It's very difficult. I was lucky to have access to the internet in the late 80s and have watched it grow, mature, evolve. I know how quickly things can change, and I don't want my kids to miss out or be left behind. But at the same time, the dangers that exist today didn't exist even in the 90s. My biggest fear then was receiving an email virus.

Now, Social Media alone is enough to make a parent take a step back and wonder what is the right time to introduce your children to the internet.

Our solution, which isn't perfect, is to use a parent control app. Kids can use their devices for X hours and only certain times of day, and we have to approve each app install or purchase made on the phone. It feels like too much control, but the alternative is too dangerous. And even still I walk in on the kids to see what they are doing.

It's a balancing act that will take time to figure out. We are evolving as a global cultural, technological race, and evolving fast.

some of my first ever C programs did just this for the dos computers at my high school.

> Social Media alone is enough to make a parent take a step back and wonder what is the right time to introduce your children to the internet.

I can't help but wonder whenever I hear this message: do you know, really?

After taking with them a little, it often comes down to pretty ... innocuous things in my opinion. Sure, there's always peer pressure and they'll be constantly judged etc, but that's just a an exaggerated baseline of what teenagers always had. Surely troublesome and not good for their mental health, but they'll probably get over it eventually.

From my perspective, the biggest danger that current social media created is that the creep factor is gone for stalking. To make a pretty regular example, let's say there is a teenage girl that's feeling lonely. She starts a live stream to talk with people. Some people show up and are super positive! They even give her some stickers (which are literally just money on TikTok she can check out...). Isn't it great to be valued? I don't think I need to write the rest of the story, as it's quiet obvious where the grooming eventually leads.

It's especially hard to swallow because the money she could make is astronomically higher then she'd ever have a chance of making anywhere else. Good luck explaining that...

Seriously, the original social media was so frickin tame. It's so much more twisted now that money is involved and everything is moving towards 1 person with an audience vs "your group of friends" before.

when I got my own PC in my bedroom (with Ethernet!) as a middle-schooler around 2004, sure, there was plenty of online games and game development forums and porn and whatever else to occupy my attention… but I had no way of taking any of it with me on the go, easily-accessible wherever I am.

this is the basis of my fears for introducing the children I will be having (in the next few years) to the new Internet: it's a pervasive lifestyle change. modern social media apps (instagram, tiktok) are nothing short of digital drugs that you never run out of. why do x y and z in the real world when you could just pull your phone out of your pocket, swipe your finger across its screen a few times, and instantly obtain infinite entertainment that is infinitely more engaging than anything else you could possibly do with your time?

the real challenge in my opinion is to instill the dangers of these sorts of things upon one's children in such a way that despite peer pressure—including the ambient peer pressure of everyone out in public staring idly at their phones—they come to see these dangerous digital drugs as what they are, without having to partake in order to "find out for themselves."

and of course, this all has to be done without accidentally causing the classic "well my family banned this in our house but now that I'm on my own I'm going to binge as much of this shit as possible" conundrum. which I was definitely guilty of myself as a young person whose family highly restricted access to video games for most of my childhood… turns out that's a great way to get a kid to end up becoming a game developer lol

That’s a serious concern for sure. There’s also the weaponization of information which shouldn’t be overlooked.

At an age when kids really haven’t learned to think critically or have the wisdom to realize they’re being manipulated particularly those vulnerable teen years, I think parents do need to consider this. It’s pretty much at least a second job to keep tabs on what kids are viewing/consuming/doing online at all times. If you have multiple children forget it. Parental controls are extremely limited, schools require access to youtube.com and google.com and facebook for events so that pretty much opens the door to view/access most adult things without ever touching a “questionable” website. “The algorithm” still forms a bias on what kids see as well, further eroding critical thinking skills.

A vast majority of parents don’t bother with any controls at all which undermines the effort of those that do which the can lead to resentment and frustration because of peer pressure.

To say that I’m worried about this is an understatement but I also don’t think the cat can be put back in the bag.

