Will This Work?

Alex Atkin UK · February 20

44 minutes ago, 4eyeguy said:

I’m at the age where you lost parental controls

Its a difficult one, as while the social norm may be for teens to have unrestricted online time, its not necessarily the healthy option. It opens you up to more bullying and seeing things you really shouldn't, being influenced by opinions you shouldn't have to deal with and discourages socialising in person.

The Internet wasn't really a thing until I was 18 anyway, where I paid to get online myself and so had unrestricted access. I can say without question that how naive I was back then, I'm glad the Internet wasn't what it was today, even when I was 18.

The Internet today requires way more critical thinking skills (what we all think we have in our teens but we didn't, this is not an insult but scientific fact) than it used to due to misinformation and downright toxicity. I wouldn't let my past teen self on it unsupervised, not sure I would have been safe even in my 20s.

So while I can empathise with your situation, the problem is the social norm and your friends parents not understanding the risks of what they are doing. As hard as it is to hear, your parents are doing the right thing.

The only thing I can think of is maybe see if they can relax the restrictions if you access in a communal place where they can see what you are doing, no doubt not what you want to hear.