themselves, as much as that sucks, but give them up to date education, tools, and support in a non-judgemental manner, same as sex ed (but better, please don't just roll this into Health class), and try to trust them enough that they'll live up to it. minimize splash damage of mistakes (which will happen it's ok) and maybe listen to the kids instead of just prescribing. peer education?
I think this next generation stands a much much better chance of raising internet-aware kids. Or not, I've been seeing people my age fall for the antivax attractors. How are you gonna raise kids with critical thinking skills if you lack them yourself? A big part of the knowledge I hope to pass on is "how to not go off the deep end" and I dunno it's all gonna be deep ends before long. Let the great unraveling of the metaparadigm begin, as it always has been beginning.
But maybe we can do better even if not perfect. Yes federated, local. Need to kill or nationalize FB/insta/tiktok/snap/etc so that there aren't cthonic megaliths trying to squeeze every child's life for ad revenue. Not that the adults are faring much better, been seeing a common sentiment that gen Z is having to educate their boomer parents out of Q etc rabbit warrens.
Social problems need better than purely technological solutions.
Unfinished/unpolished, sorry, hard to write about and trying to bias towards posting. Know this isn't tildes' style but maybe it is useful enough that you can forgive my gestures. Gonna go eat some pasta.
I'm not an IT person, so maybe my thoughts on the subject are a bit ludite. My "solution" would be simply keeping my kids off-line for as long as humanly possible. Kids should not have Instagram...
I'm not an IT person, so maybe my thoughts on the subject are a bit ludite. My "solution" would be simply keeping my kids off-line for as long as humanly possible. Kids should not have Instagram accounts, or any social media account whatsoever now that I think of it. They would not make videos for youtube, tik tok, nothing. I understand schools have online components nowadays, so I might create a heavily blocked Linux user just for that. Smartphones and tablets? Nope, absolutely not. Maybe a Kindle Paperwhite.
I don’t have any kids though, so that's only hypothetical.
I think the major issue is once they have even a tiny bit of autonomy their in-person social lives are connected to other kids in the same way as adults - through phones.
I think the major issue is once they have even a tiny bit of autonomy their in-person social lives are connected to other kids in the same way as adults - through phones.
Oh yeah, absolutely. Eventually they'll need a smartphone, but I'd be willing to delay that for as much as humanly possible. Not sure what age that would be exactly. In the meantime they might...
Oh yeah, absolutely. Eventually they'll need a smartphone, but I'd be willing to delay that for as much as humanly possible. Not sure what age that would be exactly.
In the meantime they might have a dumbfone if necessary.
I'm not laying this out as an attack, but rather to share my experience when I was raised with a similiar level of restrictions (content blocking, no cellphone, etc). I rebelled against the...
I'm not laying this out as an attack, but rather to share my experience when I was raised with a similiar level of restrictions (content blocking, no cellphone, etc).
I rebelled against the authoritarian nature of my parents starting around age 11. As kids have more unsupervised time, especially as they hit middle school, it becomes exceptionally easy to start hiding stuff and doing things on the sly when you disagree with your parents and think you know better (wether accurate or not). I became horrid liar, at least to them, in part because several of their rules were keeping me isolated from my peers to a degree that was crippling my already-hobbled social life.
And one truism that I've noticed in my life, the more sure a parent is that their child isn't doing an undesired behavior, the more likely they are to be doing that thing.
Maybe my situation was special, as my parents continued to treat me as an 11 year old well into my 30's, but thats a story for another time. Perhaps this has colored my views on how rebellious kids are.
But I'm a gambling man, so I'd wager your 12 year old already has a social media account you know nothing about. I might lose that wager for you...but probably not for the vast majority of parents of 12 year olds.
I applaud you for your sanity! At what age are they expect to leave the house? I'm quite the ludite myself, but I would probably allow a well behaved 16 year old to have a smartphone.
I applaud you for your sanity!
They will not be allowed to have a smartphone while living under their parents' roof
At what age are they expect to leave the house? I'm quite the ludite myself, but I would probably allow a well behaved 16 year old to have a smartphone.
I'm not trying to change your mind because I don't think I have any influence over what you do. But while we're on the subject I'd like to think about how I'd handle the situation of raising...
I'm not trying to change your mind because I don't think I have any influence over what you do. But while we're on the subject I'd like to think about how I'd handle the situation of raising children in the modern age. I do hope to have a couple of children some day - so this isn't purely talk. I want to get my thoughts straight. And of course this all depends on the people I'm raising. Genes and circumstances can lead to trillions of personalities.
