8 ms·

If I had a kid they would not be allowed to use Apps or have a Google account. Sure I'd give them a laptop, I would even probably give them unsupervised access

by swiley 5y ago

If I had a kid they would not be allowed to use Apps or have a Google account. Sure I'd give them a laptop, I would even probably give them unsupervised access to the web after they seemed ready, but Apps are no good even for most adults.

ta988 5y ago
Sure, now lets try to apply that in practice with a kid angry at you for years.
- weimerica 5y ago
  > Sure, now lets try to apply that in practice with a kid angry at you for years. That's called "being a parent" in my circle? I have a toddler that loves to throw the "you're not my friend!" at me when I cut off the TV and tell her it is time for dinner. I never had a cell-phone until 17, despite all my friends having had theirs as early as the middle school years. Never mattered much in my case. I didn't have an X-Box 360 with Halo 2 and online gaming despite many of my peers having had that. Not sure why this is being seen as a "must have."
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    These days a cell phone is often pretty much required to reasonably access some essential services.
    - ericd 5y ago
      For a kid? Such as?
      - watwut 5y ago
        Friends.
        weimerica 5y ago
        Oddly, my children have no such issue.
        jenkstom 5y ago
        The whole point here is that parents should be able to guide their children into becoming social citizens in today's world - which means online. We're here to discuss parental agency and online privacy for children. We aren't here to discuss how great your parenting skills are. My ex has a narcissistic personality disorder and ... well. Any time somebody brags about how great a parent they are - especially when it's in the context of controlling children - I automatically think they aren't a great parent. That's probably just me and you probably are a really great parent, but I promise you I'm not the only one here thinking it.
        xeromal 5y ago
        That's tough to guess. Who knows if they're being left out of some events.
        ericd 5y ago
        Well, they said “services”, so I was curious what they meant there, since it sounded like something actually required, like to get signed up for school or something. I guess social media services might be what they were talking about, though.
  - scottLobster 5y ago
    This may shock you, but things have changed significantly in the past 20 years. Technology is even more necessary for social activity than when we were young. And I remember being the kid at the birthday parties that couldn't play video games, and couldn't participate in conversation at the lunch table because video games were most of what my friends talked about. Made me a permanent second-class citizen in my social group, which sucked. Got to the point where I literally did research on the games (reading strategy guides and such) just to have something to talk about. If the group plays poker, and you aren't allowed because of a moral stance on gambling, that's going to hurt your social opportunities quite substantially. Also don't make the classic mistake of assuming your kids have all the same variables you did, or can approach the same variables the same way. You have to adapt your experiences to their environment and their personality/needs, often with different outcomes than what you experienced. Most parents are too cowardly for that and mess up their kids with strict enforcement of obsolete rules or letting them run wild with too little structure/guidance.
    - weimerica 5y ago
      > Technology is even more necessary for social activity than when we were young. Oddly, my own children do not have that same issue. In a world of billions, there are no universal claims like this.
      - OldTimeCoffee 5y ago
        Parent here, have you asked them if not having a phone has been a problem? Or are you just assuming it isn't because it hasn't been a problem with them for you.
      - Cipater 5y ago
        How can you be so sure that they're not being affected socially? Because they don't tell you about it?
      - leetcrew 5y ago
        just curious, how old are you children? you mentioned having a toddler further up. it makes sense that most social activities are planned by the parents anyway at that age. I remember things starting to change in middle school. kids started making same-day plans for after school and shooting their parents a quick text to say where they were going. I tried using the school's phone a few times when I was invited, but there wasn't always time to visit the office between classes. that was pretty clunky to do one or more times per week, and I knew I would be in big trouble if I wasn't there when my dad came to pick me up. so I just had to accept that I wouldn't be participating in most of those spontaneous hangouts until I got a phone. like you said, everyone is different. some kids are charismatic enough that everyone else will work around whatever inconveniences they bring. others are not. I knew my parents had a very firm stance on stuff like phones, so I didn't bother complaining about it much.
  - skeeter2020 5y ago
    In my 13-yr-olds class only 2 people don't have iPhones. Don't under-estimate the social impact of being excluded from that otherwise class-wide group chat. If you're in the toddler stage you control almost every variable. The game changes once they hit > 8.
    - swiley 5y ago
      You may not be aware but an iPhone isn't required to participate in group chats: MMS and XMPP still exist, there are even bridges between them.
thatguy0900 5y ago
You're kid will be very upset when they are slowly excluded from all of their friend groups when noone wants to email or text just one member of the group. Sad reality of it.
- meowster 5y ago
  Hopefully my kid(s) will be the one to convince their friends to use better communication apps. Perhaps when the kids are younger before they get phones, I can convince their friends' parents to use the better platforms.
  - throwanem 5y ago
    Speaking as someone who lost an entire social circle because of conscientiously objecting to Facebook: yeah, good luck with that.
    - ValentineC 5y ago
      > conscientiously objecting to Facebook Does that mean not having a WhatsApp account as well?
      - throwanem 5y ago
        Yes. Or Instagram, or any other Facebook-owned property as far as I know, and I do check. It's also why, last time I heard from a Facebook recruiter, I told him to make sure the next one to cold-call me had their general counsel's contact info handy so I'd know where to have my own attorney send the cease-and-desist. Seems to have had the intended effect, so far at least.
      - throwaway4220 5y ago
        Second this. Signal had some momentum with some of my contacts, but unfortunately i think they're all back on whatsapp.
        5y ago
JumpCrisscross 5y ago
> they would not be allowed to use Apps or have a Google account On one level, I agree with this. On another, I remember the restrictions my parents were convinced they had on me to which trivial workarounds existed.
- BoxOfRain 5y ago
  I learned about MAC filtering and how to get around it with MAC spoofing at an early age this way!
TuringNYC 5y ago
>> If I had a kid they would not be allowed to use Apps or have a Google account. In our school district (Arlington Public Schools in Virginia), children get assigned Google GSuite accounts by default starting in Kindergarten. They are used for a variety of things, including authentication to multiple school apps.
- jasonladuke0311 5y ago
  Yeah, and our last school district pushed GPOs to my son's personal Chromebook. Really pissed me off. I was trying to help him troubleshoot an issue and dev tools were disabled and greyed out in the chrome settings. When we switched back to his personal account they were back.
  - skeeter2020 5y ago
    annoying, but one of the benefits of chromebooks is the account isolation. I prefer this to the idea of my domain-controlled policies being blended with those of the school district.
  - Peanuts99 5y ago
    I don't agree that kids should have dev tools disabled because that just seems counter productive but the school manages the accounts and has a responsibility over student safeguarding. I'd be concerned if they weren't enforcing policies on students accounts.
jenkstom 5y ago
"If I had a kid". There you go. Get back with us when you have to actually do the job you are criticizing.
- skeeter2020 5y ago
  I have three kids, but find it more funny than maddening when I hear this. We've all been there: as teenagers, young technologists, pre-parents. Plans are simple; reality is messy. Parenting is about picking and choosing your battles, trying to get the fundamentals right and conceding the minor losses. You do your best and adapt along the way; any master plan will inevitably get the details wrong.
skeeter2020 5y ago
I understand where you are coming from, but you'd be surprised how quickly your abstract principles collide with reality. All of my kids use Google apps in school; what would yours do?

