Internet in your life in the year 2021?

[steve-in-kville]

With all that has happened in the past year, with people working from home, students at home and online shopping at an all time high, has the anabaptist community loosened their views on internet use? Have churches that used to restrict its use at home opened up its rules a little?

Vote and comment.

[Josh]

With all that has happened in the past year, with people working from home, students at home and online shopping at an all time high, has the anabaptist community loosened their views on internet use? Have churches that used to restrict its use at home opened up its rules a little?

Vote and comment.

Most church groups gradually become more “liberal” over time, so, for example, ones that required filters have less and less compliance over time. Younger and younger children are given unfettered access to the Internet.

Personally I don’t think that’s a good thing.

[Soloist]

We are starting to discuss home use but still only access it away from home. Originally it was school access, but the hot spot devices kind of changed things.

My primary concern is two fold, one... You never seem to see churches pull back from something after they get it. Two, the accountability. It seems to me that churches use filters as fire and forget tools and completely neglect the need for accountability for use, time and so on...

[Josh]

We are starting to discuss home use but still only access it away from home. Originally it was school access, but the hot spot devices kind of changed things.

My primary concern is two fold, one... You never seem to see churches pull back from something after they get it. Two, the accountability. It seems to me that churches use filters as fire and forget tools and completely neglect the need for accountability for use, time and so on...

Filters don't work, yet everyone thinks they are some kind of panacea. It's an all-or-nothing proposition. Usually there is some urgent reason like "we need it for school" (why does one need Internet for school, exactly?) and within a few years that turns into everybody using it to share funny pictures with each other on WhatsApp.

[Soloist]

Filters don't work, yet everyone thinks they are some kind of panacea. It's an all-or-nothing proposition. Usually there is some urgent reason like "we need it for school" (why does one need Internet for school, exactly?) and within a few years that turns into everybody using it to share funny pictures with each other on WhatsApp.

Well... When all of nursing school assignments and ways to avoid getting kicked out is on blackboard...
Specifically though, that request was for use at home.

The filter we used though would not allow captive portals to work... so I had to turn it off. The stop gap was Accountable2you. I'm one of the few in the church with the know how to disable the filter at least. You should have heard the conversation about tablets...
That and there was too many nursing things that got hard blocks... including a math help site blocked for illegal drugs.

[Ken]

Filters don't work, yet everyone thinks they are some kind of panacea. It's an all-or-nothing proposition. Usually there is some urgent reason like "we need it for school" (why does one need Internet for school, exactly?) and within a few years that turns into everybody using it to share funny pictures with each other on WhatsApp.

Well... When all of nursing school assignments and ways to avoid getting kicked out is on blackboard...
Specifically though, that request was for use at home.

The filter we used though would not allow captive portals to work... so I had to turn it off. The stop gap was Accountable2you. I'm one of the few in the church with the know how to disable the filter at least. You should have heard the conversation about tablets...
That and there was too many nursing things that got hard blocks... including a math help site blocked for illegal drugs.

In my experience, kids mostly aren't trying to get into illicit material like porn on the internet. They are mostly just trying to communicate with each other about mundane kid stuff and kid drama via social media and group chats. And trying to shut that all down via filters is often an exercise in futility. They are tech smart and will do things like use the comment fields in a google doc assignment posted by a teacher to carry on all their chats. In other words, use the comment and text editing bubbles in a shared document like it is a text messaging app. Or use the comment fields or sections on various educational we sites for the same purpose. They might look like they are busy working on that research assignment on the Civil War or Shakespeare. Or doing a math assignment on pearson.com. but they are really chatting about who is going to hang out with who on Saturday night in the hidden comment fields.

That happens whether they are in-class and the teacher is circulating the classroom. Or if they are at home sitting around the kitchen table and the parent thinks they are doing homework. At some point you just have to trust your kids and just make sure they are getting their work done anyway.

[Sudsy]

In the Anabaptist MB church I attended there was nothing said about Internet use. Like TV and radio controls were up to the family or individual.

[Soloist]

In my experience, kids mostly aren't trying to get into illicit material like porn on the internet. They are mostly just trying to communicate with each other about mundane kid stuff and kid drama via social media and group chats. And trying to shut that all down via filters is often an exercise in futility. They are tech smart and will do things like use the comment fields in a google doc assignment posted by a teacher to carry on all their chats. In other words, use the comment and text editing bubbles in a shared document like it is a text messaging app. Or use the comment fields or sections on various educational we sites for the same purpose. They might look like they are busy working on that research assignment on the Civil War or Shakespeare. Or doing a math assignment on pearson.com. but they are really chatting about who is going to hang out with who on Saturday night in the hidden comment fields.

That happens whether they are in-class and the teacher is circulating the classroom. Or if they are at home sitting around the kitchen table and the parent thinks they are doing homework. At some point you just have to trust your kids and just make sure they are getting their work done anyway.