With the level of influence I would have over my children I think that having them see how I treat the internet and computers would set a good example. I don't use computers for social media besides what's good for my career (I guess LinkedIn counts a social media and I have a company-suggested Twitter account that goes unused). If I'm on YouTube then it's almost entirely to watch educational channels - learning how to cook something, learning how the universe works, etc. If I'm talking with strangers online it's on Tildes, where I think we do a good job at holding up the ideals of online conversation. And of course I need to use the internet for work as a web developer. My parents encouraged me to pursue my interests in computers and it's landed me in an excellent career.
So if my children are old enough to have some autonomy I don't think the best way forward is to completely restrict their access. The internet is critical to our lives. Unless I am sure they want to live as the Amish do I need to make sure they're prepared for the real world. That means their first 5-10 years of exposure to social media, video games, and the internet at large should be under my supervision. I would talk to them about the worst-case-scenarios of social media, where hundreds of anonymous assholes can drive a person to suicide. This could be an opportunity to help create a human being that knows how to recognize signs of depression in themselves and their friends.
As for keeping their hours of computer time limited, it will definitely be necessary to impose some sane restrictions. That stuff is like crack sometimes. But there are many ways to be productive on a computer. If they take after me and enjoy programming then I'd be more lenient with the time they spend on that. If they're tearing through Wikipedia then that's also fair game. But most importantly I would hope to show them my life as an example of one with developed social relationships, regular exercise, and daily excitement provided from something that isn't digital. If I'm working or idling most of the day but requiring diligence from my children then that's too "Do as I say, not as I do". That never taught me anything.
I expect to be lucky enough to have plenty of time to share with my children. The more positive non-digital experiences I can share with them the better. If they need to have those every day then we should share them every day.
My take (fwiw) is that trying to keep them off it, particularily if they are isolated from their peers is a losing proposition that propagates tech ignorance. I'm conveying to my young child the...
My take (fwiw) is that trying to keep them off it, particularily if they are isolated from their peers is a losing proposition that propagates tech ignorance.
I'm conveying to my young child the prevalance of computers, and begin laying the framework about bodily autonomy and emotional maturity (ok my wife is doing the heavy lifting there). I'm still at a whitelisted parent controlled content at the moment, but I know that isn't sustainable or enforceable once they figure out your tricks.
I used to work with a mother of two. She recently caved in and got her nine year old daughter a mobile phone and set up WhatsApp for her because all the kids at school were using it to message...
I used to work with a mother of two. She recently caved in and got her nine year old daughter a mobile phone and set up WhatsApp for her because all the kids at school were using it to message each other.
Obviously not speaking as a parent, but I think it's going to be more difficult than ever to keep children off the internet and monitor their activity moving forward. This unfortunately means that social media platforms will inevitably become breeding grounds for child sexual predators.
Back when I was growing up the internet was in its infancy and there were little to no concerns about online predators. We didn't truly see instant messenger and social network use until I was in secondary school. MySpace was the social network for the goth & rocker crowd while nearly everybody else at school used Bebo as their social network of choice. Facebook wouldn't truly become the behemoth it was until a few years later. As for instant messaging, AIM wasn't popular here in the UK and everybody used MSN.
I worry that when I finally become a parent, I'll either need to go full helicopter parent mode on my kid's internet usage, which I already feel uneasy just thinking about doing, or I'll have to outright ban them until they reach a certain age.
Or teach them very early how to handle the internet and the people on it, like you'd teach them how to go to the store and interact with neighbors out and about.
Or teach them very early how to handle the internet and the people on it, like you'd teach them how to go to the store and interact with neighbors out and about.
Seperate from my other thought, I just watched Linus of LTT's take, and I couldn't have said it any better myself. This is a system that can and will be abused, well beyond it's original intent.
Seperate from my other thought, I just watched Linus of LTT's take, and I couldn't have said it any better myself.
This is a system that can and will be abused, well beyond it's original intent.
I know this is tangential, but the article got me thinking again about "How can we help protect children and introduce them into the social internet in a safe and remotely functional manner?"
I recall when AIM really hit mainstream as a kid in the 90's. The vast majority of interactions were only done with people you already knew IRL, as you kinda needed to specifically hunt out the more widespread communities.
But now every platform is an international platform and Eternal September gets worse, and I think stopping it is the only way to severely reduce internet toxicity. And the only way I think that might be able to be accomplished is by decentralizing and federating the internet. And I think mimicing a BBS system might be the ticket.
