Internet, Digital Games and Security

Touchy topic
At our house the subscription to a popular filtering program expired. I chose not to renew because we discovered the time limits did not function properly and a few of our children need the time limits because mom has a terrible memory.
One day when the children were in school I installed some trial internet filters. Wowza! they worked and we had some fallout.
Some children decided that it would be better not to have the device at all than to use an device that worked like that.
Surprise! we had a wonderful weekend enjoyable actually. Children played games that did not involve electronics and actually had fun. We watched a cooking show--- together and actually discussed which contestants we liked and who was cool. It was a British Bake-Off so plenty of great accents as well.

But then I was puzzled, if my children were using computer time to separate themselves from us/me why were they being so happy?

Hubby and I discussed it while on a date (three hours stolen in the middle of the day while the paid staff was on duty- otherwise known as school). He had great insight. Certain games that our progeny engage in are very competitive and involve throwing a ball harder, or racing around curves faster than the computer. Guess who normally wins and guess who always gives you a higher level to compete in? Hubby reasoned that those driving forces don't magically shut off when the time limit is reached and thus the reaction to firm time limits. (There is actually research out there that agrees with him.)

So for now we will enjoy the reprieve and anticipate the end of the month when there will be a 16th birthday in this house.


Since we are on the subject of limits and things....I almost had a conniption this week when one of my searches for an article/video on empathy vs sympathy also turned up images that I'd rather not see. I realized that our favorite search engine thought that since my 20-ish year old son was looking at basketball and football stuff he possibly is a young male interested in such things and I  was searching using his G*ogle ID.  Because when I put my g*ogle ID in and switched accounts the same images did not show.  I realized that we had not engaged "safe search" on our g*ogle search pages.  Go to Google.com and scroll down to search settings at the bottom of the page and choose "on". No it is not a way to KEEP  people off objectionable sites,but it definitely keeps the craziness to a minimum.  You Tube has a similar feature, scroll to the bottom of the page on you tube and select "restricted mode". It is super sensitive and sometimes blocks videos that would be OK...you can easily click "off" and watch that video, and usually the restricted setting kicks back in again.   Neither of these is enough to PREVENT someone from accessing gross sites you need a password and accountability for that.