So I have a young teen entering 7th grade and so they’re about to receive their first phone. With that, it opens a lot of doors to all the big tech social media apps and privacy invasive services.
I’m not sure how to approach this. My parents probably want tracking features so it’ll probably be Find My or a 3rd party app like life360 depending on if we choose iphone or degoogled pixel.
Social media I’m not sure if fediverse stuff is the right path especially for lemmy, since it’s just tech nerd stuff and politics which isn’t interesting really unless they go out of their way to find smaller communities. Their friends will probably force them onto Instagram or some shit and I don’t really want them doomscolling on reels, that shit algorithm, and the malicious messaging app built in to it.
It’s just kinda hard trying to blend being a functional member of society and maintain your mental well being and privacy.
iPhone. Parental controls.
The goal here is to make sure they can be safe online, by telling them to watch what they say, don’t post personal info publicly or send it to strangers. Don’t try to control what they do online, because it won’t work. Banning them from using platforms like instagram when all their friends are using it is just going to make them the weird kid. I don’t know if they explicitly support account limits for kids, but there are digital wellbeing tools that let you set warnings and limits on apps.
I also wouldn’t use any tracking tools outside the family location sharing. And I wouldn’t give anyone else access to it, like their grandparents, unless there’s a need, like it’s just them and the grandparents on a trip.