Kids were being manipulated by information long before the Internet. I was raised in evangelistic religion. It is a blight on mankind, teaching kids magical thinking, confirmation bias, survivorship bias, appeal to authority, etc. Then there's all kinds of mental gymnastics to explain "the truth", much of it written by grifters.

It's good to take care, yet at the end of the day the kids have to grow up. So they need the tools to evaluate information. This can start early and schools can help even if parents won't, or even if parents are part of the problem.

I don't have kids so you can throw away my advice instantly

But if I were doing it, I'd do the same, but allowed couple of days per month of unrestricted internet usage. Just so they would experience how unproductive these days are compared to normal days

Ymmv, I hang about discords full of underperforming children and they would like nothing better than to game and chat with friends all day, as did myself when I was a child. That said, there is usually something lacking in their (and my) family culture that results in such behavior.

Humans are lazy. They like things others consider a waste of time. Kids don't need more judgement or strictly regimented 'culture'.

Prediction: elite private schools will start banning social media and/or smartphone use by its students, and the trend will spread to the greater public.

> Now, Social Media alone is enough to make a parent take a step back and wonder what is the right time to introduce your children to the internet.

This implies that parents are knowledgeable and responsible people who know better, when in reality, the vast majority of parents are complete morons.

Yes, "how can we simultaneously protect while also healthily socialize children?" is a difficult question to answer as a potential future parent. Social acceptance (to a degree) is critical to healthy development, while some of the most common uniting social tools (for previous generations, high levels of consumerism and signaling; for now and the future, near-constant technology use) are viewed by some parents as unhealthy and lead some to want to abstain entirely.

You protect them by not giving them a smart phone. My daughter is 2 and she hasn’t seen a screen yet.

You're doing the right thing.

w.r.t. "what will you do when they get older and jealous?", learning to deal with jealousy is a good lesson to teach kids. Giving a kid everything they envy and demand is how you raise an entitled brat.

They aren’t jealous of the tech. They are jealous of not being included. They might not get invited to events or understand their friends jokes because they weren’t part of the group chats. This can make them resent their parents and give them social anxiety. Kids can be very cruel and lack the empathy skills to understand why their friend isn’t allowed a phone.

Overdoing it either direction can be a serious mistake.

>They are jealous of not being included.

It's better to instill in kids early that it's important to cultivate deep rather than wide social connections. Teaching your kid to stand up for themselves and make friends that don't care about blue chat bubbles or fashionable clothes is necessary. Because there's always gonna be some group you're not going to be cool enough to be a part of. Maybe you're not pretty enough, athletic enough, maybe your parents aren't rich enough to send you on the holiday trip the other kids can go on, sooner or later everyone's going to learn the lesson that this isn't how you build genuine connections.

I noticed this even as an adult in my 20s, people who hadn't ever learned to deal with social rejection carry that teenage group behavior into their own adult life and can't deal with exclusion.

> Teaching your kid to stand up for themselves

But they aren't standing up for themselves. They're standing up for decisions forced on them by their parents.

> make friends that don't care about blue chat bubbles or fashionable clothes is necessary

It has nothing to do with being cool (and I've never heard of anyone referencing blue chat bubbles that wasn't using it derogatorily like you are). It's about not being unable to communicate with people. Like, they may have friends who want to invite them to a party but don't because they put the event on (whatever app is cool). Your kids don't see it and therefore don't go to an event everyone wanted them to go to.

> But they aren't standing up for themselves. They're standing up for decisions forced on them by their parents.

They're learning how to deal with adversity created by circumstances beyond their control.

> and I've never heard of anyone referencing blue chat bubbles that wasn't using it derogatorily like you are)

there is a reference to this in TFA, it's a real phenomenon

>They're standing up for decisions forced on them by their parents

That is quite literally the point of being a parent. They're children. They're not supposed to be raised by other children or by social media personalities they want to be like, but by you.

