Mini-humans, we've got your back.

Great article full of great information.

"At this age (0-4) it’s likely that you’ll be very involved in your child’s online experience, and that they won’t be using the web to play with other children unsupervised."

At this age it's unlikely that children will (or should) have any online experience whatsoever. Mention "tablet" and they'll think sweetie and are more likely to stick it in their mouth! (I would at that age.) And at that age they shouldn't be on the web at all.

The current security offerings from VM do not allow personalised "whitelists".

Parental controls from VM are currently "all or nothing". It's the same for everybody, 4 or 44.

It's highly unlikely that any responsible adult would/should allow a 4 year old to play with an expensive phone, tablet or laptop without supervision. If they do they should be ashamed of themselves.

Talking to other people about safeguards for a 0-4 year old going online is simple, don't let them. Allow them their childhood and just let them play with their peers.

Social skills are learned by actually interacting with real people, by "socialising" in real life, not by any sort of internet activity.

Agreed, digital technology can help in play and learning, but only when the children are old enough to know the difference between what is real and what is virtual, (something which some adults seem to have difficulty with), and that's not when they are 4 years old or younger.

Any useful learning and development programs can and should be be dowloaded and used offline, but there are better options. Teach your children about what is important yourself.

Let children learn about real life by actual social interaction with their peers and parents before thrusting them into the virtual world.

Please remember that many families in this country just cannot afford internet access, nor the hardware required to provide it. The suggestion from articles such as this is that internet access is the norm, even for children as young as 0-4, and is actually desireable. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is a good selling point for ISP's though.

"Only a couple of clicks away from stuff you don’t want them to see?"  Not if you don't grant them unfettered access to the the internet when they have no good reason to do so in the first place. They are only 4 years old or under after all.

What a load of rubbish, firstly they are NOT mini-humans they are children, little more than babies,

It is compleatly irresponsible to let children of that age use the internet at all.

Don't children have a childhood anymore, where the only thing they have to worry about is what to play with.