Computers, kids, and the future - scares me

[Spazz]

I was just thinking about censorship/warondrugs/budweiserfrogsjoecamal/sueinganybodythatlooksatyourkidwrong . Thought was more obvious and i wouldnt have to go deeper into it than that sir.

[Spazz]

So even if its the most gentle anime ever your kid cant be into it cuz YOU dont like it ? Prolly prevents a lil homie from being in the know on the schoolyard now days. Seems like every cartoon is done in that syle now days. BTW i cant stand anime either.

[ClakarEQ]

Part of my point has been lost in the snow so I'll some it up in a question (this maybe a near dejavue).

If our society today feels no need to police the internet, but they do feel the need to police cable television, which of those will go by the side when there is no difference between the TV and the internet?

Simliarly, if the majorty of parents in our country are to be relied upon, but fail, and as a result has great impact to the overall country, what should the country do?

IMO I think the majority of parents are failing at their job. I think there is a direct link between what I'll call a "downward spiral" of ethics, equality, kindness and the failure of parents. I think this gap is ever increasing. I think the "good parenting" is done by a minority. Is anyone else of this opinion or am I alone? Who is left to change this other then government (I can't believe I'm post that LOL)

I guess I'm done for now. I do appreciate the posts.

[Spazz]

And the government has proved when it gets involved in things it does an awsome job.

[ClakarEQ]

So even if its the most gentle anime ever your kid cant be into it cuz YOU dont like it ? Prolly prevents a lil homie from being in the know on the schoolyard now days. Seems like every cartoon is done in that syle now days. BTW i cant stand anime either.

I've not seen "gentle" anime. My issue with anime is that it lacks animation. Most if not all anime I've seen has some animation but more then often it has what I'll call "moving stills". They are often drawn in some "light", be it evil and dark, or sweet and nice. I don't care how facial expressions are done with anime, etc. They can't play pokemon nor several other "games" but Uno and other card games (go fish) are a-ok.

I also don't like the fact that when I say anime to a 10 year old it means one thing but when I say anime to the guys at work it means something else. I'm not saying "cartoon" porn doesn't exisit, I saw heavy metal (good cartoon flick), I am saying there is a TON of anime porn and it is VERY VERY popular. I've not done it but if you do a google search for anime, would not a porn anime reference be on page one?, maybe not.

For me, anime is too close to porn, it allows for "easy bridging". When a child looks at anime porn what do they see? A cartoon like saturday morning or a graphic sex act, or both? And no I don't think folks that let their kids watch anime also let their kids watch anime porn.

The point is you can't do a google search for scooby doo and find porn (I guess you might but still)

So for now while I can, I shield them from anime. I "push" the good oldies, flintstones, scooby doo, tom and jerry, etc (you'll notice I didn't put violence in any of this as cartoons of all types are very violent)

[ClakarEQ]

And the government has proved when it gets involved in things it does an awsome job.

And this was part of the roots of my debate with my bro ROFL

[Granh]

It's not the gov's job to get involved in something like this. By saying we *must* restrict things like TV, Internet, ect.; without the moderation of parents; you must in turn justify outlawing things like tobacco, alcohol and Porn all together since they too are morally, mentally and physically degrading. But wait, those already are illegal to children. And whose job is it (mostly) to moderate such things? The parents. Children are going to be exposed to things whether we like it or not. It’s the world we have always lived in. Sin; if you want to call it that; is a fact of life. No amount of governmental moderation, save a nationwide ban, will remove these influences. By becoming a parent you take on certain responsibilities. Asking the government to perform those duties is lazy and bad parenting. If you don’t want to have to put forth the effort to teach kids right from wrong (whatever your definition of that may be), you shouldn’t have them. Don’t want your kid looking at porn? Restrict the internet. Afraid he’ll see it at a friend’s house? Ensure the same cautions are taken by those parents, or don’t let him go over there. If those parents aren’t savvy enough to do this on their own; teach them. If they don’t care, and would be ok with their 9 year old surfing buttsex.com then your kid should find a new friend.

Since when did it become someone else’s problem when your kid leaves the house? The tools are already there for protecting children, but someone has to use them.

You say that a lot of parents are failing at their jobs. No doubt. But it’s still not the government’s job to step in unless it's an extreme case. As a parent, if your peers, neighbors and relatives seem to be struggling it’s your job to help them. Look back in the 50’s when you could say everyone had a lot higher values. People had a closer relationship with other parents, and in turn shared support. If you want to change something, start with your community.

