I interviewed my boss for this blog assignment. I graduated high school with him, but he has three kids already. A four year old and three year old twins. He didn't mind taking a few moments to answer my questions as far as his concerns on today's media forms and their impact on children, and how he 'protects' them from negative influences or examples. While they may be a little more conservative then your average family, his answers are pretty much what I expected.
2. The second thing I asked him was, how do they control what they watch and for how long. In their case, they don't even have a television subscription, just netflix on their Wii. With this, they can use parental control. When the kids want to watch something, himself or his wife will pick a program that they have preapproved/previewed before hand. He says they have to be careful because some of the programs in the "kidzone" section can be inappropriate. Also the kids do not get control of the Wii remote. When they do watch t.v. 95% of what they watch is educational he says. As far as the amount of time, they usually don't go past about 30 minutes. By then he says they are usually ready to move on to something else anyways.
3. Some good products/shows he mentioned when I asked him were the show "Dora the explorer" and leapfrog/leapster games which are educational. Leapfrog is the company and leapster is a educational gameboy-esque handheld game console. Their time limits are usually 30 minutes on these aswell. They can play the Wii non-educational recreational games also, but their time will always be limited on the recreational gaming consoles. Some bad examples he stated were the Disney Channel and Cartoon Network.
4. As far as the internet is concerned, he says they are not old enough yet. When they get older and need it for school he will allow access of course, though restricted. He says they'll eventually gain free time to browse, but won't be allowed to spend all day on the web.
5. The last thing I asked him was how old does he think they will make them wait to get a cell phone. He said if they don't have a vehicle and job, they don't need a phone. If they have those two things, then fine. Which I agree with 100%.
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