Yesterday, I joined Pat Kenny and Alex Cooney, CEO of CyberSafeKids, to discuss a growing concern for parents: children growing up feral online, overexposed and underprotected.
And due to popularity of parent blame on social media, parent-child relationships are eroding and estrangement is encouraged as "self-care". A ripple effect is that parents have lost rights, respect and even basic kindness or consideration. Cutting off parents, advice given by strangers online, is undermining the parent-child bond. Then strangers online offer our kids a "better" solution to working through difficulties with their parents. Strangers online will be the kid's "new" mom or dad if the parent is not giving the kid what they want. It is a sad state of affairs.
Yup. They are empowered. Given the words to fuel any argument they want, it’s all there at their fingertips. And it is justified, they will have their online army of supporters
I worry about the end of tolerating awkwardness, especially in the flirting/dating scene for teens and young adults. The phone is at the ready for any potentially awkward moment.
As a current school counselor, I can attest to the ubiquitous nature of devices in the hands of children in high poverty schools. Endless scrolling g on utube and Tik Tok substituting for interaction in 1st grade. I had a brother and sister insist they were "bored" and thee sister came to school dressed as Chucky for Halloween. There are no safeguards when children are given phones without supervision. Seems few care that this permanent under class is self poisoning. Or maybe I'm being too pessimistic. We're still having conversations about whether we should ban them in school. I remember living in the Bay Area when our daughter was in 6th grade and given a Chromebook for the first time-2013. There was a parent discussion and * added up the potential hours for screen time (tv, phone, Chromebook) raised my hand and said, "That's seven hours". The principal got flustered as he was in a selling mood and moved on to other questions. No one stopped to think about the implications. It was just presented as progress and you either accepted it or got swept downstream. I similarly remember being shamed by a coworker for having a flip phone long ago like I was some kind of Luddite. It will take nothing less than harnessing the collective will of a supermajority to turn this around. Don't expect tech companies to help.
Yes, "The easy answer is to blame parents."
And due to popularity of parent blame on social media, parent-child relationships are eroding and estrangement is encouraged as "self-care". A ripple effect is that parents have lost rights, respect and even basic kindness or consideration. Cutting off parents, advice given by strangers online, is undermining the parent-child bond. Then strangers online offer our kids a "better" solution to working through difficulties with their parents. Strangers online will be the kid's "new" mom or dad if the parent is not giving the kid what they want. It is a sad state of affairs.
Yup. They are empowered. Given the words to fuel any argument they want, it’s all there at their fingertips. And it is justified, they will have their online army of supporters
I worry about the end of tolerating awkwardness, especially in the flirting/dating scene for teens and young adults. The phone is at the ready for any potentially awkward moment.
As a current school counselor, I can attest to the ubiquitous nature of devices in the hands of children in high poverty schools. Endless scrolling g on utube and Tik Tok substituting for interaction in 1st grade. I had a brother and sister insist they were "bored" and thee sister came to school dressed as Chucky for Halloween. There are no safeguards when children are given phones without supervision. Seems few care that this permanent under class is self poisoning. Or maybe I'm being too pessimistic. We're still having conversations about whether we should ban them in school. I remember living in the Bay Area when our daughter was in 6th grade and given a Chromebook for the first time-2013. There was a parent discussion and * added up the potential hours for screen time (tv, phone, Chromebook) raised my hand and said, "That's seven hours". The principal got flustered as he was in a selling mood and moved on to other questions. No one stopped to think about the implications. It was just presented as progress and you either accepted it or got swept downstream. I similarly remember being shamed by a coworker for having a flip phone long ago like I was some kind of Luddite. It will take nothing less than harnessing the collective will of a supermajority to turn this around. Don't expect tech companies to help.