See I don't know what to think here. I remember being a kid with a computer and at 1am I'm either jacking it for the 10th time that day or playing age of empires 2.
I don't think I needed my dad coming into my room and telling me to go to bed in either of those situations, especially when I had school holidays so 1am wasn't an issue bed time.
I was exactly the same, however I think it's important to remember that 20 years ago when we were doing that, the internet wasn't nearly as ubiquitous as it is now - it was largely the domain of "geeks" and "nerds". If you were playing/communicating online with someone, chances are it was someone you already knew, and the level of communication was limited; none of this instant 4k video etc. You & your classmates didn't all have smartphones and social media accounts where you could harass each other 24/7. There was nowhere near the same level of "fake news" and constant drive for engagement regardless of content quality.
It's a very different landscape now, and IMO at least - while it's a lot more accessible - it certainly hasn't changed for the better. A perfect example was posted previously in the thread:
Not sure if this was posted before, but seeing what Netflix has been up to, I wouldn't be surprised..
Is this true?
Even the first sentence saying what the show is apparently about is inaccurate, which means one of 2 things:
The poster of that content hasn't watched the show and is just jumping on the bandwagon
The poster of that content is deliberately posting misinformation
The concerning thing is
that doesn't matter. The content is irrelevant, the truth is irrelevant - all they are concerned about is driving engagement; positive/negative
it doesn't matter, the more controversial the better. They
want the angry comments, the hate, the arguments. Engagement = increased exposure = money.
This becomes a problem when people start believing the lies which are designed to anger them. When those people are kids/teens who haven't yet developed the tools to research those "facts" it warps their world view, makes them extremely angry about things which don't even actually exist.
I didn’t get that impression at all. The entire final section of dialogue was focussed around what the parents didn’t do; to what extent was it their fault? In the end they said they couldn’t accept responsibility for their own sanity but they regretted not doing better.
If anything I think the episode was commentary on how ‘children being left alone in the safety of their homes’ doesn’t make them safe… that’s not an attack on media; it’s a cautionary tale for well-meaning parents that take their eye off the ball because they aren’t mistreating their children in any ‘obvious’ way.
Due to its content, this forum is weighted towards those of us who are significantly more technical (and I'd guess probably educated to a higher level on average) than the general population.
As a parent to a 13 year old boy, some of the content which can easily be accessed is very concerning. I'm fortunate to have a technical background and have put various measure in place across the network and his devices to limit access to that content as much as possible.
I can easily see how to non-technical parents it is absolutely daunting with no idea where to even start - if it's even something that crosses their minds!
Even on supposedly "kid friendly" services such as Youtube Kids there is plenty of content which isn't really appropriate. My youngest has recently become obsessed with "Sprunki". "Cute" little humanoid creatures which were originally created as skins for "incredibox", which from what I can tell is some kind of music game. They each play a certain musical loop, and the kids can turn them on and off to make their own little song.
Sounds fun and innocent... Except it seems that plenty of "lovely" people out there have started making gore cartoons featuring the characters, quite a lot of which is still easily available on these "kid friendly" services.
Short of completely disabling any kind of internet connection for him (which I've done a couple of times while I've figured out how to stop that stuff coming up) it's virtually impossible to block everything inappropriate.
www.bbc.co.uk
