alt Hacker NewsMany 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.
>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.