I think you have a very naive look at youth these days. Have you ever talked to the IT guys setting up the computer filters for school?
My first introduction to stuff like that, not porn mind you, was from public schooled children. Often the first introduction to sexual relations happens in middle school to first year high school. Why else would society be pushing "education" younger and younger. Look at the games and movies these young people are into these days...
I believe the best phrase, is trust but verify. Children earn trust, and can lose trust. If they are not trusted to obey the rules you have set or respect the filter you use... Then remove the access entirely.

Our children don't get on the computer really prior to 14~ or so and never have anything past typing really as a computer based assignment. There is no internet schooling what so ever.

[Josh]

Filters don't work, yet everyone thinks they are some kind of panacea. It's an all-or-nothing proposition. Usually there is some urgent reason like "we need it for school" (why does one need Internet for school, exactly?) and within a few years that turns into everybody using it to share funny pictures with each other on WhatsApp.

Well... When all of nursing school assignments and ways to avoid getting kicked out is on blackboard...
Specifically though, that request was for use at home.

The filter we used though would not allow captive portals to work... so I had to turn it off. The stop gap was Accountable2you. I'm one of the few in the church with the know how to disable the filter at least. You should have heard the conversation about tablets...
That and there was too many nursing things that got hard blocks... including a math help site blocked for illegal drugs.

In my experience, kids mostly aren't trying to get into illicit material like porn on the internet. They are mostly just trying to communicate with each other about mundane kid stuff and kid drama via social media and group chats. And trying to shut that all down via filters is often an exercise in futility. They are tech smart and will do things like use the comment fields in a google doc assignment posted by a teacher to carry on all their chats. In other words, use the comment and text editing bubbles in a shared document like it is a text messaging app. Or use the comment fields or sections on various educational we sites for the same purpose. They might look like they are busy working on that research assignment on the Civil War or Shakespeare. Or doing a math assignment on pearson.com. but they are really chatting about who is going to hang out with who on Saturday night in the hidden comment fields.

That happens whether they are in-class and the teacher is circulating the classroom. Or if they are at home sitting around the kitchen table and the parent thinks they are doing homework. At some point you just have to trust your kids and just make sure they are getting their work done anyway.

Yet most young children now have been exposed to Internet pornography. This state of affairs is not acceptable

[Ken]

In my experience, kids mostly aren't trying to get into illicit material like porn on the internet. They are mostly just trying to communicate with each other about mundane kid stuff and kid drama via social media and group chats. And trying to shut that all down via filters is often an exercise in futility. They are tech smart and will do things like use the comment fields in a google doc assignment posted by a teacher to carry on all their chats. In other words, use the comment and text editing bubbles in a shared document like it is a text messaging app. Or use the comment fields or sections on various educational we sites for the same purpose. They might look like they are busy working on that research assignment on the Civil War or Shakespeare. Or doing a math assignment on pearson.com. but they are really chatting about who is going to hang out with who on Saturday night in the hidden comment fields.

That happens whether they are in-class and the teacher is circulating the classroom. Or if they are at home sitting around the kitchen table and the parent thinks they are doing homework. At some point you just have to trust your kids and just make sure they are getting their work done anyway.

I think you have a very naive look at youth these days. Have you ever talked to the IT guys setting up the computer filters for school?
My first introduction to stuff like that, not porn mind you, was from public schooled children. Often the first introduction to sexual relations happens in middle school to first year high school. Why else would society be pushing "education" younger and younger. Look at the games and movies these young people are into these days...
I believe the best phrase, is trust but verify. Children earn trust, and can lose trust. If they are not trusted to obey the rules you have set or respect the filter you use... Then remove the access entirely.

Our children don't get on the computer really prior to 14~ or so and never have anything past typing really as a computer based assignment. There is no internet schooling what so ever.

Yes I talk to the IT folks running internet filters all the time. And yes, games can be a bit of a problem but honestly not that much on Chromebooks. They have much better games on their phones than they can get on school Chromebooks. The filters block the main gaming sites but that is sort of like whack-a-mole as new ones keep popping up.

You can throttle down the internet as much as you want in your own house and family, especially if your kids aren't in public school. I'm talking from the experience of a public school teacher and observing what kids actually do as well as having 3 of my own. Parents naively think that if they take their kids phones up or monitor their text messages they can keep track of what they are up to on social media. That is absurdly wrong. Kids have a bazillion ways to connect with each other on the internet through hidden apps and such. And they know how to do it on school devices as well as personal devices. I see kids in class laughing about the fact that their mom reads their text messages each night to "monitor" them and has no clue.

The point I am making is that focusing on filtering of CONTENT only gets to part of the issue and not really the main issue when it comes to kids and social media. Sure there are some boys who are no doubt searching out porn and can probably find it no matter what you do. But most kids spend a lot more time just socializing online rather than seeking porn or other content that you might want to filter.