I had one of them as a friend in middle school. Dude was smart as hell but wasn't allowed to play video games, or watch any movies with a rating higher than PG13. His social skills were next to none and because of his parents' choices, he was often left out of events.
I remember once I invited him to a bday party I was having. A bunch of us were getting together and watching movies in my basement for the night, and he wasn't allowed to go because his parents didn't know what movies we would be watching. At this point he would have been 14.
Even invited him once to come see a (at the time) new Pirates of the Carribbean movie with me and one of my other friends, and he wasn't allowed to go to that either.
Dude wasn't allowed to even talk on the phone, or have a cell phone. I remember calling his house a few times just to have his father or mother pick and just say that he couldn't come to the phone.
He was smart as hell though, and once you got him talking, you couldn't stop him. I had lots of great debates with him in school about certain things.
It's so cool you got to know him better past his suffocating parents, I wish those people knew they're stunning their kids rather than helping them.