I don’t think government, country level Internet filtering is a particularly good idea, but for parents, being able to avail themselves of tools such as filteri

I don’t think government, country level Internet filtering is a particularly good idea, but for parents, being able to avail themselves of tools such as filtering at the household level can be useful. I think reducing the argument to simply, “I will hang out with my kid while she uses the internet,” is Pollyanna. Yes, that is the ideal, but the real world intrudes. I did hang out with my kids while they used the internet. We did have the discussions about safe and unsafe behaviour. They know I know the passwords to their email and social media accounts and may review them occasionally[1]. They know if anything they come across on the internet makes them uncomfortable they can come to me and not get in trouble. They have done this often as they were starting out. We kept the kids computer out in the family room, in the public family space and not in their bedroom where it is unsupervised. I’ve put in that hard work. But you know what? I can’t be with then every minute they are on the internet. They have phones and laptops for school now. The internet is used ubiquitously in our house. They’re teenagers now, and I am not a helicopter that can hover over them. I have to work and cook meals and do my own things as well. So technological tools[2] that can help me parent are very useful to me. They reduce the cognitive load. They help me parent better. When one of my kids has watched too much youtube, they get redirected to a page telling them if they want to watch more, they have to go jump on the trampoline for half an hour and get some exercise. I don’t have to rely on my imperfect supervision and my mercurial mood to yell at them to get off the computer. When the proxy logs show one of my kids was starting to search for porn, I was able to have the discussion with them on about how pornography is entertainment, not educational, and when you are sexually inexperienced it can really give you wrong ideas of what sex and intimacy is like, and screw up your expectations. It helped me to give my kid timely education, not catch them and be able to go “Ah HA!” The choice on these things should be at the household level. Sure, educate parents on ways they can use technology to help them manage technology. Don’t force it down a country’s throat. Few people want to live in a nanny state. [1] I’m in the extremely fortunate situation where my kids take comfort in this, not see it as an invasion of privacy. I do not take that for granted. (And perhaps I am deceived. ;-) [2] To emphasis, tools to help you parent, not tools to replace you as a parent.