Techno Childhood

To me, my mobile phone is mostly an annoyance. I'm old, you see, so I grew up in a time when the world hadn't yet been spoiled by these demon-devices. If I wanted to speak face to face with my friend, I had to look them up, ring their doorbell, ask their parents if they were home and available, and if we were both lucky, we'd spend the rest of the day playing and talking outside with any other friends we could get to leave their home.

When I was young, growing up in my parents' house, I spent most of my time outside the house. My parents kicked me out to go play outside if I didn't go out myself. They were surprised and annoyed if I returned before the streetlights came on, and angry if I returned long after. The latter happened to me on many, many occasions. I even advised my friends on "how to train your parents"; just come home late every day. Start with a small violation of the curfew, take the punishment and repeat until your parents EXPECT you to come home slightly late. Then extend; come home even later, take the punishment until... Rinse and repeat.

I never actively think about how lucky I've been to have such a childhood. But seeing my own son grow up, I do realize the youth of today live in a very different world. They miss something essential. Being among my peers physically every day, having to interact not just with them but with their parents as well, gave me something valuable; I learned the social skills necessary to function in the greater society of people. We are social animals who have conquered this planet through our unique skills that enable us to live and work together, to organize in communities that share common goals; this is so essential that I repeat it often in my posts, maybe to the point that I annoy my regular visitors.

Me and my wife tried to raise our son in the same way we were raised, but most days our son returned home way too early. That was because most of his friends didn't go outside to play. They were kept inside by their parents and the contact they had was via prearranged appointments; my son went over to some friend's house to play, or vice-versa. In middle school I often cut classes or didn't go to school at all. My son never had the chance to do that, not without anyone noticing anyway, because we, the parents, could check his attendance online in the school-app. This may sound like a positive thing, but I think it's horrible. These kids grow up in a full fledged surveillance state with much of their lives ruled through the digital screen.

My wife and I are lucky in a way, as our son and most of his friends turned out alright; he's living on his own now and has a steady job. But I fear for the generation right next to his; these children grow up with the almighty digital screen right from the get-go. The social media on these devices are build to capture and hold their attention as long as possible. They're build on the principle of profits, and outrage sells, and they sell themselves to get validation through likes and retweets. They don't deal with other people face to face and lack the social skills needed to live a truly fulfilled live. Depression, anxiety and suicide among young teenagers has gone up exponentially since 2010, right at the time when mobile phones became widespread. And that's not surprising; we're social animals, evolved for millions of years to live and function with each other, and it's not as if the past 10 or 20 years our brains have suddenly evolved to live through a screen and profit-based social media instead...

Please watch the below linked video with the enticing title "Childhood 2.0." I especially recognized a lot of what the parents have to say, and I also recognize my own son in what some of the older teenagers have to say. We've built a new techno-environment that's hugely detrimental to our children's mental health, and it may be too late to stop that train now. The least we can do is to be aware, and this video is a good a place to start cultivating that awareness...

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