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Say you were a guardian or parent and get to decide when a child can get a phone or use a computer and get internet with it. If you wish you can also install software and change router settings to what you see fit.
Some parents decide to forbid the internet completely, others are more relaxed. Some go the helicopter route, and some do not care whatsoever what their kid does online.
What is your policy on letting a child use the internet?
I automate school, weekend, and summer schedules with parental controls on mobile devices.
They're just getting into computer gaming so they had to have the internet talk (but most of their games banned chat without ID anyway)
No unsupervised access to any techno-gizmo until they're like 7 or 8, besides a dumb phone to call me or mom or watching me play/do things, maybe play together sometimes or limit it to formative things. Ain't no hypothetical child of mine gonna be raised by an iPad and cocomelon, and since I don't necessarily trust other parents to raise their kids decently I would get them a dog or 2 to play and bond with.
Then, once they start being old enough I will give them their own tower computer, obviously with Linux, privacy-redirects, limited access to the internet (I'm mostly gonna let them access games, wikipedia and stuff that is formative) and their access to YouTube is gonna be via FreeTube with channels I think they'd benefit from watching as already subscribed (plus whatever interest I know they have). Throughout the time I will be teaching them things, indulging their curiosity and gradually explain, reveal and open up things to them. Of course I'd also secretly monitor what they're doing, not to judge but to make sure they're safe, until I know they can safely navigate on their own. As for phones they're getting something locked down with some custom ROM like /e/OS or whatever and just the bare minimum they need to function (Signal to talk to me and mom, calendar, alarms, etc). No social media for them, they at most get to see some of it via privacy frontends. I want them to grow up in a way that the internet is a place they can leave.
Once they've teenagers and understand things I'd start gradually letting them do their own things and gradually giving them more access, allow them to make mistakes and be sure to be there for them to learn rather than just punish. The goal is that by 18, when they'll have full access, they're digitally literate and can safely navigate on their own, or at least be as careful as 18yos can be. At that point they'll also have to gradually start paying for their stuff on their own.
Oh fuck, I still have no idea....
Hopefully I'll have a plan for this digital era stuff when i become a parant
My parents limited me to like 30min to 1 hour of computer usage when I was like 8 and first had internet access
Then I remember from 12 and onwards, I basically had no restrictions... parent experienced the internet the same time as we did, tech illiterate, so they didn't know anything about how do parental control stuff...
But even after 12, mom did wanna turn off the wifi at night, especially before I started highschool, but sometimes I wanna stay up and I just sneak downstairs and turn it back on lol
Anyways... probably something like:
ban social media till at least 16, and for Youtube restrict to only a select few educational channels, maybe allow direct messaging with classmates, but I think all messages should get logged and sent to me at least till like 12 (am I too authoritarian?). Game time is limited to 30 minutes max; 1 hour on non-school days, at least till like age 10... then maybe be lenient if thing go well...
Politically extremist sites like 4chan would be part of the blocklist... aint no way I'd let that shit ruin my children.
About the porn stuff.... oh yea I heard about it in 5th grade and honestly that was probably wayyy to early for me... it was kinda... shocking....
I'd silently add blocklist for porn until like at least... idk 15 or 16... (is this reasonable? or am I just helicoptering?)... actually idk if I even wanna drop the blocklist till like 18...
Like I'm not gonna get mad if they managed to get access to it anyways... it just feels kinda weird from a parent's perspective to know your kids have access to those things that young... know what I mean?
Okay idk I feel like I'm gonna end up even more helicopter-y than my parents...
Idk its just... if hypothetically I have childen, I'd really wanna protect them (or at least try to), and then end up overprotective...
get them a laptop with no OS and a book about how to install an OS, and a usb with debian on it
I would love things down but leave increasingly difficult to exploit vulnerablitors so they can unknowingly learn more and more about networking and such
Child up to age 13 - internet access via PC tower in a public space. No phones, no tablets. I log into router settings to restrict internet access to their machine, (mac address,) when they should be sleeping. I use router to block websites, no FB or instagram. Hell, I will change the wifi password and make them prove they have done their homework/chores to unlock the password for the evening. Ages 14-16 - give them their own pc/tablet. Router still restricts website access, but I stop restricting the times they can access internet. Age 16 - get them their own phone. Presumably I have been talking to them about responsible use of the internet all along, but I reiterate all of the key lecture points. Use router and parental controls to monitor what they are looking at without restricting it. Discuss anything problematic. This is a stage in a young person's life where they should be learning to take personable responsibility for their fuckups within reason, so I am more willing to let them experiment and make mistakes within reason. 18+ - no restrictions. Consider transitioning them to their own cell service that they pay for on their own, so long as it's something they can reasonably afford with their own wages, assuming they have their own wages.
