Comment by bluGill
1 day ago
Age verification doens't solve my problems as a parent. Sure I'm worried about things like porn (I know some of the parents around me share a beer with their kids. I'm sure some give their kids porn. They might not buy tobacco, but only because that is now very out) - but that isn't my real problem. My real problem is my kids are using their devices to play game when they should do homework - often the games are just fine but only after the other things are done. (I'm sure this type of thing goes back to the first schools - kids reading the wrong scrolls.)
The parent controls on devices is terrible. Android won't let me block hotspot at all (which they have turned on so their can use their school device after I turn the router off for the night). I can limit a game to only 5 minutes - but they have a dozen games like and that is an hour between them all (both not enough to really get into the game, and way too much time when they really do need a study break). I can block youtube, but if there is an educational video they need I have to unblock everything not just that one (or a limited selection). There are new play a game websites popping up daily, and when they to every kid in school is playing until we block it (or more likely the school blocks it as they are all playing in class on the school device) - but trying to block all but a whitelisted set of websites is no better since there are so many legitimate ones teachers really do need kids to see.
When you read the above remember not only do I need a solution it needs to be one I can figure out. My degree is human-computer interaction and I'm not sure I can design something I as an expert could make work - but I still need something.
Again, this problem is not new. However parents are still mad about the situation and governments who don't really have any better ideas see a need to solve it.
Discipline seems to be what you're after.
When my dad told me to stop doing something, I stopped doing it. Because the consequences were guaranteed, and not fun.
I mirror what you're saying but non-gentle parenting along with corporal punishment can take a strong psychological toll on a child (speaking from experience). It took me quite a while to find my voice because I a had not-so-great childhood all in the name of obedience and discipline.
But I also see, the new generation of parents taking gentle parenting to an extreme raising feral iPad kids who call their moms a bitch.
I really don't think there's an optimal framework for proper parenting but a firm hand delivered gently and logically seems to be a good starting point.
I didn't say anything about corporal punishment. I believe it works, but everyone should use discipline specific to the child, IMO.
Kid isn't supposed to make a hotspot but does anyway? Lost that phone. Kid is playing games on the PC? Remove the games. Etc.
If the children aren't listening to their father, the problem isn't android parental controls.
The buzzword you’re looking for is authoritative parenting. It’s about setting boundaries from love instead of fear and demonstrating mutual respect. It’s a lot easier to get a kid to listen to screen limits when they see you as a loving and responsible person, and especially when you have fun things to do with them off of a screen, and a real relationship with them.
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> Android won't let me block hotspot at all (which they have turned on so their can use their school device after I turn the router off for the night). I can limit a game to only 5 minutes - but they have a dozen games like and that is an hour between them all (both not enough to really get into the game, and way too much time when they really do need a study break). I can block youtube, but if there is an educational video they need I have to unblock everything not just that one (or a limited selection). There are new play a game websites popping up daily, and when they to every kid in school is playing until we block it (or more likely the school blocks it as they are all playing in class on the school device) - but trying to block all but a whitelisted set of websites is no better since there are so many legitimate ones teachers really do need kids to see.
Personally, I think this is the wrong approach. Why block internet access at all? Why block gaming? Why try to helicopter parent to this extent? Block some harmful stuff if you can, but other than that focus on having the tasks be completed, now on how they do them.
I think part of the problem is that we decided at some point that 18 is an age where you become an adult, which for some things in life is honestly way too young and for some things maybe too old but nuance is hard.
It seems to me that giving young kids devices is a bad idea in general?
I'm not sure what the age is when not having one becomes a greater liability for them than having one but I really feel strongly that creating laws around this is clumsy and the issue is still generally poorly understood.
Let's not create laws around stuff we don't really understand well yet?
I'm not a parent so I wish I didn't have a dog in this fight but legislation like this forces me too.
Devices are too useful for too many things. Though sometimes I wonder if maybe the amish are right.
Well, legislating can proceed in big steps or smaller steps. Some places tried a big step: mandatory mass surveillance on everything every does with any device. That backfired in the public opinion, and rightfully so. Now these places like California and Illinois are trying a YAGNI approach to this, trying to make the minimum necessary changes. Right now it's porn and microtransactions, but it's easy to see the same mechanism could be extended to games - and that wouldn't be bad. Alongside the setting to enable porn, there could be a setting to enable games, or a setting to disable the device after a certain hour.