I 100% support the government in campaigns like the anti-smoking/drug commercials they’ve done in the past. Now cable companies are showing commercials about TV ratings and how to restrict certain things. Information is power. A lot of parents don’t *know* they can already moderate their computer & TV with today’s preloaded technology. Most TV’s have a V-chip that allow you to choose what they watch, without holding the remote all the time. For the internet; it’s not hard to change your settings to allow only a set list of websites. If the kid wants to add something not on their list, log in as the parent, view it and decide if it’s ok. I don’t want the government spending billions on something that’s already here. The only difference you’ll see should they get involved is the lack of effort needed.

Asking the nation to parent for you is asinine.

[10sun]

Internet Explorer> Internet Options> Content> Content Advisor> Enable> Select what you want.

I see the future gravitating towards more automatic filtering / ratings derived from metatags.

Don't give them Root access. Problem solved.

[Zanchief]

I think the Gov's only option if they really want to police the internet is create a domain themselves and police that. Then parents can just give blanket access to their domain and let the kids go willy nilly in there and have fun watching whatever lame shows or government sponsored propaganda piece or what not. Lyion can be the administrator!

Just curious, Clakar, how old are your kids?

As for parenting, I don't think it's nearly as bad as the media what like you to know. It's just one of those doom and gloom scenarios that sells great to paranoid folks. Crime is actually on the decline if I remember correctly. Sure there are examples of shit parents, maybe more than before, but the population has increased also. There's always going to be a segment of the population that just doesn't get it.

[kaharthemad]

Even if you dont watch your children like a hawk on the PC you might wanna atleast check internet logs as well as chat logs. There are enough kids out there in child porn rings.

Do you really want your kids ending up in some perverts basement? Think a twisted version of DangerPaul and then you will get where I am going....Or even worse a demented version of Zanchief in a pair of Batman Underroos and a cape tied around his neck...saying "Just one more pose with me Robin....."

[Martrae]

There currently is a huge shift in thinking away from parental rights. Just look at that family who's son had cancer. All they wanted to do was explore alternate treatments and the courts stepped in and held them up as poster children of parental abuse. Because the government thinks 'it knows better'. If the government knew better the schools and jails wouldn't have to be run the same. The government knows jack about raising kids and thanks to the 'if it feels good do it' movement and Dr. Spock, neither do a lot of parents nowadays.

[Zanchief]

Do you have evidence that parents are worse than the were? Do you have statistics? Or is this just cranky old lady, lamenting the good old days of Florence Henderson.

[Martrae]

How can they possibly be as good when there are so many single parents? So many parents who both have to work? How can they possibly raise a child properly when they only see that child a couple hours of the day?

[ClakarEQ]

My kids are 5 and 8, both boys

Regarding parents being good vs bad over time and proof, I have none. This is my observation of the environment around me.

Part of my comments were to also make the analogy of how cable tv is "policed", the internet is not. Knowing there is law in place over a medium such as cable tv, radio, etc. It makes perfect sense for there to be law over the internet as this will become the prefered source/medium for media outlets.

I'm not so worried about the direct interaction, control, whatever you want to call it over MY kids when they are under MY eye. Perhaps this is my "hang-up" and lack of faith for my fellow parent caused from my observations.

Someone posted about it being asinine that government take over parenting. Yeah I agree with this but you realize this is the case today. There are law's right now over parents and kids and such. It was more of what type of controls does the government plan to put in place over the internet to protect its "children". This is the only space left that isn't policed, all other forms of media outlets (within reason and available to common joe folks) are policed by the FCC.

DA on

Why shouldn't the government police / monitor the internet when all other forms of media are.

Why do people assume they know what is best for themselves, this is not always the case and who should be "correcting" these "knowing" people? Our society is obese because folks DO NOT know or DO NOT care what is best for themselves. Using obeseity as the example here, not picking on fat folks.

DA off

This thread in a sense is somewhat futile. IMHO the internet will in fact be policed by our government whether I like it or not. I was curious to see how others fealt about my opinion. My thought process comes from my kids and the ease and the growing ability of unfetered data access.

Here is one of those "when I was a kid" examples LOL
When I was a kid and was getting upto speed on the birds and bees, I looked up words like intercourse, vagina, etc etc. I was curious, I wanted to know all there was to know. Reading this text seemed like science and bilogy to me. Healthy knowledge gain IMHO.

