> Internet usage is anything like what parents have always had to do, though—it's a totally new challenge on top of all the ones that already existed. Not enti

> Internet usage is anything like what parents have always had to do, though—it's a totally new challenge on top of all the ones that already existed. Not entirely all the ones that have already existed. Parents used to have to worry about what their kids would rent on their own from video rental stores, or who they were communicating with on teen party lines (look it up if that was long before your time) or the local BBS scene, or going back even farther if they were viewing lewd content in penny arcades or by sneaking into drive-in theaters or sideshows. > Before, the usual way to keep your kids from seeing...porn or brutal violence or from encountering any excessively-weird or dangerous subcultures was basically do nothing I'm afraid that's never been true. Arguably, it was much harder in past decades to monitor what your kids were doing because children were far more autonomous than they are today where many are tracked by GPS 24/7. If I were a teenager I think it'd be much easier to hide compromising polaroids and skin mags than to try to hide sexting and visits to pornhub from tech savvy parents. Really though the challenge is simply constantly evolving as old media dies off and new forms pop-up. > The norm in earlier cases when others have some say in whether your kids can access such material, is that they're either prohibited by law from providing it, or else are following some prodded-into-existence-by-government industry guidelines that largely prevent access to it by kids. I can say from experience that libraries don't care what you're reading and only occasionally care when you try checking the materials out. As a kid I was never told I couldn't purchase any book I brought to the counter in bookstores and many of them were not remotely appropriate for my age by most people's standards. When video rentals were a thing the clerks would also routinely rent R rated materials to us as small children (although not 100% of the time). Record stores had zero issues selling music with 'scandalous' lyrics to kids even after parental warning stickers became a thing. Actually getting into an R rated movie as a kid was hit and miss if you bought the ticket, but most people I knew would buy tickets for a kid show and just enter the R rated show once inside (now that theaters have assigned seating that might not work as well today). I do think video game stores have been more strict comparatively because of all the attention on them from parents and media, but they've also been the most tame in terms of sexual content for the same reason. Generally kids have never had much of an issue finding ways to get into trouble and there's nothing more appealing than the forbidden. I think every generation's parents had to stay on their toes and put in genuine effort to restrict what their kids were seeing and doing and usually with only very limited success.