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Just make sure the kids are getting their Internet Safety lessons

This ^ We were exploring without the influence of outside marketing/algorithms & constant surveillance. We were also told to be careful & didn't go posting our full ass names & faces online. Influencer culture monetizes exposing your life to the internet & kids are copying that as a default.

oh, for sure. I don't have a good answer, I'm just saying the landscape has changed a bit since we were kids

Not to mention that the internet is in fucking everything now. Phones, video game consoles, fucking fridges. There’s almost no chance for a break from the internet, specifically social media. When everything becomes a computer with web access, there is no “offline time” for them anymore.

This isn't to say about its infinite contribution in making me a pervert trans girl, which is a happier state than my previous by far!

I do have things that are "this was a mistake", but all it needed to protect a kid like we was just explaining why you shouldn't put much information online because you'll never be able to take it down. But hey, at least my cringe young self lives on YouTube forever now 😁

Tbh it's very clear that the U16 bans comes from a worldwide desire to go back to the good old days of state only propaganda and strict information controls instead of protecting anyone. It's more about keeping people from knowing what queers are or having opinions about Palestine than porn.

same but it's kinda like homeschooling - there are cases where it turns out great... there are a lot of cases where it goes very badly (ironically, my parents' inability to successfully restrict my Internet access, was the reason why I turned out "normal" despite the homeschooling)

I always was a recluse and spent many years neeting This is a problem that exists in my head, I would do the same without internet Just in a different manner Internet is what kept me sane and provides at least some communication, even if synthetic

I know there's some stuff I should NOT have been seeing on here but like I really think I would have been a worse person if my perspective was boxed up in my dipshit little neighborhood. There are some folks that'd only ferment having both but I think I did pretty okay.

I also had unrestricted, unmonitored internet access from basically when I was 12, and it absolutely made me a better person. did get into trouble sometimes? of course. was I really obnoxious as a teen? you bet. but going through that is a big reason why I have the strength and maturity I have now

Being online as a teenager was only a positive for me. Being online in my 30s is generally a waste of my life. This could be because I have more offline opportunities as an adult, or it could be that the internet is worse now.

plus emulating sm64 through project64 at the age of 6

I had no internet access, I grew up feeling like all the things my mother told me about me being a freak and disgusting were true. I wish I’d had that.

I think the difference is that being online back then was a deliberate thing you chose to do. Kids today get pulled into the swamp of social media as a matter of course.

Being in places where people expected you to act like an adult, like MMOs, did a lot to teach me how to be an adult.

Just remind them not to do anything brazenly illegal.

it's fucking true

Agree, but at the same time the Internet is a very different place now. Interestingly, I now worry more about the form the content kids access takes than the content itself.

If restricting the internet access for children was about actual safety or concerns about racism and not just transphobia, limiting information about Palestine and religious indoctrination then safe internet use, real history and critical thinking could be taught in schools again or something.