Wish I could upvote this harder lol. Parents really dont have enough time/energy to do this better than people who are trained in software/legislation. Especially if they have more than 2 kids/are single parents

So you trust the competence and the ethics of the government?

Id say i trust the competence of government in this arena more than that of parents on average. If someone is working on policy day in and day out for tech related things, they will have a better lay of the land than the average parent. However, you bring up a good point about ethics. A parent will definitely be far more acting in the best interest of their child compared to the government. An interesting quandry, good point

The other test is what can the “other” party do with any power you give the government. I define “other” as the party with viewpoints you are opposed to.

Sounds like we need a cultural shift away from governments involving themselves in parenting to governments ensuring parents have adequate time to parent.

>> Familiarizing myself with TikTok or whatever the kids are into these days would fill me with dread.

You don't need to. Don't give them devices until they're 16, and then implement the built in parental controls that come on every smartphone. When they are 18 and can buy their own, they can do what they want. I'm guessing your actual issue isn't familiarizing yourself with TikTok etc, but is instead facing conflict. I'm not saying it would be easy but pretending the above isn't a workable solution is self-deception.

No, I'm just trying to empathise with busy parents rather than write off parents who struggle with this stuff as lazy.

I know some parents give their children devices for safety reasons. For others, I guess they don't want their children to be socially isolated if all the other 14 year olds are chatting on messenger.

My only point was that it can be hard, and that not everyone who fails at it is lazy. It sounds like we are mostly in agreement.

Oh yeah I get that. My point was more that there is a simple solution that requires almost no time investment (i.e. a good option for busy parents). It might not be for everyone but it’s a solution that is to easily dismissed very often.

Modern devices are chock full of features that will work hard for parents while they aren’t even thinking about it. If the can’t be bothered to turn those features on, they shouldn’t be providing the devices in the first place.