How to Protect Your Kids in the Web3 Era

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Pri­va­cy in the Web3 era is a for­eign con­cept to near­ly all of us. Here are the next steps, accord­ing to Col­in Pape, founder of Pre­search.

The meta­verse already has its first denizens: our chil­dren. For them, the dig­i­tal realm holds as much sig­nif­i­cance as the phys­i­cal world (a rev­e­la­tion many peo­ple expe­ri­enced in 2020).

Dur­ing the height of the pan­dem­ic, many of us shift­ed much of our social inter­ac­tions to the inter­net. Kids 8 to 18 years old report­ed­ly already spent sig­nif­i­cant time – at least six hours –look­ing at screens. It’s safe to say that screen time has increased for every­one recently.

Kids aren’t just play­ing games or watch­ing con­tent online – they’re using the inter­net for school and to con­nect with friends and rel­a­tives. The inter­net and online resources are a valu­able com­po­nent of kids’ social lives and an invalu­able tool for learning. 

I am con­stant­ly amazed at the depth of the inter­ac­tions my 9‑year-old son has with his group of friends as they play Minecraft, for instance. They’re work­ing as a team, build­ing things col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly, solv­ing group dynam­ics issues, and tak­ing turns as lead­ers. It’s so fun to lis­ten to the con­ver­sa­tions and see how kids can nat­u­ral­ly work togeth­er inde­pen­dent­ly, with no adult guidance.

Be Smarter

So while par­ents prob­a­bly shouldn’t out­right ban screen time, we can be smarter about how we let kids engage with the web and con­nect with peo­ple vir­tu­al­ly in this increas­ing­ly dig­i­tal world. This all takes on even more sig­nif­i­cance as the inter­net shifts to the web3 era, which will pri­or­i­tize user-owned ser­vices over that of cen­tral-owned giants such as Google and Face­book that manip­u­late our data and use it against us to sell ads.

Here are some sim­ple tips from one par­ent to anoth­er to sup­port their kids’ safe learn­ing and curiosity:

Privacy: Trust, but be present

We keep our inter­net-con­nect­ed devices in a com­mon area where my wife and I can be present dur­ing our son’s online activ­i­ty. We are aware of what our son is expe­ri­enc­ing online and we can serve as a sup­port­ive resource if he has questions.

Even if your child is using an app designed for kids, inap­pro­pri­ate con­tent may still pop up. YouTube con­tent, even with a paid plan, can have inap­pro­pri­ate ads hid­den in the mid­dle of videos as spon­sored con­tent, like the time a Minecraft video my son was watch­ing was spon­sored by a “man­scap­ing” com­pa­ny. This prompt­ed a bit of an awk­ward con­ver­sa­tion about male groom­ing with my son, and a talk about how adver­tis­ing works on the inter­net and par­tic­u­lar­ly poor ad targeting.

If my son were watch­ing this video in his room, where his moth­er and I wouldn’t have been aware of this chan­nel tar­get­ing grown-up prod­ucts to younger audi­ences, we couldn’t have had the con­ver­sa­tions we did, and helped our son make the choice to avoid that chan­nel mov­ing forward. 

YouTu­bers using inap­pro­pri­ate lan­guage – even if it’s not foul, but just inap­pro­pri­ate or over­ly neg­a­tive, is anoth­er thing we all look out for. Because our son knows that we can hear the same talk he can, it’s a lay­er of account­abil­i­ty that helps him make good choic­es. Nine­ty per­cent of the time now, we nev­er even need to say any­thing – if he hears a YouTu­ber call­ing some­one “stu­pid” or being oth­er­wise deroga­to­ry, he just changes the chan­nel on his own to one where the lan­guage is positive.

When tech­nol­o­gy is expe­ri­enced out in the open and dis­cus­sions can be had in real-time, we can help our kids have a bet­ter under­stand­ing of the con­tent they’re exposed to and how to respond to it.

Learn the internet basics together

Kids are often smarter and more under­stand­ing than we give them cred­it for. If they learn the basics of how things work, they’ll be able to cope bet­ter when faced with chal­lenges and disturbances. 

