Speaker 1: Hi, my name is Scarlett Ashbury. I'm 14. I like
Speaker 1: to talk to people. I like to role play. I
Speaker 1: like to look at fan art of things that I like.
Speaker 1: I like to watch Youtube.
Speaker 1: My
Speaker 2: name is Helena Ashbury when she asks for an app.
Speaker 2: I think I drive her nuts particularly when she was younger.
Speaker 2: You know that I'll go off and research and you
Speaker 2: got to the point of where I'd say, well I'll
Speaker 2: have a look at it and she'll go, you'll just
Speaker 2: look until you find something that says that it's dangerous
Speaker 2: and then you'll tell me you can't have it.
Speaker 1: She always looks at parent reviews.
Speaker 1: Don't do that. If you're looking at the parent reviews
Speaker 1: that are gonna be talking about, oh my child is
Speaker 1: addicted to the stop. Oh my child been talking to
Speaker 1: this old guys like
Speaker 1: you're looking for bad reviews, you're gonna find them.
Speaker 1: Hi Taylor.
Speaker 1: Today I'm going to tell you about a parent named Helena.
Speaker 1: She's an engineer
Speaker 1: and she describes herself as having a decent grasp on tech.
Speaker 1: But she still feels like when it comes to newer
Speaker 1: media there's stuff she just doesn't get.
Speaker 2: I grew up without any of this. You know, I
Speaker 2: mean Atari came out when I was a kid
Speaker 2: and I entered the online world when I was probably
Speaker 2: about
Speaker 2: 21, and it was the dial up modem and all
Speaker 2: that kind of thing and the Internet was cool.
Speaker 1: Taylor. Do you remember when the internet was cool. It
Speaker 1: still is
Speaker 1: good answer. Good answer.
Speaker 1: Helena has a 14 year old daughter. Scarlett and Scarlett
Speaker 1: has spent a lot of time trying to educate her
Speaker 1: parents about what she's doing online.
Speaker 1: They do not understand instagram at all. Like they know
Speaker 1: what it's for, they just don't know how to use
Speaker 1: it
Speaker 1: at all. You look annoyed because it's so easy,
Speaker 1: it's not even that hard. Have you tried to teach them?
Speaker 1: My mom was like, oh well I keep seeing these
Speaker 1: people dancing on my screen. This this is not what
Speaker 1: I'm not, I don't follow them and like
Speaker 1: your urine reels, that's not nobody watches reels, what are
Speaker 1: you doing? She goes, well, I thought that was the
Speaker 1: home button. There is literally a house button, It's a
Speaker 1: house
Speaker 1: press the house to get to your home screen, It
Speaker 1: just makes sense.
Speaker 1: Have you had moments like this with your son?
Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely. Some of the tools he uses what we
Speaker 1: do as you know. Yes.
Speaker 1: Is he a kind teacher? No, no, he's very impatient.
Speaker 1: So it's a trend. Then
Speaker 1: today's story hinges on this fact that many parents just
Speaker 1: do not understand the world their kids live in and
Speaker 1: some of the fears and tensions that come out of that.
Speaker 1: I'm taylor Owen an academic who studies technology and who
Speaker 1: is desperately trying to keep up with a very online
Speaker 1: eight year old Nicole Edwards, A journalist whose parents are
Speaker 1: remarkably tech savvy. This is screen time.
Speaker 1: There are huge questions playing out right now over the
Speaker 1: place of technology in our lives. Facebook was scheming to
Speaker 1: bring even younger users into their field. You're basically giving
Speaker 1: out your personal I. D. Two games so they can
Speaker 1: make money for it.
Speaker 1: There are some people that I would like to block
Speaker 1: in real life,
Speaker 1: we could work together. But it will add the third
Speaker 1: tensions because in the app market their job is to sell, sell, sell.
Speaker 1: They're like I just don't understand this is their platform,
Speaker 1: this is their life
Speaker 1: where's the limit?
Speaker 1: Mhm.
Speaker 1: Every parent is struggling with these questions, governments around the
Speaker 1: world are trying to keep up and the scale and
Speaker 1: pace of change is only increasing. In this show. We'll
Speaker 1: talk to parents and kids about how they navigate the
Speaker 1: digital world and to the researchers and policy makers who
Speaker 1: can help us understand the consequences.
Speaker 1: Helena had a story that I think illustrates how a
Speaker 1: lot of parents feel about their Children navigating the internet.
Speaker 2: My daughter asked for a Fitbit probably about three years
Speaker 2: ago now and she was a Tween and already as
Speaker 2: a parent worrying about her being on the device is
Speaker 2: too much and not getting enough exercise. So it seemed
Speaker 2: like a great idea to me, so
Speaker 2: totally embraced the idea and she got a Fitbit and
Speaker 2: I guess it
Speaker 2: it was probably two or three months later and for
Speaker 2: some reason I came across on her phone that she
Speaker 2: was getting messages through the social media side of Fitbit,
Speaker 2: which I had not realized
Speaker 2: really. It hadn't sort of clued in with me that
Speaker 2: there was a social media side to it.
