My eldest son turned 18 this week. I read “Lykketivene” on news Ytring. The author herself is 18 and writes that her generation has lost its childhood due to social media. I feel a deep pang of well-deserved bad conscience. I am one of those parents who didn’t quite know how we should approach smartphones, apps and social media. It was the children of 2005 who had to bear the brunt of our steep learning curve. My boy got a phone call when he left SFO before the fifth grade. It seemed natural that he had a phone as he was supposed to be home alone before the rest of us got home. In case something happened; fire or burglary or something like that. We had intended to give him a Nokia phone, but it ended up being a smartphone because the others in the class had one. I remember well the uncertainty and frustration. I didn’t know about filter settings, children’s subscriptions or filtered network modems. The boy got a subscription to the vigil and thus an unfiltered smartphone. And home alone time after school. I did not understand that the biggest danger was actually the tool he had been given. No house fires or burglars. Damn it, I’m ashamed! How could I be so stupid? I probably didn’t get to know everything the boy was exposed to, but the internet was wide open for him. “They’ll be human anyway”, we parents often say when we know deep down that we’ve made a mistake. That is true, but what kind of person will they become? That is probably what we have to ask ourselves. What we do know is that today’s 18-year-olds are worse off mentally than we were. They are less robust and they are more stressed and afraid of the future. Aren’t the warning lights big enough for us? It may not all be due to early digital exposure, but we cannot rule out the connections. And according to the 18-year-old who wrote the chronicle “Lykketyvene”” the connection is there. The bad conscience I feel must surely be able to be used for something. Isn’t that why we have a conscience? To learn from what we did wrong? My 18-year-old has two younger brothers, so I’ve had some time to settle down. I know a little more. I know that I can buy a children’s subscription and use a filter on the phone. We have a filter on the modem and I have membership in Barnevakten. At home, we have established house rules for screen time that say how, when and for what the phone can be used. And I have reluctantly acknowledged my role as “telephone hawk”. Still, it would be too naive to be satisfied with that. I believe that we must stand together as a society on this front. Perhaps it is the case that children in general should have a simpler life, and that digital life is too complicated for them? We must admit that the digital platforms contribute to a complexity so great that even us adults do not have complete control. I teach engineering students about exactly this. Technology and complexity, how technology affects people and society and what responsibility the technologist has for the society we are helping to create together. Many professionals within technology ethics claim that we have little control over how technology affects society. We see piecemeal and divided, but we are unable to see the complexity of our entire social system. Technologists are unfortunately often ignorant of social issues linked to technology, politicians are ignorant of the technology and we as users are ignorant of both. Inexperience is perhaps the key word here. In recent years, research has shown the problem with both screen time, internet access and social media in children and young people. Often it is what the children lose that becomes visible in this research. The Canadian media researcher, Marshall McLuhan, wrote a lot about how technology affects us as people and society. He portrays technology as something that enhances human skills. But at the same time as it strengthens, it also causes us to lose our abilities, McLuhan claims. He wrote this in the 1960s, but it is surprisingly relevant today. What are our children losing in the encounter with apps, iPads and phones? According to the youth themselves; his childhood. It is not small. Many times I have thought that it is damn unfair that I am part of the generation of parents who have to go first in the digital child rearing. We have been working for a few years now. It is time that we soon move in the same direction. McLuhan actually offers a kind of solution. He says that we can counteract the impact of technology by changing ‘technology’. Turn off the screen and read a book instead, he suggests, but I’d rather just run away to the mountains with the kids in tow. As far away from the screens as possible. Smartphones and apps have drastically changed our role as parents, whether we like it or not. For me, the change means being a ‘phone hawk’ and stingy with screen time. It is difficult. You should only know how much I hate playing Monopoly and Ludo, but have done it for hours anyway, just to get the children together about something other than the screens. I don’t know if I’m doing it right, but one thing I know: When even the children themselves express that they want to be shielded from the screens, then I have to do my part. I don’t have time to wait for politicians and regulations. In the meantime, a whole generation of children has been exposed to far too much chaos. Also read:
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Where the parents failed – Speech
