Looking back on 2024 it felt like this was a year in which the role of technology in children’s lives was being questioned like never before. In several countries there was a push back against smart phones in school (or rather than an outright ban teachers were collecting them in and returning to students at the end of the day). Meanwhile out of school legislation was planned to curtail children’s access to social media. It is not quite clear how enforceable this legislation is but it met with public approval. [1]
I am not against these moves in principle but simply want to make the point children’s (and adults’) relationship with technology is much more complicated than first appears. Indeed, there is much talking about ‘technology’ with little clarity over just which applications are considered a risk and why. For example, not many of us (though not everyone) have anything against children learning to produce a digital presentation, or creating a spreadsheet or for that matter using translation devices to help unpick difficult text in foreign language learning. The debate becomes more fractious when it comes to social media and online games outside school. Why?
Well, back in the day, the neuroscientist Susan Greenfield [2] became a lead campaigner or at least spokesperson against the use of technology in young people’s lives. Her argument was that repetitive interactions with interactive multimedia were irresistible for young people and this was affecting the ‘wiring’ of the brains. In effect neural networks were becoming fixed too early on; learning required a child to make sense of different and unexpected information and, mixing my metaphors, the learner needed to join up the dots in a new ways.
I was dismissive of her ideas at the time as were many from the education community. For when we sat down with children we could see a variety of skills being exercised (communication, multi-processing, prolonged engagement, creative problem solving) even in the what appeared from the outside to be mundane game playing. Psychology, whether neurolinguistic or not, was looking at behaviour, and often in their words, addictive behaviour, whereas education was looking for creativity and communities of practice. This is to sharpen the distinction, for of course there were many who presented a more nuanced picture, but it does explain the competing ways in which technology is framed. I think or hope that over the years we can better see that popular technology including online games can be both virtue and vice . I admit that the attraction to repetitive games and, more worrying perhaps, to banal predictable content from the web are more serious issues that I first thought, but here the problem is not so much the thing in itself, but with balance. Children come home from school tired and in the past may have flopped around the television, now where available they may sit around an online game on the Kindle or Tablet. That is not the problem in itself. The problem is when access to digital technology squeezes out many of the other activities, that children do, such as physical play, reading books, organised games, even sleeping. And perhaps here a key point is that parents may feel powerless, or too tired themselves, to insist on children doing other activities and give them the support they need when carrying them out. Any solution to the problem of over use rests far more on talking to children and controlled use rather than outright bans. My advice is not then original [3] but it is worth repeating:
- Sit down and look at what they are doing with digital activity with an open mind and listen to how they describe what they are doing. Some applications are of course unsuitable for particular age groups and many have age restricted content or controlled access. But otherwise, show an interest and talk about limiting the use of the technology rather than showing outright disapproval.
- This is the hard one, but if you are going to limit use of technology then offer and lead into alternatives.
- Talk to the parents of your child’s close friends and see if you can develop shared rules around technology use, e.g. at what age having a smart phone feels right.
- Above all, model the relationship you want your children to have with technology. This means putting away your mobile devices when you do not want your children to use theirs.
[1] One trigger for this post was an article in the Guardian newspaper in England which suggested if you wanted to see ‘the last vestiges of human intellect swirling down the drain, hold your nose and type the words “skibidi toilet” into YouTube.’ I was not convinced by the suggestion or the article.
Boyle, S. (2024) Is doom scrolling really rotting our brains? The evidence is getting harder to ignore Guardian, 9 December 2024 [Online] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/09/brain-rot-word-of-the-year-reality-internet-cognitive-function
Moves against children’s access to some social networks have been made by, for example, the Australian government though it is not quite clear how the age verification is going to work. Changes regarding child protection are coming into force in UK, something which seems to have government public approval, e.g. You Gov survey
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/technology/survey-results/daily/2024/10/09/8d334/1
[2] Greenfield, S. (2004) Tomorrow’s people: How 21st-century technology is changing the way we think and feel, London: Penguin
[3] The NSPCC has guidelines more on safety at their ‘Strategies for managing digital devices’ page at https://www.smartkidswithld.org/getting-help/raising-independent-kids/10-strategies-for-managing-digital-devices/. This was helpful for seeing children as part of the solution to over use, not the problem. A further resources from ‘Smart kids’, a site aimed at parents of children with learning difficulties, has similar guidelines: https://www.internetmatters.org/resources/screen-time-tips-to-support-5-7-year-olds/
Michael Hammond 