A Technologist Parent's Case for CDs, Landlines, and Whitelisted PCs

A self-described technologist explains how he’s deliberately reaching back two decades to give his kids the enriching parts of computing without exposing them to surveillance capitalism, engagement-optimized feeds, and ad-driven design. The throughline: physical media and tightly scoped systems put parents and children in control of what’s available, rather than algorithms.

The concrete setup includes a CD boom box stocked from the public library, DVDs and Blu-rays for family movie nights, and a wired VoIP-backed house phone with whitelisted contacts and quiet hours that lets kids call grandparents or arrange their own playdates. A used tower PC sits near the kitchen with per-kid logins and a Pi-hole configured to allow only an explicit list of domains — Wikipedia and Minecraft single-player yes, Google and YouTube no — plus the ability to rip CDs locally.

The author concedes the technical lift puts the exact implementation out of reach for many families, but argues the underlying principle generalizes: the convenient defaults of modern consumer tech carry a real cost, and refusing to pay it, often by borrowing patterns from an earlier era, can give children both independence and a healthier relationship with technology.