With the years I learned some rules of behavior on internet, but I wonder if there is some kind of extensive guide for parents who are not experienced with technology.
For example, I don’t think content blockers are a good idea for teenagers. It works for kids, but teenagers will find workarounds because parents were lazy about teaching them the dangers and instead used a spyware app.
Here is a bad written list of some obvious rules:
- Be anonymous
- Use private social media accounts
- Do not tell any personal information
- Use ad blockers
- Learn to recognize ads
- Learn to recognize AI generated text and images
- Learn to recognize scam
- Understand consent
- Learn to prevent blackmail
- Learn to prevent grooming
- Learn how fake pornography is and the unrespectful content
But I wish there was some kind of step by step guide
One way would be to let them find out the hard way. Make sure they understand that everyone can see what they do and say and that they can find them back as a first base step. Let them have to click the right download button when downloading a mod for their game, you know. Make a setup so that if there’s theres a big oopsie with their devices yours arent affected. And from there they will install an ad blocker or learn to find the download button. You could also make a fake blackmail or phishing email to see how they react (I’ve thought about making a fake phishing email for the elder ones in my family recently too…) and make it so that if they click, the screen goes black and red with crazy sounds.
My daughter isn’t even two yet, but I’m definitely trying to plan a balance with this. It’s a huge part of how I learned, and I don’t think I would have learned nearly as much or as well otherwise.
At the same time though, I can’t help but feel like ads and the internet are far more insidious than they were when I first went online in 2000.
Malware is much more sneaky. There’s more spare resources for it to use without impacting performance. Ads have likewise had plenty of time to develop/advance/get worse.
Thankfully, ad blocking, anti-malware, and recovery tools have also advanced.
I think for the early days I’ll have her on an isolated, locked down, pre-protected device for learning the basics of using a computer (mouse, files, the type of stuff they used to teach in elementary school).
Then slowly take off the training wheels.
That’s how I learned too, but at first yeah obv training wheels are useful in order to not have to reinstall the os every 2 days. About malware though, it may be more sneaky in general but some sites I’ve seen recently still use the old ways, especially for game mods or file downloads, they still use the giant green download button trick. Also, she will grow up in the internet that we have today, so if she learns the old stuff, it may not be that useful
In any case, just for thinking of this, she will probably be one of the most tech savvy person in her generation! I hope she will be thankful