Back in mah day, internet time was super limited (dial up). Having a hard restriction on daily internet use, like 2 hours tops, would be a good starting point, in my opinion.

As others mentioned, no phones or tablets, not before 14y. I’d also completely block Roblox, TikTok, Instagram, xitter and Facebook. The kid can learn about those things from friends, but at home those things will be off limits and explained as mind control programs (a bit hyperbolical, but not entirely untrue)

For games, I’d create a small (~10), initial catalogue of curated games and let the kid play. After some months, give old magazines or show some screenshots of older stuff, or let them use their internet time to check for interesting looking titles, and let them choose one or two to add to their collection. If the game sucks, well, too bad, lesson hopefully learned.

Having access to the entire digital world at all times can really mess up our senses of “how much that’s worth”, because there’s just so fucking much everywhere

Around age 5ish, mostly Storybots. Ruff Ruffman. A few other shows handled it well for younger kids.

Once a bit older, mayne 7-8, I setup an old laptop with debian and allow-listed network connection, etc. Let them play with it and gave them learning activities.

I saw one comment about baking and that reminded me…

If you let your 6 year-old bake, you don’t teach them oven safety then leave them to it. You do it together.

The same is probably good for tech and internet. Do it as a together thing. And that means also cultivating good habits yourself. If you sit watching porn all day and writing hate mail on Facebook, telling your niece she’s not old enough for it yet, she’s going to see and want to try.

What is ((thing)) for? How do we use it? The answers are learnt in watching and in doing it together. I know the internet is famous for children learning all sorts of things by themselves (including good things). But I think for healthy development, this still applies, and when they’re ready for The Great World Beyond With All Its Pitfalls And Evils, they’re more ready.

Just become Amish until they are 18 or so.

Lemmy will say, give them an old desktop with linux.

I would say the same. No ipads or smartphones. Give them books on coding. Build a pc with them. Learn to solder.

Give them an android tablet with youtube, but make sure to subscribe to good YouTube channels first

Didn’t have restrictions when I was growing up, maybe I’m an exception. I installed Linux Mint on my laptop when I was 11. Now I use NixOS.

‘Old enough’ is a troublesome concept. I’ve met parents in their 40s who I wouldn’t say met the mental competence minimum to be capable of informed consent, so age isn’t really the measure.

If you want to give a kid the chance to learn tech but not be messed up by it, the best advice I’ve seen is to keep it isolated and user focused. The computer is a place they can go to when they demand its utility, not with them all the time and demanding their attention. The computer is a tool to let them do something else, not a way to cure 30 second windows of boredom with a stream of content. No internet or uncontrolled content, only curated software with no social aspect so they aren’t open for exploitation. The internet is basically a ‘no’ for maintaining sanity and safety. They’ll get access to all sorts of things as they get older/gain autonomy, so you won’t have to worry about when it’s appropriate to give them access.

I read the book Screentime Solution by Emily Cherkin (also Anxious Generation and Screen Schooled). Basically her advice is to be screen-intentional as a family. Right now my husband and I make an effort to put our phones away when we come home from work and spend time with each other and our toddler. Another thing is that she does not have any of her own internet devices. It’s the family tv and my iPad that she uses (with supervision and sparingly). We have a few devices she uses that are dumb (old gameboy and old iPod) but still rarely. Restaurants and family dinner are screen free zones. Even as she gets older we’re more likely to get a dumb phone and a family phone than let her have her own device. Something from the book was to let your kids have access to the internet and social media when you’re ready for them to see porn (not necessarily her opinion but an anecdote) and there’s no fool-proof parental controls. We are getting a family computer soon to teach her typing, using a mouse, and general computer skills but that will not be unsupervised or even internet connected most of the time. My goal is to teach her responsible use and to always have a line of communication open about it.

Some of the kids game sites like coolmath are still around. Lots of quick games that designed to be fun, beaten, but not drain your soul.

Also turn off the adblocker at some point. Kids gotta learn what’s an ad and what’s not.

I used a thin client, HP T610+, and installed Windows XP POS.

this is a point-of-sale version of windows xp that’s basically XPSP3. it comes with Ethernet, WiFi, touchscreen drivers, etc. works really well actually.

I firewalled it from internet access and allowed my kid to surf the intranet I host along with standard 90s 00s kids software.

• reader rabbit
• Disney interactive games
• encarta 98

I also used a kid keyboard that deviates from the typical 102 keyboard. no function keys etc.

you could do the same with an old x86 laptop too, recommend using a dual core CPU if possible though.

to ensure nothing is broken, I used software called deepfreeze from Faronics. it freezes the system and restores the system after reboots. just to make it clear, this means any changes to the “c” drive will not be permanent.

to keep the save files I used a some batch scripts/shortcut trickery and re/store them from the NAS when the apps start and end.

in the end it’s sitting in my tech closet after my eldest lost interest after a year. Now I’m waiting for my youngest to break it out again.

I would just say let them have a smartphone, but the important thing is ban use of social media, especially dangerous ones like Tik Tok. Steer them towards the good stuff.

As a kid, I love reading a lot of Wikipedia, and a lot of educational channels on Youtube. Ted-Ed, Vsauce, CGP Grey, Kurzgezagt, etc. I think I’d be dumber if it weren’t for the internet.

I don’t know the specifics of how to do parenting, I don’t have kids, and my parents kinda just let me do whatever, they’re born in like 1960 to 1980, so very tech ignorant, contantly made me fix things. But even without supervision, I still made use of the tech to understand the world more. I didn’t turn out to become some unhinged right wing lunatic or cringe tik tok user.

TLDR: Just ban the use of social media. (On the parental level, not legislative)

My toddler uses a PC rather than a tablet. Can even load up her videos in VLC on her own! (Although I simplified it to the desktop for now so she doesn’t have to hunt through folder branching)

Found some websites with some old school flash games that I bookmarked too.

Doesn’t directly answer your question but relevant:

https://www.waituntil8th.org/

"The Wait Until 8th pledge empowers parents to rally together to delay giving children a smartphone until at least the end of 8th grade. Let’s protect the elementary and middle school years from the distractions and the dangers of a smartphone. Banding together helps decrease the pressure to have a phone at an early age. Ten years old is the average age children get their first smartphone. You can change this!

Smartphones are distracting and potentially dangerous for children yet are widespread in elementary and middle school because of unrealistic social pressure and expectations to have one.

These devices are quickly changing childhood for children. Playing outdoors, spending time with friends, reading books and hanging out with family is happening a lot less to make room for hours of snap chatting, instagramming, and catching up on YouTube.

Parents feel powerless in this uphill battle and need community support to help delay the ever-evolving presence of the smartphone in the classroom, social arena and family dinner table. Link arms with other parents to wait until at least the end of eighth grade for a smartphone!"

I mean, I don’t really know, I don’t plan to have kids and this is just one of the things that just feel like there is no right answer.

As for playful way, well… I am a monster. Some offline device with downloaded manuals (including Arch wiki), explanations of key parts of Linux and some basic networking, computer without OS, Arch Linux installer USB, and network connection possibly without DHCP server (with known network info).
And there you go. Figure it out. Archinstall should make it easy.