Media study on Gen Alpha kids show ‘purposeful participation’ over ‘mindless consumption’ of media and increased privacy consciousness over previous gen::Gen Alpha kids are protective of their personal data online and enjoy media that allows them to control their experiences with content.
I never understood Gen Z’s mindset to privacy. Caught my son telling people lots of personal info on chat roulette at one point, and had to have a long discussion. This was after already telling him about the fact that you shouldn’t just tell people online, or strangers, personal details. Never mind strangers online.
Bruh shouldnt be lettin ur son have unlimmited internet access. Set up a bunch of blocks and limmits and once they figure how to bypass it then they can do what they please
You ever tried to keep a kid from accessing things? My network was parent controlled out the ass, and all it really takes is going over to a friends house, or borrowing a relatives iPad, and he had free rein on the internet.
Not to mention the school had an unrestricted network with a simple 8 character password certain students figured out.
It’s not as simple as “just set up blocks.” 🤦🏻♂️
Edit: I literally went so far as to gain access to my neighbors wifi just to block my kids devices from being able to connect to them.
When they by0ass it they have earned the privalege thats how i earned the privalege.
… So I should keep my 10 year old away from porn, until he goes to a friends house, at which point he has “earned the privilege” to watch porn?
That ain’t how life works. There are things a developing brain should not have access to. One of them being porn, others being gore sites, anonymous chat sites, and more.
Well what one sees when visiting other peoples places is not a reflection of you but a reflection of your childs friend. Its your job to teach your child how to handle said things not how to interpret it if your childs friends shows them something you dont want them to see you should have taught them how to handle it. Yes deny them viewing said things bit ensure they can handle it when they invenitably see it. Prepare them to make decisions themselves not what decicions to make.
As a kid who had a dad that religiously blocked any and all use of technology, I agree the right step is to allow access to it instead of taking it all away
This kind of made me revere videogames and the internet as a whole, using them whenever I had the chance, only realising I maybe shouldn’t be on them all hours of the day after I moved out
Even then, it was a hard habit to break
Restriction is a hard line to balance, and I wish you luck with it
Oh these days are long past now. XD but thank you.
That said, I agree with you. The restrictions I had in place weren’t a full lock down of all devices or no internet, he had access to most devices most of the time, and general access to the internet. Blocking only really took place on porn, gore, or “mature” sites like 4chan.
I did have internet shutdown at bedtime, because he proved unable to keep himself from using his phone into the wee hours. And I did keep him from installing any app he wanted, because a) it was tied to my credit card and b) we wanted to know what social sites he was on. Games were fine.
I suppose we could have taken his phone from him each night but honestly that was such a grueling process and if I forgot one night he’d be awake till 4 am on it.
You’ve done nothing wrong but FYI you can block things at a device level in most cases. My little kid currently has device level restrictions as well as NextDNS restrictions. As she gets older I’ll probably look at something more strict like a provisioned profile to make it harder for her to work around those restrictions. Nothings perfect and as you said kids will find a way.
Back when this took place, dns level stuff wasn’t very prevalent in the consumer market. Hell, even parental control on devices was non-existent. I had to MDM his phone just to gain the control I needed, and even then it wasn’t everything I needed without paying out the ass for what was essentially corporate level management of devices.
These days I’m running a whole slew of things that could handle it easily, but at this point he’s out of the house living on his own.
Fair enough :)
I’m opposite and just now have a 4 year old dabbling with electronics.
You did the right thing by guiding them when you caught them doing something dangerous,.
But that’s your kid. You raised them. They didn’t know this because you hadn’t taught them yet. Don’t blame the year they were born.
Looking at generations has more to it than simple ageism. Much of human behavior is a product of their culture, their surroundings. These surroundings change over time, and in the modern world, very rapidly. It’s the music, the films, books, memes, sayings, attitudes etc.
Discrimination is definitely something we want to avoid. But completely ignoring these unique cultural influences that change year-to-year, and are a natural part of growing up, is simply foolish. Parents do not, and should not, simply bear 100% responsibility for what their kids do, when their kids are not, and should not be, complete and utter slaves.
I’m not rejecting the claim that generations are unique and people are influenced by what they have grown up around.