For the cellular data issue, you can set a SIM pin so when the device is turned off and on, they need you to enter the pin to access cellular data
But it only asks for the pin on boot which probably isn't that helpful
Sure it is, shut down the phone when its "quitting time" and then if they turn it back on, thats ok, internets disabled
May I suggest an AI coparent? I'm half-joking, but theoretically AI should eventually be able to take your high level intent and use it to apply appropriate restrictions to your children's phones.
Have you thought about creating building a faraday cage into your house so all internet has to go through the router's hardline?
You don’t need a full house Faraday cage, just build a SCIF in a basement room and require the family to go there for all computing needs.
> The parent controls on devices is terrible.
Which is IMHO my take on what should be done.
1. require functioning parent controls (here its also worth considering the abuse of parent controls). A problem here is the absence of a proper competing market of (phone) operating systems...
2. use parent controls to "anchor"/set the age/age category. I.e. NOT age verification, just age indication.
3. propagate them similar but not the same as with the Californian law, where possible do the decision before starting a program/fully loading the website etc. (1)
4. allow exception to be set (incl. per "origin" i.e. app, but also sub app e.g. browser:<domain>), it's a parenting tool not a state enforced
5. make it explicitly a non goal for this to be "hard to hack" or anything like that, it's a parenting tool not a banking tool. Proper trust management in a parent child relationship still matters and replacing it with "technology" is unlikely to end up well.
6. where possible leave the decision to the parent controls
7. Age categories are geographically/standard/age scoped, for most apps/site they only have one age gate and can just list them, potentially with content group hints, e.g. `us:pg:13,horror;de:fsk:12,horror` if the the user is in idk. uk the parent controls can make the decision, which might involve parent settings. E.g. a German parent probably wants to treat `us:pg:13,violence` as 14+ and very conservative people in the US want to treat `de:fsk:12,non-erotic-nudity` as 16+. For apps which serve content on a feed it's more shitty as they really want to be given the age gate instead of providing the contents age on access. This doesn't mean that they can't check the age gate for every peace of content "when serving it" (pitching back control to the parents controls) but still need a general age category, which will leak parent controls country, most times that will happen anyway by IP country of origin. So should work?
8. IP country of origin != age gate law which should apply. While legally not fully wrong to treat the same parents would be very surprised if their parent control allow/forbid things when they are on a holiday trip or because their child connected to a VPN tunneled hot spot... This loops back to 6. to give the decisions to the parent controls instead of the app/site/service.
9. criminal liability for intentional miss-classification of age gates (the "intentional" part matter a lot here).
I think its the murphy's law/hyrum's law and combine that with rebel nature and you really can't do nothing about it. The only thing one can do is maybe reduce the ease of things for example but I have a feeling that will only make things go through different mediums and I am not sure if banning all mediums might be the correct approach but that's up for debate.
Speaking from personal experience, To leave bad habits, I think that kids need identity change. Maybe one can try changing Identity with incentives and environment but perhaps maybe one can try changing Identity with having a thought process as well.
It's like, "teach a man how to fish and he can eat fish for the rest of his life" My point is, teach kids how to think and yes, even then, these addictions will happen but have faith within kids and give them support systems. Every addiction ultimately derives from a form of insecurity and sometimes its circular because the addiction becomes the point of insecurity and this is why addiction can be hard to get out of too. Ultimately, A kid all wants to know is that even with his flaws, he's accepted within society and that they can be successful (whatever-it-might-mean for them)
That being said, One of the best things the world can probably do is give a life of abundance-in-general to us. Not riches just "enough". Poor kids feel like they are helpless so they get addicted, Rich kids feel like nothing matters so they get addicted, the middle class kids are uncertain about their future and they get addicted as a form of gaining control (in my feelings)
Though, If I have to sum up everything that I wrote, it would be that please try leaving a better world for the next generation (us) and we will appreciate it and hopefully trying doing the same for our next generation too hopefully and many of those actions are individual, often-private. The world is feeling quite chaotic nowadays so I feel like nobody is prepared to deal with it and as such each generation copes up in one way or another and taking control from one another which is also relevant to the article.
The whole discussion is way too nuanced. One can write so much about it and this can also lead to action-paralysis. I had even written more words somehow responding to ya[0]
[0]: My Original Thoughts that got quite long also showing the action-paralysis/nuance of the problem too in a way [Took the most relevant points of discussion from it]: https://web.archive.org/web/20260312223938/https://privatebi...
This bill isn't about actually solving a problem - it a feel-good measure aimed to make it appear that the legislator is actually doing something, in the same way that every other "it's for the children" law has been created.
Which is not to say it shouldn't be wholeheartedly opposed, but there's going to be pushback on that and it's going to be difficult to overcome.
It doesn't have to solve 100% of the problem to be useful.