If that means having to be the bad and unfun parent who they get mad at because they can't get to do the thing everyone else is doing that's the job. Good parents give children values that last a lifetime even if the kid doesn't understand it or like it.

The chat bubble thing is a reference to a surprisingly widespread clash between kids with iphones and kids with android phones (https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-apples-imessage-is-winning-...)

Kids can be naive and selfish, but even most kids aren't so unempathetic as to not understand that their friend doesn't have a phone because their parents won't buy them one. The addage "if all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?" seems relevant here.

Oh I’m sure they aren’t consciously, but are they going to make the effort everyday to communicate with the person who makes it hard to be reached? It will be harder to maintain/build relationships. I’m not passing judgement either way, I’m just stating a reality and that reality can be dark.

For sure. But I think the reality where everything kids do is being watched under the microscope of their friends and their parents is a dark one too. It's for sure also fostering social anxiety, but that seems to be the reality that's more culturally acceptible.

Sounds pretty easy to do at that age. But how long are you going to protect them? Until their 18? Or 16? Or 12? When do you see yourself allowing a phone. Are you keeping iPads away too?

Some of my friends with kids gave them cell phones around 12-14. But most of the kids had iPads prior.

As long as I can, prob 12 unless school requires a laptop or something.

Your comment was downvoted to death but I vouched for it, and leaving this followup comment to make it less likely to get killed again, because I think this is the Right Answer (or at least a big part of the Right Answer).

I'm not sure that's a good long term solution. Like, once they see that all their friends have a smartphone, I think it's natural they'll feel jealous. What are you thinking of doing at that point?

You avoid as long as you can; not exactly rocket-science.

Right up to the point where the only highschool in your region forces your child to have a smartphone.

Sure, but by that time they will have developed sufficiently to be better able to handle it.

This is similar to alcohol or smoking. It is worth not giving it to your children even if "they will anyway try it later".

I'm thinking about this periodically.

I expect that - in addition to mere time restriction from the outset - ensuring that the kids are sufficiently busy with leisure outlets and spending enough face-to-face time with others their own age will go a long ways. At the core of it, the addiction we have, as social media is concerned, is to each other, excepting the mindless never-ending-scroll entertainment part of it.

Not to say I would overschedule, but would take care that they a) are registered to at least one sport for the majority of the year (intramural is fine), b) have the means and habit to make use of things for creative ends, or to get out of the house and explore. If that foundation is there from the start, might not have to pry the phones/tablets out of them.

I can't very well completely cut off any access to devices because the SO and I use them and it will just become a sore spot, particularly as the kids age.

IMO they need to be exposed at a young age but need guidance to make sense of it... much like most things in the world. If you shelter them from it they won't learn how to deal with it and will be forced to figure it out themselves. As a parent I think it is my responsibility to expose them to as many of these sorts of things as possible and teach them to deal with them in a healthy way.

We recently deleted my 3 years old YouTube Kids app and the change made me contemplate my own live decisions. She likes Disney and a few other toddler style games. Seeing the difference in her behavior has made me look hard at my own YouTube watching.

Even though it’s filtered, the amount of garbage on YouTube Kids is astounding. We made the same choice.

Depending on how long you wait to have kids, it may not be social media apps, but literal digital drugs, depending on how far along brain/computer IO has gotten by that point.

If you're interested, read the books "the pleasure shock" and "towards a psycho-civilized society"

> protect them

from what? I've spent countless, countless, countless hours on the internet since 1996 when I was 4, by age 9 I had my computer on my room, at 12/13 we were laughing with my friends about the horrible shit on rotten.com and now I have a fine life without any particular issue, so what are you trying to protect them from? doing dumb shit? e.g. there's nothing you can ever do that will prevent a dedicated 15-years old to have sex, smoke joints or get drunk, but if you try hard I can guarantee you that they will resent you a lot and will have a much, much harder time when they are free from parental control and are left in the wild.

Eh don't worry. Just set a good example, love them and it will be fine.