if their parents give them heroin, will we turn blind eye?

jmoak3 · on April 21, 2023

Upvoted because I see your point, although I think you’re being too harsh.

I don’t have kids, but surely you see the design flaw at play here:

I’d want to give my future kid a phone so I may connect with them at will, but at the same time a phone allows others to connect with them (giving them addictive content to serve ads for example)

An iPhone has pretty good parental controls, but when it’s time for the child to connect with their peers, the same place they connect with peers is the same place designed to exploit them, with little to no alternative.

It’s like we’ve transported our 11 year olds into digital pool halls where parent supervision is banned and the pool hall owner keeps serving them drinks

I won’t be giving my future child a phone before 13 but I have no illusions that they’ll be normal peer after not having the same access to such things.

It’s like the McDonald’s play pens all over again, but worse!

jackdoe · on April 21, 2023

> An iPhone has pretty good parental controls, but when it’s time for the child to connect with their peers, the same place they connect with peers is the same place designed to exploit them, with little to no alternative.

try to use it and you will see how bad it actually is, reinstalling an app removes its timeout, any kid almost trivially goes around it, you have to not forget to block the web versions of the apps, there is +1 minute, there is issue with whatsapp links etc

my daughter(12) also just asks for 15 mins extra youtube, then she just looks at my fingerprints on the phone to guess the screentime code, so i have to wipe my fingerprints like i am in a james bond movie (changed the screentime code like 3 times until i figured out what is happening)

i am trying to teach her self control and also to monitor her feed like a hawk and be super critical of what she watches

also once a week we go over all the feeds and try to teach the algorithms to show better things (like/follow some science/code youtubers, block toxic ones, watch few videos etc)

i also pay for everything i can so she doesnt see ads (including having pi-hole and adblockers)