Speaker 2: And my daughter was getting messages from men I guess
Speaker 2: men or boys on on the app that could be
Speaker 2: you know, as outright as will you be my girlfriend,
Speaker 2: Which just totally stunned me, you know, And we sort
Speaker 2: of laughed a little bit about it. Like what are
Speaker 2: they really expecting they really expecting you to say? Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: I had no idea. You could message someone on a Fitbit.
Speaker 1: Did you know that? I didn't, I didn't. There's a
Speaker 1: legal academic named Evelyn do eric who likes to say
Speaker 1: that everything is a content moderation problem with technology right now.
Speaker 1: And I think as all these different tools we use,
Speaker 1: whether it be like a peloton or a Fitbit,
Speaker 1: all of these platforms are trying to become social
Speaker 1: and the second you try and become social, you have
Speaker 1: to deal with bad content and how you're going to
Speaker 1: decide what can and can't be said. And it's no
Speaker 1: longer just instagram and facebook are exercise bikes and our
Speaker 1: cars and anything that creates a connected environment. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: And to be clear, I'm not sharing this story to
Speaker 1: alert parents to the danger of fitbits or anything like that,
Speaker 1: you know, thankfully nothing happened. Scarlett is fine,
Speaker 1: but Helena's story,
Speaker 1: I guess that a key thing that came up a
Speaker 1: lot when I spoke to parents about online safety, which
Speaker 1: is this concern that there's a hidden threat lurking somewhere
Speaker 1: on the internet.
Speaker 1: Here's Helena thinking that she's letting her kid have something
Speaker 1: that's pretty benign, only to find out that there are
Speaker 1: strangers on it who are propositioning her child.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think it sort of gets it to
Speaker 1: kind of really critical things here. It's like one we,
Speaker 1: as parents don't always know sufficiently how technologies are kids
Speaker 1: are using are used and what the potential is, right?
Speaker 1: So not knowing even the fit, but had a social
Speaker 1: interaction aspect to it.
Speaker 1: But the second is just how to measure harm. Part
Speaker 1: of the challenge we face in this debate about online
Speaker 1: security and kids is that
Speaker 1: we conflate all sorts of different kinds of harm. So,
Speaker 1: child exploitative content and sex trafficking on one end of
Speaker 1: these really acute horrible things that happen online and that
Speaker 1: we feel like this visceral need to protect obviously our
Speaker 1: kids in our society from and will go to great
Speaker 1: lengths to do that. But then there's just all these
Speaker 1: other harms that teenagers face in this world
Speaker 1: online, of the propositioning the cyberbullying the trolling, the kind
Speaker 1: of gross behavior that exists disproportionate to it doesn't in
Speaker 1: the physical world and that might require a different kind
Speaker 1: of response. So, assessing harm and risk is really difficult
Speaker 1: at any time, but I think it's really hard for
Speaker 1: parents
Speaker 1: in this environment, where they don't know always what's going on.
Speaker 1: They don't know how these tools are being used
Speaker 1: and they don't know if their kids are subjective to
Speaker 1: these acute or more sort of systemic harms and how
Speaker 1: they should respond accordingly, right? And Helena's strategy here. And
Speaker 1: the reason that she even found out about these messages
Speaker 1: is that she checks Scarlett's phone
Speaker 1: um which is something she does periodically, both of them
Speaker 1: are aware. And when Helena brought up what she found
Speaker 1: to Scarlett, it didn't go well,
Speaker 2: I think she felt she'd done something wrong. And I
Speaker 2: think because I did freak out because it was totally unexpected.
Speaker 2: So she was very upset and I got upset me.
Speaker 2: And these things just sort of escalate.
Speaker 2: I think it was a bit of a shock to
Speaker 2: both of us.
Speaker 1: Scarlett didn't want to talk to me about the Fitbit thing.
Speaker 1: But she did talk about her parents monitoring her internet,
Speaker 1: use her parents do have these rules, like not to
Speaker 1: give her information out to strangers. For example. And one
Speaker 1: of the things her mom said is that they keep
Speaker 1: her computer in a common area so they can casually
Speaker 1: glance at it when they want to.
Speaker 1: She mentioned that sometimes she looks over your shoulder when
Speaker 1: you're on your laptop,
Speaker 1: how do you feel about that?
Speaker 1: It's
Speaker 1: it makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong, even
Speaker 1: if I'm not
Speaker 1: like I could just be chatting with my friend just
Speaker 1: talking about normal things that I could talk with with
Speaker 1: my mom
Speaker 1: and she hovers over my shoulder, I just go,
Speaker 1: what did I do?
