Disclaimer: I am a happy paid Kagi subscriber and absolutely am an advocate of their product. I really hope the company makes it work financially because we NEED something like it.
I have two young kids of my own (4, almost 2) and have so far been able to avoid the issues of letting them free roam on the net, but it's obviously something that's coming. This was not something I ever paid attention to in my youth but now as a parent the open internet completely terrifies me. And I say that as a core millennial that basically grew up with the internet.
The current status quo of "kids friendly" content (eg YouTube Kids) is mostly awful. I would still never let my young kids browse something like that without supervision.
I am appreciative that Kagi knows this is an issue and is investing into the area.
Feels like in my youth the biggest risk was stumbling on some freaky gore/porn that scarred you, but somehow that doesn't seem as bad as the risk of getting hooked on dopamine-optimized brainrot, alt-right propaganda, or micro transaction focused games.
I couldn't agree more, this pretty much describes me in my youth. I am legitimately terrified of what would have happened to me had I had access to some/certain alt-right influencers, I know for a fact that a younger me would have easily fallen into that mess. I get why it's appealing (at least to a certain person in a certain headspace).
I'm so glad the worst I feel like I ran into were freaky gore/porn.
This. I was a kid with too much free time and exposed to the internet with some but not enough supervision.
I stumbled with some f up stuff that i still remember to this day. But somehow I'm grateful that it wasn't the current brainrot
Yep, that's exactly my fear. The brain rot zombification of our society. How do I stop my kids from getting suckered into an endless scrolling doom loop?
> How do I stop my kids from getting suckered into an endless scrolling doom loop?
I think the first and best way to ensure this is to not do it yourself.
Pretty much every parent I know does not allow their preteens and younger unsupervised tablet/phone use because the internet is so bad for them at that age. Typically they allow a curated set of content during specific times, and devices are physically removed from the children's environment afterward.