On the one hand, I view the early internet as saving me/raising me. I detested school, still do. Sure there were dangers back then too, but that's why we learnt to be skeptics, anonymous, question people's motives, and actually understand the technology.
On the other hand, social networks weren't around, videos weren't really around, advertising wasn't around, nothing was monetized, there was no such thing as a Webcam, no such thing as a mobile. By the stage of the internet, I was well and truly addicted to reading.
If I had children, I'd probably want to restrict them from phones and social media, at least until they learnt to love reading, learnt to concentrate without distractions, and skepticism/pushing back against social messages.
Simultaneously, I feel my current life would have been worse off without early access to the internet...
Edit: in case it's not clear, I think this is generally a good thing. It may do us good to remember this isn't the first time technology has tried to insert itself into the classroom. Television was supposed to revolutionize teaching, but most of us now would be hard pressed to believe that TV in the classroom is generally a good thing (the teacher generally used them when they were lazy or needed some time off). Let's not kid ourselves, the MAIN purpose/use, like TV, of phones and tablets are currently media consumption and social communication, not learning.
To me after all these years the "new" internet got a dystopian image.
If I had a child, I'd provide them unsupervised access to the internet I remember, but certainly not to the one from today.
Long story short the FBI worked with my Uncle within a week and they arrested 13 predators in one night. My Uncle was on Nightline and every major TV national network that year.
EVEN Longer story Steve Case (Founder of AOL) banned my Uncle for life from AOL. Steve Case is scum.
Here is a Senate Bill with the story in Congressional Records.
"On-line services are an easy way for pedophiles to meet children anonymously, noted Dyanne Greer, a senior lawyer with the National Center for the Prosecution of Child Abuse. ``Many cases are not reported, so I'm not sure anybody is really aware how much this is going on,'' she said. A Post probe uncovered these on-line horror stories: Westchester computer expert George Telesha pretended to be a 14-year-old girl on America Online and was quickly besieged by perverts sending dirty pictures.
https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/1995/1/18/sena...
THE PREVENTION OF SEXUAL EXPLOITATION OF CHILDREN ACT
I think you stilldo. Chatroulette and similar services were besieged by them a few years ago.
"Users are swarming young girls and asking them to do inappropriate things. And the live-streaming app hasn't been able to stop them."
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2017/12/...
And don't get me started on all the scummy people and sites online.
Why?
> People freak out if a predator lives int heir neighborhood but they let their child be accessible to millions of predators via their phone or table.
Well advise the kids of the dangers. I and most of my friends had unsupervised internet access. We are all doing fine.
> This is why kids initial exposure to porn is 8 in the US and 10 when kids are getting addicted.
Every kid is getting "addicted"?
> I still remember working with children and teens and found out, through the police and parents, that a few of the kids 11 to 15 were using their webcams to get people to buy them stuff online. This was in the late 90s.
And guess what? 99.99% of 90s kids didn't use webcams.
> My job as a parent is to help them become awesome adult selves and learning not to be addicted to anything from drugs, alcohol, laziness or phones is part of being a parent.
No offense, but your kids aren't prepared for the real world. What will they do now that they are adults with no parental supervision. Also, no parent with 5 kids is "responsible".
Most people who ride in car don't get into an accident. We still wear seatbelts.
> Every kid is getting "addicted"?
Perhaps not the best choice of words from the OP, but look up premature sexualization and psychological trauma.
> No offense, but your kids aren't prepared for the real world. What will they do now that they are adults with no parental supervision. Also, no parent with 5 kids is "responsible".
A comment like that to a stranger can be nothing but offensive. For lack of space or time to use anything more nuanced than crude Freudian terms, the role of the parent is to model the superego for the child while he's too young to understand the consequences of his actions and the dangers of the world.
Existence of it is hardly grounds for mass hysteria - this smacks of 'will somebody please think of the children'.
OP
What is that age? I don't know.
I don't know how old you are, but personally (in my early 30s) the internet of my youth was pretty vastly different than the internet of today, i.e. as you say:
> And guess what? 99.99% of 90s kids didn't use webcams.
Well now most kids have a high quality webcam in their pocket at all times.
I too was a 90s kid. No. It really wasn't. The same dangers that existed back then existed today. There was threats of child predators, internet addiction, gambling, porn, etc. That's why we were taught to be anonymous on the internet. You could argue today's internet is a lot safer than it was in the 90s when most parents didn't even know what the internet was.
> Well now most kids have a high quality webcam in their pocket at all times.
And? 99.99% of them don't use them to sell their photos to pedophiles.
There are pedophiles lurking at libraries too. I guess we should stop kids from using the library. It's funny how people who want to control kids and who are so scared of everything find something to be scared of no matter what.
Just because 0.000001% of kids might do stupid stuff on the internet isn't a reason to monitor every kid or keep kids from the internet without supervision.
