Article of the Week -- Follow Up

This week's "Article of the Week" was presented to us by Ashley Dederer. It was that one about parents using Tivo to restrict what their children were viewing.

Why would Tivo want to do such a thing? Why else? Because their stock price is down, and by appealing to concerned parents they hope to make their product more appealing. As Ashley told us, parental control hasn't really worked because

existing technology and ratings had been rarely used because both the software and the ratings were too difficult to understand. "Ratings have had a marginal effect because parents don't fully understand how to use them," Mr. Rogers said. "Nor do they bring forward what they want their kids to watch."

(It's nice to know that, even though he's dead, Mr. Rogers is still looking out for kids. You know, somehow that doesn't surprise me at all.)

So despite (or because of) a byzantine rating system, the only effective way to control what your kids were watching was no cable, or better yet, no TV! Tivo is hoping that they can solve this problem through software.

There is one problem. The parent still has to give up some authority here. Who is going to be deciding what's appropriate and what's not? Actually, you'll have two choices: the Parents Television Council, or Common Sense Media. So who are they? Let's see.

The Parents Televsion Council. As you can see, they're pretty conservative. Among other things, they have a "campaign" against MTV. (Actually, I have to agree with them on this one.) Here's their list of what kids should and should not be watching this week.

Common Sense Media. Here's their look at what's on tv. Here's what they have to say about Dave Chappelle's Block Party.

I know a lot of you will be against this kind of parental restriction, but believe me, when you have kids of your own you'll see it in a different way. That doesn't mean you'll never let them see anything other than Disney, but at least you'll have some good information on which to base your decision. And who can have a problem with that?