By Ellen Savage

My six year old son has a morning ritual which was causing me to lose sleep. He wakes early, usually before anyone else in the house, turns on the television in our family room and watches cartoons until the rest of our family rises. I’m glad he is able to entertain himself while I try to get a little extra sleep, but I was worried he’d stumble upon inappropriate content as he was looking for the Disney Channel.

About a month ago, I activated the v-chip parental control option on our television. V-chip allows consumers to block programs based on TV ratings. Each program has a rating ranging from TV-Y (programs appropriate for children, including ages 2-6) to TV-MA (for mature audiences only).

Activating the v-chip function on my television was quick and painless. It took me about three minutes to navigate through the menu selections using my remote and input a four-digit code. Now, if anyone tries to view a program with a rating exceeding the ones I specified, our television screen turns white and asks for the code. You either need to enter the code or select another program with an “unblocked” rating.

We have been using v-chip for a few weeks, and so far I’m pretty satisfied. My kids have not been tempted to try to figure out the code; if a program is blocked they ask for help. I forgot to give the code to a babysitter to use after the kids went to bed, but that’s been our only hiccup. V-chip does not substitute parental monitoring of their children’s television viewing, but it has allowed me to give my kids added independence while still having some control over what they watch.

Despite v-chip’s wide availability (it has been required for the past decade in all televisions over 13 inches) and ease of implementation, a 2004 survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that only 15 percent of parents have ever used the v-chip. It’s difficult to find more up-to-date statistics, but in my own informal survey of five other parents, none had ever used the technology. I find it striking in an age of “helicopter parents” that usage is so low.

What about other parents out there? Do you use the v-chip? Why or why not?

Popularity: 24% [?]

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 11th, 2009 at 4:38 pm and is filed under DTV Transition, How To. Reply to this post, or trackback from your own site. Follow responses to this entry through the comments RSS feed.