Suppose we set up a new layer of the internet, perhaps call it LWEB. The LWEB is hosted by and managed by the local public schools and libraries, to stave off the sensationalist toxicity to capture ad revenue. It provides all of the major social components (email, chat, media sharing), and as people come online they must graduate from the LWEB to perhaps the county/state/national/international in a tiered and limited fashion.
Invite only from existing members in higher tiers, with younger kids requiring authorization to 'graduate'.
As far as a technical means to accomplish such, I have no clue. This is a social problem and getting there is going to take substantial convincing of a public that barely cares, and doesn't comprehend the problem.
I've got no idea. Probably not possible completely. I learned about computers in order to bypass and disable any parental controls my parents tried to use. Kids are smarter than adults tend to give them credit for, whatever cracks there are will be found and exploited and passed on. Ended up spending far too much time on 4chan and being groomed. Reflecting, education is the only thing that could've helped, and neither the schools or my parents gave me knowledge beyond "don't share your name or address." Of course, there are far more things that can fuck you up than just someone finding out where you live.
cw gore mention, cp mention, ed discussion
god, just flashbacks to watching beheading videos and shit. had forgotten about that. no clue why I was doing that. also realizing that in some of those massive libraries of cp floating around, I'm probably in there. haha 🙃 not to mention the racist, sexist, transphobic mire that seemed normal.just remembered also the horror that is proana (pro-anorexia) communities. dipped back into those recently as a "reality safari" also nostalgia also idk, something else. not doing so hot. the new thing is "meanspo" wherein (mostly) 13-16yo people are mean to each other about their perceived fatness on purpose to further their weight loss. and it's like totally consensual, they thank each other for it. there's group fasts/fasting competitions and people post what they eat and weigh or give tips on purging. those kind of communities were horrible for me when I was at the height of my struggle and they only seem worse now. I think.. I think we have to accept we can't protect the kids 100%, even from themselves, as much as that sucks, but give them up to date education, tools, and support in a non-judgemental manner, same as sex ed (but better, please don't just roll this into Health class), and try to trust them enough that they'll live up to it. minimize splash damage of mistakes (which will happen it's ok) and maybe listen to the kids instead of just prescribing. peer education?
I think this next generation stands a much much better chance of raising internet-aware kids. Or not, I've been seeing people my age fall for the antivax attractors. How are you gonna raise kids with critical thinking skills if you lack them yourself? A big part of the knowledge I hope to pass on is "how to not go off the deep end" and I dunno it's all gonna be deep ends before long. Let the great unraveling of the metaparadigm begin, as it always has been beginning.
But maybe we can do better even if not perfect. Yes federated, local. Need to kill or nationalize FB/insta/tiktok/snap/etc so that there aren't cthonic megaliths trying to squeeze every child's life for ad revenue. Not that the adults are faring much better, been seeing a common sentiment that gen Z is having to educate their boomer parents out of Q etc rabbit warrens.
Social problems need better than purely technological solutions.
Unfinished/unpolished, sorry, hard to write about and trying to bias towards posting. Know this isn't tildes' style but maybe it is useful enough that you can forgive my gestures. Gonna go eat some pasta.
I'm not an IT person, so maybe my thoughts on the subject are a bit ludite. My "solution" would be simply keeping my kids off-line for as long as humanly possible. Kids should not have Instagram accounts, or any social media account whatsoever now that I think of it. They would not make videos for youtube, tik tok, nothing. I understand schools have online components nowadays, so I might create a heavily blocked Linux user just for that. Smartphones and tablets? Nope, absolutely not. Maybe a Kindle Paperwhite.
I don’t have any kids though, so that's only hypothetical.
I think the major issue is once they have even a tiny bit of autonomy their in-person social lives are connected to other kids in the same way as adults - through phones.
Oh yeah, absolutely. Eventually they'll need a smartphone, but I'd be willing to delay that for as much as humanly possible. Not sure what age that would be exactly.
In the meantime they might have a dumbfone if necessary.
I'm not laying this out as an attack, but rather to share my experience when I was raised with a similiar level of restrictions (content blocking, no cellphone, etc).
I rebelled against the authoritarian nature of my parents starting around age 11. As kids have more unsupervised time, especially as they hit middle school, it becomes exceptionally easy to start hiding stuff and doing things on the sly when you disagree with your parents and think you know better (wether accurate or not). I became horrid liar, at least to them, in part because several of their rules were keeping me isolated from my peers to a degree that was crippling my already-hobbled social life.