However, we’re not talking about what kind of music they like or their attitude towards tattoos, but basic safety. A parent of a millennial might have a good reason to not understand the risks of private information on the Internet, as it was completely new when their kids were growing up. But now we know better.
The poster might as well have said “I saw my kid cross the street without looking and almost get hit by a car. Gen z kids make no sense to me!” No, that’s your responsibility as a parent to teach them this.
Sure maybe not 100%, but in this case case we’re taking at least 95%.
If a kids parents say one thing, and the world says another, I do not think 95% would side with the parent. I think the number would actually be flipped.
That said, I do agree that parents have an important responsibility to try to teach good safety practices.
My mother was very religious. I’m very anti-religious. Part of it is likely in direct response to how religious she was because my anti-religious stance started with hating having to spend an hour in church each week or having to spend time at my Catholic school learning about religion.
She wasn’t able to pass on arguably the most important thing to her. And while I was the only one my siblings that rebelled to the point where I refused to go to church anymore while living at home, I don’t think any of us ever go to church these days unless it’s a funeral or wedding that happens to be at a church.
I just hope my daughter isn’t pulled in by their false promises because I’m not aggressively pushing it to the point where she would rebel against it or quietly resent it.
It doesn’t take aggression to give someone the critical thinking tools that adulthood will require, and then strengthen them with support and faith in their ability to use them.
Not always how it works unfortunately. I had previously sat him down and told him all of this, including things like the fact that chat roulette type sites aren’t safe. “But my friends all do it” is pretty much the only thing he said when I asked him why he thought this would be okay.
Believe me, I’m a product of the early and mostly unregulated web, I’ve seen it at its best and worst. There was no way I was letting him access the internet without multiple talks on safety.
Yep.
My father schooled me on similar issues, decadesbefore the internet.
Don’t talk about family business (both family stuff and business stuff, as he was self employed), to people. It’s none if their business.
As kids we tend to be naïve.
I’d also throw in some falsehoods for good measure, just to blur the trail, like how I grew up Antarctica where my 3 dads raised me to work in fintech, but I went my own way, so now I’m estranged from 2 of them
The kids are alright.
As my username implies, I sometimes fall out of the loop on things. Who are gen Alpha now please? Should I tell them to not touch the thermostat? (just kidding, it’s all locked down, I’m an old geek).
Kids of millennials.
Wait I thought that was gen z
It’s a bit fuzzy, but more or less each gen gives birth to the gen after the next one. Boomers are the parents of millenials, not the grandparents. Gen X are parents of Zoomers. Millenials are the parents of Alphas. Etc.
Right now Millenials are in their 30s and 40s, Zoomers are in their 20s and late teens, and Alphas are young kids. Most Zoomers are not having kids yet.
What are zoomer parent kids called?
Zoomers
Early millennials were about 15-20 when Zoomer started so yes, they had some, but keep in mind the last millennial was born the day before the first Zoomer. Half the zoomers are in their 20s so there’s definitely some that are parents to Alphas, but they’ll primarily make Betas starting next week or something
I think people born from 2012 onwards.
2010
Same thing.
Everyone who is 14 and younger are gen Alpha. I think Beta gen will be starting perhaps in a year or two.
Not hard to move the needle from zero.
Cynicism aside, I’m cautiously optimistic…and then I remember who the parents are of these kids.
God knows I watched my peers fucking up their own kids decades ago.
Every new generation is shit, but guess what, they aren’t ones in power. If you want change it’s the boomer in charge who you should be talking about. This is the world they built, it’s not the kids fault they’re inheriting a burning house.
Yah, I’m not buying it. If they’re more private, it’s starting from such a terrible baseline as to be imperceptible. Every teenager I’ve seen would sell their baby brother for 10 seconds of Tiktok viewing.
Eh, it‘s pretty hard to evaluate a generation‘s habits when some of them aren‘t even born yet.
When do we get to the part where we start blaming them for everything? Maybe once they’ve reached median 30s and the world is still fucked?
I know that is a joke but it’s not like 30yos have much control over the world either.
I mean it’s not entirely a joke, but by “we” I mean clickbait articles, like the ones that blamed my generation for spending too much on food and not diamonds
It took quite a few people flying through windshields and getting impaled on steering wheels before the next generation decided that seat belts were a good idea. This is pretty typical human behavior