Today a kid is very unlikely to go to a library and look this stuff up. I would sooner see the kid pull a google search off his cell phone, or a google search at the library, friends house, etc.

a bit of rambling here another real world example
My 8 year old is a great speller, not a good writer but reads and spells very good. The family is eating dinner and e-bay comes up in the converstation as my wife bought a halloween thing off e-bay, save some bucks, etc. This isn't a new topic, e-bay has come up before. However my boy had the knowledge gained from the dinner table e-bay chatter over time, to go to e-bay and do some searching for star wars toys. Harmless enough, e-bay wasn't blocked by the filters I put in so when my boy said, they had some cool star wars toys on e-bay, let me show you. I was happy and sad at the same time. I was like, wow, he picked this up on his own, cool, hmm but wait, he put two and two together and just determine in that moment that at least for him e-bay was a source of data, to him this data was starwars as this was his topic, however that may not be his or his friends topic in the future.

I hope you guys are following me here.

I don't want a police state. I don't want more conservatism.

A workable solution that came up at work, during lunch we were talking about this. What if the government actually did something for the people, you know since they've not done a damn thing for the people in my liftime thus far, the government should provide "policed" internet access for "free". Those that want comcast, wow, whatever, you do that, for those that want policied internet, hookup with .gov. This seems like a good balance but I never see this coming to reality as I believe the government will do anything it can to force more monitoring on us as a whole.

[DangerPaul]

Do you really want your kids ending up in some perverts basement? Think a twisted version of DangerPaul and then you will get where I am going....Or even worse a demented version of Zanchief in a pair of Batman Underroos and a cape tied around his neck...saying "Just one more pose with me Robin....."

What the fuck bitch?

[Ginzburgh]

This thread is gay.

[Gidan]

I am not sure the government actually has the power to police the internet. The only way they could do this would be to adopt policies such as they have in China. I don’t think that would go over well here. Much of the content that you want to have polices isn't even located in the US. Ask yourself this. Does the US police radio broadcasts from china, TV broadcasts from France? Why should they have the right to police the internet in Europe?

[Zanchief]

How can they possibly be as good when there are so many single parents? So many parents who both have to work? How can they possibly raise a child properly when they only see that child a couple hours of the day?

Solution to single parents?

The "do what you want as long as it feels good" age was the 70s, and that generation spawned you.

[Ginzburgh]

Yeah I know plenty of single parents, parents that work full time and single parents that work full time and their kids are awesome.



This board is infamous for making ridiculous generalizations. I'm sure someone will come back and say, "omgz those kids are going to be either dead or in jail in 10 years if they have two parents that work full time!".

My mother was a single mother and she worked in real estate full time and my two siblings and I are all successful. Not only are we all doing well, we all have a very strong family bond.

[Darcler]

Both my parents worked full time while I stayed in day care and I grew up completely normal (to my standards, at least).

[Ginzburgh]

Minus all incidents involving saran wrap and a camera.

[Martrae]

How can they possibly be as good when there are so many single parents? So many parents who both have to work? How can they possibly raise a child properly when they only see that child a couple hours of the day?

Solution to single parents?

The "do what you want as long as it feels good" age was the 70s, and that generation spawned you.

First, I don't have to have solutions to identify problems.

Secondly, I was born in the 60s, but close enough. I grew up in the midwest however and the 'free love' brigade didn't found many communes there.

Mothers used to stay at home with their children at least until they were in school. Those early years are very formative and you can't expect a child that spends those years in daycare to grow up feeling the family bond and knowing how to pass it along. Children learn how to be adults from watching adults. A child growing up in daycare learns that adults are caring but distant. There's no familial feeling there.

Darc, forgive me, but you still want your mother to do everything for you. You won't even go to the store on your own. You haven't learned how to grow up and be a mommy because you never got to see her do it much.

[Jazendar]

Darc, forgive me, but you still want your mother to do everything for you. You won't even go to the store on your own. You haven't learned how to grow up and be a mommy because you never got to see her do it much.

Says the bitch who is too scared to post a digital photo because of E-0pinions.

[Jay]

I think it's more acceptable for a kid to watch porn or nudity than it is for a kid to see a some dude get shot or get his ass severely kicked. I think shielding your kid from sex, while it's not wrong to do so, is just postponing the eventual birds and bees talk.

[Darcler]

I dont have my mom go to the store for me. She goes to the store to pick up a couple things for us because we are tight on funds at the moment. Normally I dont like to take things from her because she overbuys and we have no room for that crap.

I dont go places by myself because I have problems asking for help, should I need it, so when I go with people, I have them ask.
I guess I am a little messed up, I am severly socially retarded and awkward. But that doesnt stem from going to day care, that stems from my mother grounding me for years (yes years) at a time. That's my mom's "parenting".