A World Without Locks and Keys

Whenever there's concern around children being exposed to obscene or otherwise age-inappropriate content in the media - whether it be movies, television, video games or books - the common reaction from the civil libertarians is:

1. Screams of "censorship!" and "these fascists or trying  to burn the Constitution and kill freedom of speech!"
2. Condescending lectures to caring parents that those who express concern are lazy in not being more vigilant and active parents - if they don't want their children to view this materials, they should just be more attentive parents and regulate what their kids watch, play, read, etc.

Both points are nonsense. But I'm particularly galled by point two because it assumes an old world view of the what parental vigilance can do (the answer is very little in this technologically advanced age, if anything at all) in terms of preventing kids from viewing inappropriate content. It completely fails to sympathize with the reality that such oversight is extremely difficult.

I recently read an alarming article which detailed high school football players ordering prostitutes during a road trip from their smartphones. It was bad enough to read that for teenagers "ordering three prostitutes to your hotel room is as easy as ordering a pizza", but it also paints a bleak and jarring look at the futility of being able to "protect" your children against sexually explicit material. 

As recently as a few years ago, you could install parental controls on your family computer in a valiant (yet often futile in the hands of a relatively tech-savvy kid) effort to guard your kid against porn. Think you can out-tech-smart your kid over the next fifteen years? Good luck with that. Remember your parents and how they always relied upon you to program the VCR? Kids have always gained the technological upper hand on their parents. It's a tough tide to turn.

But the real game-changer is the smartphone. With unfettered access to the mobile network or any Wi-Fi network, it becomes almost impossible to what your kids are doing online. Yes, you can set boundaries around use, withhold giving them a device until they're older and confiscate their smartphones during certain times of the day, but that becomes difficult and impractical over time. Individualized mobile internet is here, and from a business and personal consumer perspective, this will continue to grow. A greater percentage of the population will have personal mobile internet, and the those who have this will get younger and younger.

And for people who think this is just normal stuff which accompanies "coming of age" events for kids? They may reconsider that in light of this tidbit in the article: 

Mobile porn has become so prevalent among teens that there is even a nonprofit group, Fight the New Drug, and a micro-industry of treatment camps aimed at teens who have a crippling addiction to it.

Yes, getting children to have a healthy view of sexuality and purity of heart is ultimately about changing hearts, not tying hands. Yes, I understand that shepherding our childrens' hearts - not rigid rules and physical prevention - will ultimately make the biggest difference. But in a world filled with poison, there are just a whole lot less cabinet locks to prevent terrible accidents and slip-ups.