I wrote a book while my wife was pregnant called "The Graysonian Ethic: Lessons for my unborn son", and I have a chapter called "the internet is not your friend".
The key lesson there is that just because a massive company has a smiley face doesn't mean it's your friend, and doesn't mean the internet is safe.
YouTube for example, has all kinds of videos for kids. But if you dig a little bit, a lot of them are weird algorithmically generated videos that are literally meaningless, to the point that they're probably going to hurt your kids cognitive development.
My parents pounded it into my head when I was young not to give out your identity online, and a lot of people missed the memo. They think that the internet is safe, and it's not. Part of the only reason that cancel culture is so prevalent is so many people end up putting their personal information out there for everyone to see.
People think that they can give out their identity online if they don't say anything controversial, but the fact is what is controversial changes over time so what might have been perfectly fine yesterday might be a cancelable offense tomorrow. These people are crazy, and we need to remember that. (These people not being any particular political persuasion, just crazy people)
Besides that, the internet is inevitable. You can't live your life without it. At some point you're going to have to pay a bill, or do online banking, or sign up on some government website that doesn't have an equivalent on paper, or do your taxes, or purchase something that isn't available locally, or do some assignment for school. So you can't just turn off the internet and hope that your kid never discovers that the most important communications medium in the history of the world doesn't exist. I think the only way you can really do it is the same way that you release your kids into the real world. When they are little babies, and they never go anywhere without you directly holding their hand. As they get older and you've taught them lessons and you've proven to yourself that they've learned those lessons, eventually you let them play in the backyard by themselves, then maybe you let them ride their bike up and down the street by themselves, and eventually they end up able to basically go out and do whatever they want on their own. In the same way, I think it's really important to start off hand holding and specifically picking the things that your kids see, and trying to teach lessons about logic and rhetoric and ethics and morality, and as you become confident that they have learned those lessons, then you can let them a little bit more and a little bit more on to the internet on their own. Eventually they're going to end up on there whether you like it or not, so you basically need to start right from the very beginning to deal with that fact.
I wrote a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff, but the only other thing is the warning that people who are online tend to stay online, and people in real life tend to stay in real life. It's hypnotizing, and very easy to end up in a situation where you have 10,000 friends on facebook, and no one to help you move a couch. A lot of people my age are absolutely miserable because the only friends that they have are online. Consciously you might believe that a friend online is the same as a friend in real life, but subconsciously and unconsciously your whole being recognizes the truth. You can't actually convince yourself after sitting at a desk for years that you've actually accomplished anything, so no matter how amazing the internet is, you do eventually have to go outside. The real world doing real things is where you're going to find fulfillment, and fulfilling relationships.
The key lesson there is that just because a massive company has a smiley face doesn't mean it's your friend, and doesn't mean the internet is safe.
YouTube for example, has all kinds of videos for kids. But if you dig a little bit, a lot of them are weird algorithmically generated videos that are literally meaningless, to the point that they're probably going to hurt your kids cognitive development.
My parents pounded it into my head when I was young not to give out your identity online, and a lot of people missed the memo. They think that the internet is safe, and it's not. Part of the only reason that cancel culture is so prevalent is so many people end up putting their personal information out there for everyone to see.
People think that they can give out their identity online if they don't say anything controversial, but the fact is what is controversial changes over time so what might have been perfectly fine yesterday might be a cancelable offense tomorrow. These people are crazy, and we need to remember that. (These people not being any particular political persuasion, just crazy people)
Besides that, the internet is inevitable. You can't live your life without it. At some point you're going to have to pay a bill, or do online banking, or sign up on some government website that doesn't have an equivalent on paper, or do your taxes, or purchase something that isn't available locally, or do some assignment for school. So you can't just turn off the internet and hope that your kid never discovers that the most important communications medium in the history of the world doesn't exist. I think the only way you can really do it is the same way that you release your kids into the real world. When they are little babies, and they never go anywhere without you directly holding their hand. As they get older and you've taught them lessons and you've proven to yourself that they've learned those lessons, eventually you let them play in the backyard by themselves, then maybe you let them ride their bike up and down the street by themselves, and eventually they end up able to basically go out and do whatever they want on their own. In the same way, I think it's really important to start off hand holding and specifically picking the things that your kids see, and trying to teach lessons about logic and rhetoric and ethics and morality, and as you become confident that they have learned those lessons, then you can let them a little bit more and a little bit more on to the internet on their own. Eventually they're going to end up on there whether you like it or not, so you basically need to start right from the very beginning to deal with that fact.
I wrote a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff, but the only other thing is the warning that people who are online tend to stay online, and people in real life tend to stay in real life. It's hypnotizing, and very easy to end up in a situation where you have 10,000 friends on facebook, and no one to help you move a couch. A lot of people my age are absolutely miserable because the only friends that they have are online. Consciously you might believe that a friend online is the same as a friend in real life, but subconsciously and unconsciously your whole being recognizes the truth. You can't actually convince yourself after sitting at a desk for years that you've actually accomplished anything, so no matter how amazing the internet is, you do eventually have to go outside. The real world doing real things is where you're going to find fulfillment, and fulfilling relationships.
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