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gattanimell5 commented on Ask HN: How do you protect your children from internet addiction?    · Posted by u/Archipelagia
vz8 · 3 years ago
We changed DNS for all devices to use OpenDNS familyshield [0] for starters. It's a passive way to throttle some of the worst of the worst out there.

Of course setting some limits on how much / how often helps a bit, and frank discussions about what too much of an addictive thing does to you.

Our youngest is developmentally delayed and will absolutely ignore any guidelines and follow the path of least resistance / most enticement, so their bedroom connection runs through a proxy running Squid [1] where I've whitelisted school and certain entertainment (that took a bit of time running Telerik Fiddler[2] to gather the many domains necessary for the whitelist)

Spotify was a bit of a problem, again with our youngest who went straight for the podcasts with the most adult content, which Spotify gleefully recommended the first moment we turned the service on. Could never find a way to turn podcasts off - never wanted them.

We run our own Emby[3] server that everyone has access to with curated music tv and movies (and also have the usual streaming video services, but those are reserved for common areas).

Looked at other options like walled garden family services (e.g. Amazon Kindle Fires with subscription), but there seems to only be content ranging up to ~12 year old tastes.

[0] https://support.opendns.com/hc/en-us/articles/228006487-Fami... [1] http://www.squid-cache.org/ [2] https://www.telerik.com/fiddler [3] https://emby.media/

gattanimell5 · 3 years ago
i hope some of your childrens manages to bypass family filters and starts his passion for the magical world of cybersecurity this way
gattanimell5 commented on Ask HN: How do you protect your children from internet addiction?    · Posted by u/Archipelagia
theonething · 3 years ago
My kid's almost three. From day one, we've implemented a zero screen policy. That means no phones, tablets, computers, TV (don't own one), etc.

We've read to her since day one and she loves books now and her spoken/listening language skills are way ahead for her age. Wife speaks to her in her native language so she's growing up bilingual too. Wife takes her to parks, mommy and me classes where they have story time, sing, physical activities, arts and crafts and free play with toys. At home, we expect her to be able entertain herself with toys, books, backyard, etc.

It's not perfect, but at a parenting class, I heard screens described as crack cocaine for kids, so I'm keeping mine away from that shit for as long as I can. She seems to be doing fine without them and though she's curious when she sees one, she doesn't ask/whine for them.[0] I don't even plan to expose educational app games to her. So many other richer ways to learn in 3D space. I highly doubt she'll fall behind for lack of exposure to screens.

[0] The most screen exposure she gets is with others. People these days don't seem to be able to socialize and interact without their phones.

gattanimell5 · 3 years ago
the thing that really kickstarted my passion for it was when i was left some hours alone with a old netbook, 5-6, and it was very slow, but i wanted to to something cool with it, and I followed some tutorials on YouTube to make small programs in visual basic

u/gattanimell5

KarmaCake day7December 16, 2022View Original