I remain sympathetic to parents who don't know where to start in terms of understanding technology and computers. It is a big topic. But I am entirely unsympathetic to parents who throw up their hands and make no effort.

At this point, any parent saying, "I just don't understand technology," or, "I just don't have the time to mind my childrens' computer use or monitor their Internet access," is morally equivalent to saying, "I just don't understand traffic safety," and, "I just don't have the time to teach my children the rules of the road or how to cross the street," while living in a big, bustling city.

It is lazy, entitled, and negligent. The world is full of networked computers and, barring some new massive Carrington event, is never going back to the way it was before.

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j45 2 days ago | parent [-]

Many parents think their kids are safe when they are inside the home, without realizing they are letting in the entire world, including things worse than they ever imagined into their homes, through the devices.

In the past, the general disconnection of the world and information had a natural insulation factor. Probably less so today.

Rather than admonish adults, it's actually quite common that many people in many professions don't know how to purchase, or implement software in their day to day work, let alone at home.

Maybe, this is is an aspect of digital literacy that has been lacking - we know that the consumer habit loop that smartphones go after is not always about digital health, or the user's digital literacy, it's about capturing their attention.

Parents actually seem to want the same kind of quality curation not just with the internet, but all areas of their children's lives.

The free for all they may have grown up with 20-40 years ago is simply not the same any more online, or offline.

In that way, even trying to make an effort sometimes isn't enough I'd say. Ignorance is one thing, but maybe it could seem like negligence to others.

Would there be some possible solutions or approaches you or others could offer here to help parents build the skills that lead to not giving up? Sincerely curious where folks see the starting point of these skills.

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sfRattan 2 days ago | parent [-]

>Ignorance is one thing, but maybe it could seem like negligence to others.

In person I've found the difference to be usually very clear. It's why I distinguish between the sympathic attitude of "I don't know where to start" and the contemptible reaction that "therefore I will act as if nothing is wrong, or write it off as someone else's fault."

>Would there be some possible solutions or approaches you or others could offer here to help parents build the skills that lead to not giving up? Sincerely curious where folks see the starting point of these skills.

It's a hard problem. I've spent a lot of time thinking about it, and almost as much time talking to relatives with children. I have come to no happy, easy answers.

Carey Parker's Firewalls Don't Stop Dragons is a good starting point to Security and Privacy, but not really how computers work. There are various books I remember from childhood about how computers work, but I don't really remember the process of coming to understand computers distinctly because it was both early and continuous over a long period.

I think the best we'll do as a species is one-to-three computer people per extended family. And I think the key will be teaching those people how to be of service to their families. But there's not really an existing framework for a "computer court wizard" in each family nor for what maxims and/or proscriptions such a person might teach computer illiterate family members in order to use computers safely and protect the family's children from the worst of dark algorithms, surveillance, and abuse/predators online.

It's completely uncharted territory.

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j45 2 days ago | parent [-]

Appreciate the thoughtful reply.

I'm not sure its entirely uncharted territory.

TV channels used to get managed. Magazines used to get managed.

There is a lot more volume now, obviously.

Tools like Circle can provide some level of family level DNS which can help.

Something that stands out is also helping parents get a handle on their own consumption and habits to be able to better teach kids on what to look out for.

	▲	sfRattan 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		The conceptual frontier of a world of networked computers is uncharted, and we are in the well along into that dark frontier now. I don't think TV or magazines are a good point of comparison, nor anything from the analog world of yesterday. Analog mass media couldn't dynamically adapt itself to individual viewer proclivities in order to attract attention. Parents can understand that children shouldn't watch TV at night because society has agreed to constrain more mature programming to when children are mostly asleep. We can understand not to leave a Playboy magazine lying around in reach of children or, better, not to have such things in a family home at all. But digital media defies more than convention... It defies all points of reference a human computer-layperson might have in the analog world that could help to understand it fully. Try to explain to someone on the street the sorts of things that are and are not possible with computers and networks, and why various things fall into one or the other category. Watch their eyes glaze over. Absent points of reference and useful context it's almost anticomprehensible. >Something that stands out is also helping parents get a handle on their own consumption and habits to be able to better teach kids on what to look out for. Strongly agree. I've always shied away from algorithmically managed feeds and dark patterns. It felt instinctual to me but I think those instincts were born from coming to understand computers at a young age. Humanity at large has basically zero instincts for the digital world... Yet. Square one may be feeling the difference when you cut slopfeed content and targeted advertising out of your life. Square two may be new, computer-age fables to cultivate those instincts among those who aren't (and largely won't ever be) deeply computer literate. The sort of parables every single American grew up deciphering in McGuffey readers, once upon a time, but concerning things like, "a person can pretend to be anyone online, and that can cause trouble," or, "the boy who gave away his secrets could never get them back."