I’m asking for public policy ideas here. A lot of countries are enacting age verification now. But of course this is a privacy nightmare and is ripe for abuse. At the same time though, I also understand why people are concerned with how kids are using social media. These products are designed to be addictive and are known to cause body image issues and so forth. So what’s the middle ground? How can we protect kids from the harms of social media in a way that respects everyone’s privacy?
Parental controls have been an effective way for decades.
yeah, but that would require, you know, parenting, which is something we can’t do.
This is capitalism people. Hire a parent doula. Let them do the busywork of digital parenting like minding internet activity, scheduling playdates, managing ad blockers, paying the Roblox allowance, or whatever largely digital activity your kids are involved with.
Unfortunately a lot of parental controls aren’t that helpful, and they’re more of an afterthought
https://theconversation.com/parental-controls-on-childrens-tech-devices-are-out-of-touch-with-childs-play-257874
I agree with parenting in general though
The existing tools also extend poorly to cover adults with developmental disabilities who need a digital shepherd to make sure they’re using the web safely. There’s no substitute to being involved. Also, we should bring back the family computer. My parents had a computer in the public area of the house since I was in elementary school. Even in the age of laptops, we had a shared desktop.