‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity.”
The famous opening words of Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities could be used to describe the networked world young people now inhabit.
While Dickens’s book is about the French Revolution, the digital revolution is far more radical.
I know many parents worry about their children’s constant use of digital media, and there are good reasons for that. This is a world that is always “on”. Once upon a time, if you were a bit of a nerd and not wildly popular, you could go home and curl up with your book. Now, you curl up with your laptop, your mobile, the television and your iPod, and miserably watch the rest of the world having a wonderful time.
Networked world
Adults often ask why young people just don’t disengage from the networked world. That’s a question that signals a digital immigrant, someone who probably grew up with a landline that took years even to install. (Friends of mine held a party when they got their new telephone a mere 10 years after they applied for it.) Kids, on the other hand, are digital natives.
Don Tapscott is a writer and consultant who loves most things about the digital age. His website asserts that, among many other things, “he collaborates with prime ministers, presidents and ministers about the transformation of their countries for the age of networked intelligence”.
I am not entirely clear what that means, but he does have a nice analogy in a “Ted” (Technology, Entertainment and Design) online talk about how youngsters regard technology. “These young people have no fear of technology . . . sort of like I have no fear of a refrigerator.”
To expand on Tapscott’s metaphor, for kids today, technology is like the fridge – present in every home and invisible except when it goes on the blink. Asking someone to survive without a fridge is fine for a week’s camping, but not for day-to-day living.
Adults also focus on the negative aspects of the digital age, the fragmentation of attention spans, the constant insecurity, the narcissism of the age of the “selfies”. (Selfies are the photos you take with your arm outstretched, often on a mobile. There’s a variation involving mirrors, too.)
Disturbing ‘selfies’
There are sites where you can view versions of famous photos doctored to look like selfies, for example, William on the balcony kissing Kate after the wedding, while holding his arm out to take a selfie. Funny, and oddly disturbing.
All of those adult concerns about the digital age have validity, but are likely to be met with a “roll-eyes” by young people. It is just their world, and there are such wonderful aspects to it, such as Skyping the big brother you miss so much since he was forced to emigrate to Brisbane.
Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald made a sensible point about parents and their children’s online activities in an interview with Sheila Wayman last week, suggesting that parents should be asking their children coming home from school, “How did you get on online today?” A sensible principle, but perhaps not the ideal way to phrase it.
Mind you, some parents can be worse than their kids. Who has not seen a parent in a restaurant ignoring his or her kids while updating Facebook on the iPhone and texting? Other parents, though, are touchingly naive. As a teacher, I am still amazed when parents tell me proudly that they monitor their child’s internet use on the laptop closely, but obviously forget that their children can access the internet on their mobile phones while tucked up in bed.
Teenagers need both space and boundaries, a tricky balance. Remember the stuff you did not want your mother to know? Remember the feeling and honour the need for privacy, but remember also that “sexting” was not a possibility that your mother had to worry about.
Kids have a hundred “workarounds” to prevent parents finding out what they are up to online, from having a couple of Facebook accounts, only one of which has mother listed as a friend, to automatically setting the browser to private browsing every time they go online.
Parental advice
Navigating this world with your children is not primarily about technical knowledge, but about relationships. It starts when they are young, and want to join Stardoll, or Moshi Monsters. Teaching them how to block unwanted messages and protect passwords are the first steps.
Parents tell me that asking about hypothetical situations works better than direct queries – for example, asking what do people in your class do if someone is bullying them online. Irish kids tend to favour gaming, chat and watching endless YouTube videos, which an EU Kids Online survey suggests may leave them at a disadvantage in an era where generating, rather than consuming, content will be key.
It’s their world, but it doesn’t mean they know the best way to navigate it, or how to fully use its potential.
Funnily enough, they still need parents, and we just can’t afford the luxury of being clueless any more.