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2017/12/...
> > Children given unsupervised access to the internet is ridiculous.
> Why?
Your reasoning with kids. Sure when they are teenagers that's great but children need more than a reasoning parent. Children need to be protected and above everything feel safe. The internet is not a safe place for children nor just YouTube for kids without someone keeping an eye out. Research absolutely proves that children need to feel safe. https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/persistent-fea...
Now I am not talking about helicopter and babying children. I am saying all children need strong parents that will protect them and help them to make good meaningful decisions and have awesome experiences. They don't need parents saying hey 10 year old Susie there are guys that want to hurt you sexually for their own perverse desires so you need to .... No you tell them they are safe and you are their to help keep them safe. If they ever feel uncomfortable or someone is touching what a bathing suit covers to tell you. You also need to know that the vast majority of predators are family and friends.
If you aren't your children's protector your just throwing you responsibility and weight of parenting on to a child. Again I am not for helicopter and over protective, but all kids need to know that Mom and Dad will protect them (Even if we fail sometimes).
> Every kid is getting "addicted"?
Did I say every? https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/21/technology/personaltech/w...
Yes when the 4th grade boy wrote down the url to where he saw a man having sex with a dog and gave it to my daughter, yeah that kid had some issues. He also had a tablet with Netflix when he was in Kindergarten and still has unlimited access to the internet. Sadly that kid ins't in school anymore due to his mother not protecting him physically or mentally.
> And guess what? 99.99% of 90s kids didn't use webcams.
And guess what kids are being exploited unbelievably now. The Children's Mental Hospital has many homes with just sexually exploited girls ages 11 to 15. There are dozens of them messed up. Most of them were exploited by people they met online.
> No offense, but your kids aren't prepared for the real world.
Hey buddy if I could swear at you I would. My two oldest that were abused for years. They both graduated from college (10% of former foster kids attempt college 50% don't make it past 1st semester) My son is being shipped out to Kuwait with the National Guard and he just got married last month. My daughter she now works full time with the girls who were sexually exploited. You are all focused on over babying children that you think negating a basic parental role of protector messes up kids. Please. They both lived on their own since 19 and when i can help them out I would, but my kids are the most tenacious hard working adults I know, because they knew the neglect they grew up with before my home was crap and that the love and protection they had when they moved in. It was hell for them and us both for the first year or two. In the end they are rocking. Also Mr No Offense I even got an award from the state of Pennsylvania and a bunch of congressional and state plaques for parenting these abused kids to where they aren't in the system anymore and are successful productive members of society.
The first step of parenting children is that you make them feel safe from day one till they are mostly adults. That's essential and you give kids internet with no filters? That's how we have Alex Jone's audience members.
It's against the rules here to get involved in flamewars and especially to get personal like this. I realize some topics are personally intense and one isn't always able to contain the intensity, but in such cases we need to take a step back and not contribute to the downward spiral.
The rules at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html are simple and not easy, and we need everyone to stick to them.
Oh god.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11637697/Catcal...
Yes. There are bad people everywhere. Did you lock your children in the basement? I'm not denying there are dangers in the world and on the internet. My point is that those threats are overblown.
And there have been clickbait fearmongering articles every decade.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/technology/personaltech/28...
> Research absolutely proves that children need to feel safe.
And you telling your kids that there are dangers everywhere must make them feel real safe.
> Again I am not for helicopter and over protective
Okay. But everything you've written and the "research" you've done says otherwise.
> Did I say every?
You kinda implied it.
> Yes when the 4th grade boy wrote down the url to where he saw a man having sex with a dog and gave it to my daughter, yeah that kid had some issues. He also had a tablet with Netflix when he was in Kindergarten and still has unlimited access to the internet. Sadly that kid ins't in school anymore due to his mother not protecting him physically or mentally.
Anecdotes?
> Hey buddy if I could swear at you I would.
No need for that.
> The first step of parenting children is that you make them feel safe from day one till they are mostly adults.
And I posit that you did just the opposite. I doubt there was a day in your kids life that they felt safe.
> That's how we have Alex Jone's audience members.
What? Oh my god. I now am very concerned for what you did to your kids, if you had any.
This is why kids initial exposure to porn is 8 in the US and 10 when kids are getting addicted. This is all happening prior to puberty.
I still remember working with children and teens and found out, through the police and parents, that a few of the kids 11 to 15 were using their webcams to get people to buy them stuff online. This was in the late 90s.
I am a dad of 5 now. I don't own desktop computers and they are in common areas. When my oldest were teens they were their phones but they are in my room after 9 PM. Saved the drama of messaging fights and drama. No phones at dinner, no phones on family events unless it was end of the visit. My job as a parent is to help them become awesome adult selves and learning not to be addicted to anything from drugs, alcohol, laziness or phones is part of being a parent.