by swiley 5y ago

ta988 5y ago

Sure, now lets try to apply that in practice with a kid angry at you for years.

weimerica 5y ago
> Sure, now lets try to apply that in practice with a kid angry at you for years. That's called "being a parent" in my circle? I have a toddler that loves to throw the "you're not my friend!" at me when I cut off the TV and tell her it is time for dinner. I never had a cell-phone until 17, despite all my friends having had theirs as early as the middle school years. Never mattered much in my case. I didn't have an X-Box 360 with Halo 2 and online gaming despite many of my peers having had that. Not sure why this is being seen as a "must have."
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  These days a cell phone is often pretty much required to reasonably access some essential services.
  - ericd 5y ago
    For a kid? Such as?
    - watwut 5y ago
      Friends.
      - weimerica 5y ago
        Oddly, my children have no such issue.
        jenkstom 5y ago
        The whole point here is that parents should be able to guide their children into becoming social citizens in today's world - which means online. We're here to discuss parental agency and online privacy for children. We aren't here to discuss how great your parenting skills are. My ex has a narcissistic personality disorder and ... well. Any time somebody brags about how great a parent they are - especially when it's in the context of controlling children - I automatically think they aren't a great parent. That's probably just me and you probably are a really great parent, but I promise you I'm not the only one here thinking it.
        xeromal 5y ago
        That's tough to guess. Who knows if they're being left out of some events.
      - ericd 5y ago
        Well, they said “services”, so I was curious what they meant there, since it sounded like something actually required, like to get signed up for school or something. I guess social media services might be what they were talking about, though.
- scottLobster 5y ago
  This may shock you, but things have changed significantly in the past 20 years. Technology is even more necessary for social activity than when we were young. And I remember being the kid at the birthday parties that couldn't play video games, and couldn't participate in conversation at the lunch table because video games were most of what my friends talked about. Made me a permanent second-class citizen in my social group, which sucked. Got to the point where I literally did research on the games (reading strategy guides and such) just to have something to talk about. If the group plays poker, and you aren't allowed because of a moral stance on gambling, that's going to hurt your social opportunities quite substantially. Also don't make the classic mistake of assuming your kids have all the same variables you did, or can approach the same variables the same way. You have to adapt your experiences to their environment and their personality/needs, often with different outcomes than what you experienced. Most parents are too cowardly for that and mess up their kids with strict enforcement of obsolete rules or letting them run wild with too little structure/guidance.
  - weimerica 5y ago
    > Technology is even more necessary for social activity than when we were young. Oddly, my own children do not have that same issue. In a world of billions, there are no universal claims like this.
    - OldTimeCoffee 5y ago
      Parent here, have you asked them if not having a phone has been a problem? Or are you just assuming it isn't because it hasn't been a problem with them for you.
    - Cipater 5y ago
      How can you be so sure that they're not being affected socially? Because they don't tell you about it?
    - leetcrew 5y ago
      just curious, how old are you children? you mentioned having a toddler further up. it makes sense that most social activities are planned by the parents anyway at that age. I remember things starting to change in middle school. kids started making same-day plans for after school and shooting their parents a quick text to say where they were going. I tried using the school's phone a few times when I was invited, but there wasn't always time to visit the office between classes. that was pretty clunky to do one or more times per week, and I knew I would be in big trouble if I wasn't there when my dad came to pick me up. so I just had to accept that I wouldn't be participating in most of those spontaneous hangouts until I got a phone. like you said, everyone is different. some kids are charismatic enough that everyone else will work around whatever inconveniences they bring. others are not. I knew my parents had a very firm stance on stuff like phones, so I didn't bother complaining about it much.
- skeeter2020 5y ago
  In my 13-yr-olds class only 2 people don't have iPhones. Don't under-estimate the social impact of being excluded from that otherwise class-wide group chat. If you're in the toddler stage you control almost every variable. The game changes once they hit > 8.
  - swiley 5y ago
    You may not be aware but an iPhone isn't required to participate in group chats: MMS and XMPP still exist, there are even bridges between them.