Many peo­ple are con­tent to just use tech­nol­o­gy with­out know­ing any­thing about how the con­tent and infor­ma­tion we inter­act with actu­al­ly reach­es us on our screens. But savvy inter­net users should take the time to devel­op a basic under­stand­ing of how the tech­nol­o­gy we use every day works. This is so we can help our­selves and trou­bleshoot the issues we encounter, and to pass this under­stand­ing on to our kids.

In just an hour or two, we can watch videos that explain what hap­pens when we type in a web­site address, run a search, or upload a video. There are plen­ty of resources that explain things such as servers, inter­net ser­vice providers, search engines, touch screens, com­put­er graph­ics, and video games.

In addi­tion to being just plain inter­est­ing for some peo­ple, it is valu­able for us all to under­stand just what hap­pens when we tap a but­ton on our smart­phone, or why we need to update a game on our con­soles. It helps us devel­op an appre­ci­a­tion of all the work that’s hap­pen­ing behind the scenes, and to con­nect the dots and prob­lem solve when we inevitably encounter issues with technology.

web3 wallet

Privacy: Stay current with the changing technological landscape

As par­ents, it’s our job to look over the hori­zon and be cog­nizant of poten­tial dan­gers that lie in wait for our chil­dren. This is why from a very young age we con­stant­ly remind kids to look both ways when cross­ing the street.

Like any tool, tech­nol­o­gy can be used for both good and bad. Kids should under­stand both sides of the spec­trum. So while they can use social media to check up on their friends and keep up with their favorite influ­encers, they should be aware that what they see on these sites is often not a true reflec­tion of reality.

As tech­nol­o­gy becomes fur­ther enmeshed into our day-to-day lives, this prin­ci­ple must hold. Fur­ther use of aug­ment­ed and vir­tu­al real­i­ty will expand our con­nec­tion to the inter­net, as well as its dan­gers. When par­ents speak with their chil­dren about these dan­gers, kids can make bet­ter deci­sions, and are more like­ly to raise ques­tions and concerns.

As con­ver­sa­tions with your chil­dren are tak­ing place, it’s an oppor­tu­ni­ty to dis­cuss pri­va­cy and decen­tral­iza­tion, and how things can be dif­fer­ent under a Web3 mod­el. With more con­cepts like cryp­to and blockchain enter­ing the main­stream, it’d be wise for kids to learn basic tech and cryp­tocur­ren­cy con­cepts now, which will help them seize oppor­tu­ni­ties and avoid poten­tial scams in the future.

Good par­ent­ing in the Web3 era will rely on the same basics of good par­ent­ing today: open com­mu­ni­ca­tion and dia­logue with our children.

About the Author

Privacy: How to Protect Your Kids in the Web3 Era

Col­in Pape is the founder of Pre­search, a decen­tral­ized, com­mu­ni­ty-dri­ven search engine with 3.5 mil­lion reg­is­tered users. Col­in found­ed Pre­search after real­iz­ing that a sin­gle com­pa­ny con­trolled more than 90% of the world’s search queries, and that a more pri­vate, decen­tral­ized alter­na­tive was need­ed. Pre­search is lev­el­ing the search play­ing field by lever­ag­ing blockchain tech­nol­o­gy and the pow­er of the com­mu­ni­ty to take on the world’s biggest inter­net com­pa­ny. Pre­search rewards users for search­ing and sup­port­ing the net­work in PRE tokens, an Ethereum-based cryp­tocur­ren­cy. Col­in is based near Toron­to, Canada.

Got some­thing to say about pri­va­cy or any­thing else? Write to us or join the dis­cus­sion in our Telegram chan­nel. You can also catch us on Tik TokFace­book, or Twit­ter.

Disclaimer

All the infor­ma­tion con­tained on our web­site is pub­lished in good faith and for gen­er­al infor­ma­tion pur­pos­es only. Any action the read­er takes upon the infor­ma­tion found on our web­site is strict­ly at their own risk.



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