• Question: Do you think that there should be restrictions on how young children are before they are allowed to have access to the internet?

    Asked by Jesse Pinkman on 15 Jun 2023.
    • Photo: Fiona Thomson

      Fiona Thomson answered on 15 Jun 2023:

      No, I don’t think there should be any formal restrictions – however its incredibly important that we teach young children how to use the internet responsibly. Media literacy skills are absolutely essential for young people (and older people too) to enable them to use the internet safely. Rather than an absolute ban on access, children should be allowed to access age appropriate spaces.

    • Photo: Steph Acaster

      Steph Acaster answered on 15 Jun 2023:

      This is something that parents and teachers should consider carefully, but working out something that works for the children you’re working with is better than a ‘one size fits all’ age limit. Also, access to pre-decided sites/activities is great, but unrestricted access not so good!

    • Photo: Andra Jones

      Andra Jones answered on 19 Jun 2023:

      I personally think there should be restrictions on people being allowed to have children! But that’s just the personal view of an old woman.

      If children are supervised and taught to question what they see, and most importantly have someone willing and able to explain things to them then there should be no reason to limit access. Internet time should of course be balanced well with other activities. I have two children, 32 and 17 and they both had access to computers and the internet from an early age. Neither has seemed to suffer from it, both are very good computer users, neither interacts with trolls, they both have a sensible level of scepticism towards ChatGPT and other AI interactions.

      As they were growing up I made sure they always knew they could talk to me and ask questions. That even if they’d done something wrong, I would try not to yell, that we would sit down and talk about it – punishment may follow but they would understand why and that it was appropriate.

    • Photo: Chloe Tasker

      Chloe Tasker answered on 30 Jun 2023:

      Interesting question! I think that there should be some time limits as to not affect children’s attention spans or vision. I think personally I will restrict my future children’s internet access until they are 11-12. This is when I first had access to the internet for anything other than school work! I would also monitor closely social media as it can be quite damaging to a young teen. I think every parents should make their own choices, and there can be benefits to the internet as well as potential harm.

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