Step up to reduce kids’ digital overload
Recent federal government moves aimed at increasing online safety for young people are, generally speaking, a step in the right direction. For years now, we’ve been allowing corporations to experiment on us, profiting from our attention and emotional involvement online, and kids are among the most vulnerable.
Standing up to those corporations isn’t just the government’s job. Those of us with young people in our lives, whether our own children or grandchildren, our siblings’ kids or those of our neighbours or friends have a critical part to play.
We can start by not pulling out our own phones or tablets any time there’s a moment of potential boredom. Sure, we might be doing a crossword or reading a CBC News update or returning a work-related text, but if we can’t put our phones down, why should we expect kids to? We demonstrate our values at all times, not just when we’re at our best.
We can actually play around with a toddler while we’re waiting for a restaurant meal to arrive instead of handing them a tablet to watch cartoons. We can ask about the best and worst parts of a teenager’s day to pass the time before a medical appointment instead of both burying ourselves in our apps.
The point is not to shame parents who give their kids time to play games or watch videos. Those things are embedded in modern life and a point of connection for modern kids, much as after-school TV was for previous generations.
Rather, it’s important that we are all mindful of how we use technology around kids, and work to help them experience the joys the offline world has to offer.
Take kids to a play or movie and discuss it afterward over ice cream. Visit and debate public art and graffiti. Buy a board game together and play it all afternoon. Try the same thing — poutine, butter tarts, iced coffee — at different locations and choose your favourite. Hit up a splash pad, yard sale or craft show. Pick strawberries.
Above all, get outside and take kids with you. A hike or swim in a new spot is reward enough, as you discover new flowers, butterflies and rock formations, but you can also show how to harness tech in positive ways, even while in nature. Use your phone to listen to the Talking Forest at Ken Reid Conservation Area, identify birdsong, geocache or map your walking route.
International corporations and their algorithms make digital experiences incredibly alluring for people of all ages, masking the potential harms. We can resist, and help young people do likewise, by looking up and connecting to the world around us.
Balance, not censorship, is the solution. And balance is a choice, not something that can be legislated. Banning access to social media and AI instead of legislating supervision and education is just plain lazy. I bet those who made the decision to ban social media consulted their own government-paid-for AI to make that decision. Social media and AI are globalizing community and shaping how human kind organizes and thinks. Children denied the opportunity to socialize and innovate in this new and evolving social environment will be traumatized at age 16 when suddenly they are expected to be old enough to not be traumatized by the brutality of online society. Banning access to social media for children will put them behind other children who do have access to social media so that when they become of age to use social media legally, they will be at a disadvantage. Not to mention the heightened risk of black market social media access most kids have the skills to access. A far better solution is to license use, to pass legislation to require every one of us – adults and children alike – to pass a social media safety course for each social media platform we use in order to use it and to renew that license yearly by passing a course yearly. Like income tax. Those individuals who cannot play nice on social media should be required to take an advanced course, perhaps with enhanced (AI and real person) supervision to ensure they understand and to identify potential interpersonal difficulties that may need more assistance. While we are at it, a licensing law could also teach social media users the importance of fact checking, how to identity bots, how to use the block function effectively, and so on. And depending on their age, access to social media should be limited and supervised for children, with controls gradually removed as they mature and demonstrate facility in social media and AI navigation. AI can help human kind better organize society, hopefully to globalize human rights and reduce conflict by democratizing knowledge. But it can’t do that if we program it with prejudice or disinformation which there is no doubt is happening. This is a rapidly evolving situation. It is essential we don’t misuse laws to regulate access by banning the civil expression of unpopular ideas. Too often, history shows us the minority is right and the majority just plain wrong.