It is up to us, no-one is coming

In the last week, our children have seen content that most adults haven’t seen. They saw live feed of a man being shot and bleeding to death, then, more disturbingly, they saw people mocking and being happy about this person's death. In another disturbing footage, they saw a girl get on a train and get stabbed to death completely unprovoked; most disturbingly, no one on the train reacted or helped the young woman.

If, as a societal norm, no one under the age of 16 had access to social media, at least a good majority of children would have been spared this content. My daughter, who is 16, saw it because the footage was put into a group chat (she does have social media but hadn’t been served the violent content). So even if you are not receiving it in your social media feed, it is very likely to come your way. I saw Rob Cope talk last month, and he brought this to the forefront. Even if your kids are not allowed access to social media, if their friends are, then you can pretty much guarantee your child will be exposed to media you would never want them to see. In his case, it was his daughter watching the Christchurch mosque shootings live feed on her friend’s smartphone.

None of this content should be viewed by children. I was reading somewhere how, globally, everyone saw JFK get shot, and this is true, but again, the sharing was done at a certain time — the 6 pm news, and read in the paper. Everyone was horrified and acted humanely. It wasn’t continuous feeds, unfettered footage, and it wasn’t with people laughing and being happy that someone they disagreed with was shot dead.

I hope this week will be a turning point where we say enough. We cannot protect our kids’ mental health and wellbeing and give them access to social media when they are tweens. It is not appropriate, and the harm outweighs the positive connections that can be made. They will have access to the internet and the learning opportunities that go with it. Communities for LGBTQ+ can create safe, regulated spaces for young people rather than the wild west, Russian roulette version of life online that comes with enormous risk — risk you, as a parent, may not even be aware they are being exposed to.

Have the conversation with your children about what they have seen and how they feel about it — how it is confusing to see people celebrating someone's death, how bewildering this is, and how disturbing it is to watch someone die while no one helps. It is important to give them space to talk about what they are thinking, what links they are making, and to help put this into perspective. The people on the train were all locked into their phones and likely didn’t realise what was happening — they were checked out and not aware of their surroundings. In my experience, people run to help those in distress and physical harm. This was not a normal situation, and we are not sure what happened. What is also really crucial is to put it into perspective: this very rarely happens. It is awful, and hopefully we will learn from both situations so it doesn’t happen again.\

We are powerful as individuals when we come together and say “enough.” We have seen that in history. You are fed the idea that you are nothing, insignificant to the powers that be, but when we stand up to evil, it can take just a stone’s throw to topple a giant. Parents have to unite. Don’t wait for governments or big tech — it is up to you. For those with 9- or 10-year-olds, act now. Take away tech that does not serve their wellbeing. They will hate you, fight you, and be like that for days, but it will pass, and you will survive. Whatever benefit you see educationally from online devices, you can find the equivalent offline. It may not be as exciting, but you can find it, and it will develop skills like depth of attention span that the shiny, gamified version of learning just cannot develop. For those of us with teenagers who have already been used to this consumption for their lives, talk to them. Discuss the harms we now know are real. Watch The Social Dilemma and see how manipulated we are for others to make billions off us. After a discussion, decide what boundaries you are going to put in place. Basics are: no phones in bedrooms (definitely not overnight), and none in bathrooms., I know how hard it is to try and wrestle back some restriction when you have not put them into place, I fall into this camp but part of parenting is to model messing up and taking responsibility. I do have experience of taking back devices when she was younger, I siimply said I had made a mistake and this isn't good for you so its being taken away, and we will revisit it later. She was furious but it did pass.

Our SpringScreenBreak is coming next week, so it is a great opportunity to use the resources for offline activities, build connections in real life, and model what you want your family life to look like with tech. They will follow your lead.