Imagine for a moment that when the internet became popular in the mid-1990s, the inventors made a statement like this, “This World Wide Web will provide a whole new set of tools for adults, ages 18 and over. You will be able to find jobs more easily, find useful information on medical problems, easier ways to manage your finances, and connect with family and friends. But, it’s by no means a place for children.”
Imagine we took their warning seriously and required children to sign up for “Internet Safety Training” at age 17, where they were given a beginner’s handbook. The handbook covers the basics like how to search for interesting topical information, which internet safety sites and security settings would help them stay protected, and how to disengage and spend time outdoors with family and friends. Upon successful completion of the test, the teen receives an Internet Learner’s Permit, which allows them to go online with a licensed adult user during a one-year training course. (This assumes, of course, that all users are licensed. But that’s a topic for another blog.) The training, administered by qualified experts like those in the Screen Time Action Network, includes:
How to identify advertising, stealth marketing, and other commercial intent
Social media and influencer culture
How tech companies design their products to manipulate users and how to avoid falling into their traps
Data privacy, security settings, and online safety precautions
How pornography can impact brain development and future romantic relationships
How to use the internet as a tool, not a crutch; AI and your own creativity.
After an exhaustive test, which includes a mental health assessment, they are allowed a specific number of hours on the internet during the first year—creating healthy limits and conditioning the young adults to think of the online world as just one part of life. Finally, in year two, when they are 18-years-old, they receive unfettered access.
Of course, there will be accidents. I wish someone had told me not to let my twin boys drive my Saturn in 2010. They each had costly fender benders with it because their brains were not fully developed. Kids will cheat when looking at the internet at a friend’s house or the home of an older person. Their natural curiosity and tech savviness will lead them to try to hack out of systems and see things out of the original learner’s scope. But, because they are accompanied by a caring adult, they will just trip rather than fall into a hole.
Does this sound like an impossible dream? I would argue it’s not. Together we’ve changed so much. Schools all over the country are banning smartphones during the school day. It’s becoming popular for young parents to talk about no screen time in the early years of life and use caution when introducing it. Parents know there are experts they can turn to when they feel stressed about screen use decisions.
I challenge us to think about what it would take to negotiate an even bigger culture change. Society has taken simple, real childhood and allowed unleashed commercial forces to uproot children’s natural systems.
Jonathan Haidt says we don’t have to accept this coup as inevitable. His chapter in Anxious Generation about boys made me cringe. Just as my twin boys were turning 13, late by today’s standards, they discovered video games. It was a world I couldn’t monitor, couldn’t penetrate, and could barely observe. It drew them into universe after universe that took precious time away from their participation in our family life. I felt I was losing them. But I didn’t actually lose them like many parents in our network have tragically experienced. They had other interests and they didn’t have social media. I can’t help but think I narrowly dodged a virtual bullet.
Haidt makes the scientific case that we need to promote reduced screens in our psychology and pediatric practices, classrooms, community centers, and homes. He also emboldens us to bring our solutions, the ones some of us have been crafting for years, to the forefront. We are no longer considered radical. He says we can stop trying to convince people, a scourge we have undertaken for most of our careers. He says they are already persuaded by life experience.
Haidt also inspired collective action: "An individual acting alone faces high costs, but if people can coordinate and act together, they can more easily choose actions that are better for all in the long run." While we’ve known this, I think we’ve hesitated or limited ourselves due to the hits and discouragement we’ve endured.
Now is the time to be bold. Driver’s Ed for the Internet.
Warmly,
Jean
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