thatguy0900 5y ago

You're kid will be very upset when they are slowly excluded from all of their friend groups when noone wants to email or text just one member of the group. Sad reality of it.

meowster 5y ago
Hopefully my kid(s) will be the one to convince their friends to use better communication apps. Perhaps when the kids are younger before they get phones, I can convince their friends' parents to use the better platforms.
- throwanem 5y ago
  Speaking as someone who lost an entire social circle because of conscientiously objecting to Facebook: yeah, good luck with that.
  - ValentineC 5y ago
    > conscientiously objecting to Facebook Does that mean not having a WhatsApp account as well?
    - throwanem 5y ago
      Yes. Or Instagram, or any other Facebook-owned property as far as I know, and I do check. It's also why, last time I heard from a Facebook recruiter, I told him to make sure the next one to cold-call me had their general counsel's contact info handy so I'd know where to have my own attorney send the cease-and-desist. Seems to have had the intended effect, so far at least.
    - throwaway4220 5y ago
      Second this. Signal had some momentum with some of my contacts, but unfortunately i think they're all back on whatsapp.
      - 5y ago

JumpCrisscross 5y ago

> they would not be allowed to use Apps or have a Google account On one level, I agree with this. On another, I remember the restrictions my parents were convinced they had on me to which trivial workarounds existed.

BoxOfRain 5y ago
I learned about MAC filtering and how to get around it with MAC spoofing at an early age this way!

TuringNYC 5y ago

>> If I had a kid they would not be allowed to use Apps or have a Google account. In our school district (Arlington Public Schools in Virginia), children get assigned Google GSuite accounts by default starting in Kindergarten. They are used for a variety of things, including authentication to multiple school apps.

jasonladuke0311 5y ago
Yeah, and our last school district pushed GPOs to my son's personal Chromebook. Really pissed me off. I was trying to help him troubleshoot an issue and dev tools were disabled and greyed out in the chrome settings. When we switched back to his personal account they were back.
- skeeter2020 5y ago
  annoying, but one of the benefits of chromebooks is the account isolation. I prefer this to the idea of my domain-controlled policies being blended with those of the school district.
- Peanuts99 5y ago
  I don't agree that kids should have dev tools disabled because that just seems counter productive but the school manages the accounts and has a responsibility over student safeguarding. I'd be concerned if they weren't enforcing policies on students accounts.

jenkstom 5y ago

"If I had a kid". There you go. Get back with us when you have to actually do the job you are criticizing.

skeeter2020 5y ago
I have three kids, but find it more funny than maddening when I hear this. We've all been there: as teenagers, young technologists, pre-parents. Plans are simple; reality is messy. Parenting is about picking and choosing your battles, trying to get the fundamentals right and conceding the minor losses. You do your best and adapt along the way; any master plan will inevitably get the details wrong.

skeeter2020 5y ago

I understand where you are coming from, but you'd be surprised how quickly your abstract principles collide with reality. All of my kids use Google apps in school; what would yours do?