And one truism that I've noticed in my life, the more sure a parent is that their child isn't doing an undesired behavior, the more likely they are to be doing that thing.
Maybe my situation was special, as my parents continued to treat me as an 11 year old well into my 30's, but thats a story for another time. Perhaps this has colored my views on how rebellious kids are.
But I'm a gambling man, so I'd wager your 12 year old already has a social media account you know nothing about. I might lose that wager for you...but probably not for the vast majority of parents of 12 year olds.
I applaud you for your sanity!
At what age are they expect to leave the house? I'm quite the ludite myself, but I would probably allow a well behaved 16 year old to have a smartphone.
I'm not trying to change your mind because I don't think I have any influence over what you do. But while we're on the subject I'd like to think about how I'd handle the situation of raising children in the modern age. I do hope to have a couple of children some day - so this isn't purely talk. I want to get my thoughts straight. And of course this all depends on the people I'm raising. Genes and circumstances can lead to trillions of personalities.
With the level of influence I would have over my children I think that having them see how I treat the internet and computers would set a good example. I don't use computers for social media besides what's good for my career (I guess LinkedIn counts a social media and I have a company-suggested Twitter account that goes unused). If I'm on YouTube then it's almost entirely to watch educational channels - learning how to cook something, learning how the universe works, etc. If I'm talking with strangers online it's on Tildes, where I think we do a good job at holding up the ideals of online conversation. And of course I need to use the internet for work as a web developer. My parents encouraged me to pursue my interests in computers and it's landed me in an excellent career.
So if my children are old enough to have some autonomy I don't think the best way forward is to completely restrict their access. The internet is critical to our lives. Unless I am sure they want to live as the Amish do I need to make sure they're prepared for the real world. That means their first 5-10 years of exposure to social media, video games, and the internet at large should be under my supervision. I would talk to them about the worst-case-scenarios of social media, where hundreds of anonymous assholes can drive a person to suicide. This could be an opportunity to help create a human being that knows how to recognize signs of depression in themselves and their friends.
As for keeping their hours of computer time limited, it will definitely be necessary to impose some sane restrictions. That stuff is like crack sometimes. But there are many ways to be productive on a computer. If they take after me and enjoy programming then I'd be more lenient with the time they spend on that. If they're tearing through Wikipedia then that's also fair game. But most importantly I would hope to show them my life as an example of one with developed social relationships, regular exercise, and daily excitement provided from something that isn't digital. If I'm working or idling most of the day but requiring diligence from my children then that's too "Do as I say, not as I do". That never taught me anything.
I expect to be lucky enough to have plenty of time to share with my children. The more positive non-digital experiences I can share with them the better. If they need to have those every day then we should share them every day.
My take (fwiw) is that trying to keep them off it, particularily if they are isolated from their peers is a losing proposition that propagates tech ignorance.
I'm conveying to my young child the prevalance of computers, and begin laying the framework about bodily autonomy and emotional maturity (ok my wife is doing the heavy lifting there). I'm still at a whitelisted parent controlled content at the moment, but I know that isn't sustainable or enforceable once they figure out your tricks.
I used to work with a mother of two. She recently caved in and got her nine year old daughter a mobile phone and set up WhatsApp for her because all the kids at school were using it to message each other.
Obviously not speaking as a parent, but I think it's going to be more difficult than ever to keep children off the internet and monitor their activity moving forward. This unfortunately means that social media platforms will inevitably become breeding grounds for child sexual predators.
Back when I was growing up the internet was in its infancy and there were little to no concerns about online predators. We didn't truly see instant messenger and social network use until I was in secondary school. MySpace was the social network for the goth & rocker crowd while nearly everybody else at school used Bebo as their social network of choice. Facebook wouldn't truly become the behemoth it was until a few years later. As for instant messaging, AIM wasn't popular here in the UK and everybody used MSN.
I worry that when I finally become a parent, I'll either need to go full helicopter parent mode on my kid's internet usage, which I already feel uneasy just thinking about doing, or I'll have to outright ban them until they reach a certain age.
Or teach them very early how to handle the internet and the people on it, like you'd teach them how to go to the store and interact with neighbors out and about.
Seperate from my other thought, I just watched Linus of LTT's take, and I couldn't have said it any better myself.
This is a system that can and will be abused, well beyond it's original intent.