Cost of living in Ontario is insane -> Both parents need to work -> Harmful behaviour goes uncorrected because it is both not observed by parents and normalized (because fucking everyone is glued to their phones).
A real fix for this would be to mandate that mobile device manufactures create a child model of their devices, those devices are subsidized, and are a legal requirement for kids under 13. The devices would be tied to one or more parent devices and would have a slew of controls that allow parents to gradually introduce their kids to online life over a decade instead of dumping them onto an iPad at 3 years old.
This is, obviously, an issue of privacy but it’s different from a business tracking users. Parents should know what their kids are doing online and as they get older parents can give their kids more privacy and freedom as they show they can be responsible online. Once they hit 13 kids can have a full device and hopefully, they will have acquired enough good habits over the previous decade that they can be responsible online.
Anecdote time: when I was a kid my parents monitored what I did online extremely closely until I was about 13 or 14, at that point I had already shown that I wasn’t giving away personally identifying information, looking for instructions on how to build a bomb or sending hate-mail. By the time I was in high school my parents didn’t need to worry that I was doing anything harmful to myself or others online. Parents need to have tools available to them that allow this kind of gradual, monitored, access to technology.
Cost of living in Ontario is insane -> Both parents need to work -> Harmful behaviour goes uncorrected because it is both not observed by parents and normalized (because fucking everyone is glued to their phones).
A real fix for this would be to mandate that mobile device manufactures create a child model of their devices, those devices are subsidized, and are a legal requirement for kids under 13. The devices would be tied to one or more parent devices and would have a slew of controls that allow parents to gradually introduce their kids to online life over a decade instead of dumping them onto an iPad at 3 years old.
This is, obviously, an issue of privacy but it’s different from a business tracking users. Parents should know what their kids are doing online and as they get older parents can give their kids more privacy and freedom as they show they can be responsible online. Once they hit 13 kids can have a full device and hopefully, they will have acquired enough good habits over the previous decade that they can be responsible online.
Anecdote time: when I was a kid my parents monitored what I did online extremely closely until I was about 13 or 14, at that point I had already shown that I wasn’t giving away personally identifying information, looking for instructions on how to build a bomb or sending hate-mail. By the time I was in high school my parents didn’t need to worry that I was doing anything harmful to myself or others online. Parents need to have tools available to them that allow this kind of gradual, monitored, access to technology.