Speaker 1: It's worse when my dad doesn't know because he breathes
Speaker 1: into my ear and just stands there and stares. My
Speaker 1: mom just walks past. My dad is just standing there
Speaker 1: like
Speaker 1: with with with bug eyes. Yeah, I looked into his
Speaker 1: face and he's just judging me and I'm like what?
Speaker 1: I don't understand why,
Speaker 1: No. And then he'll ask a dumb question like, oh
Speaker 1: why is she wearing that shirt? I don't know
Speaker 1: why shouldn't she wear that shirt? Do you have a
Speaker 1: problem with the fact that her shirt slightly is like
Speaker 1: slightly
Speaker 1: revealing? Is that a problem? Can you just go away?
Speaker 1: I'm trying to watch you to leave.
Speaker 1: And this all brings us to this big worry that
Speaker 1: I hear over and over from parents
Speaker 2: probably she's the first generation that's grown up with it,
Speaker 2: always being in existence. Like there's never been a world
Speaker 2: without the internet for her, without iphones, without all these devices.
Speaker 2: I've got no frame of reference for it and we're
Speaker 2: all making it up as we go along and it's
Speaker 2: so difficult and we're probably getting it wrong?
Speaker 2: What can you do? I wonder am I being too strict,
Speaker 2: but
Speaker 2: you know, is it really gonna work? Am I really
Speaker 2: gonna protect her?
Speaker 1: So there are two parts to this question on the
Speaker 1: one hand, is my kids safe in these spaces that
Speaker 1: I have no reference for.
Speaker 1: And on the other hand, am I worrying too much?
Speaker 1: Like at what point do parents just let go?
Speaker 1: Those are questions parents are clearly struggling with and need
Speaker 1: to ask themselves, but they're not the only players here.
Speaker 1: Tech companies are also evolving their own tools for what
Speaker 1: they allow and don't allow. Then governments as well are
Speaker 1: trying to decide
Speaker 1: what rules they should put in place for the companies
Speaker 1: and the tools they design
Speaker 1: and for kids of varying ages and how they engage
Speaker 1: in those spaces.
Speaker 1: The first person I wanted to speak to about this
Speaker 1: was Sonia Livingstone
Speaker 1: who is one of the world's leading experts when it
Speaker 1: comes to kids in technology.
Speaker 2: Okay, good. Alright. I'm pressing record on the phone.
Speaker 1: She teaches social Psychology at the London School of Economics
Speaker 1: and directs the Digital Futures Commission.
Speaker 1: She is in many ways at the center of the
Speaker 1: kids in tech policy debate both in the UK and
Speaker 1: around the world
Speaker 1: and as someone who lives in the UK, she had
Speaker 1: a really interesting perspective on how different societies view parenting.
Speaker 2: So my understanding is that in europe we have more
Speaker 2: of an expectation that Children can have the independence to
Speaker 2: figure things out for themselves and in north America. You
Speaker 2: can tell me if I'm wrong about Canada
Speaker 2: there is more a sense that the parent kind of
Speaker 2: has the right to know everything that's happening to the child,
Speaker 2: including on the phone
Speaker 2: until the child kind of passes a threshold or proves himself.
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess I do have that kind of
Speaker 2: child rights focus that says Children can only really develop
Speaker 2: and gain their agency and autonomy by having the leeway
Speaker 2: to make some mistakes, not terrible mistakes. You know, we
Speaker 2: want some
Speaker 2: kind of safeguards around it, but they've got to have
Speaker 2: some freedom to
Speaker 2: stretch their legs as it were and that might mean
Speaker 2: that they make some mistakes and then you want them
Speaker 2: to come to you and say,
Speaker 2: hey, this happened and that was a problem. We don't
Speaker 2: even know what it's like for a child to grow up,
Speaker 2: always being watched and checked and kind of controlled. That's
Speaker 1: and what effect is that having
Speaker 2: that has its own effect. Yes, and parents watched anxiously
Speaker 2: and guiltily. And
Speaker 2: so I see that these are really hard challenges for
Speaker 2: parents to manage. But
Speaker 2: I think there has to be an element of standing
Speaker 2: back and making sure you're the person that the child
Speaker 2: will tell if anything goes wrong.
Speaker 1: How do you think parents should think through acceptable risk online?
Speaker 1: And is that the right construct to be thinking about
Speaker 1: this from just making small mistakes for kids which are
Speaker 1: part of growing up versus being exposed to
Speaker 1: real potential harm here, which is sometimes the case.
Speaker 2: I used to say that the analogy was crossing roads
Speaker 2: and walking down the street and so on, but actually
Speaker 2: parents have been making a different decision there too. So
Speaker 2: I think we all know that as Children, we were
Speaker 2: allowed to be able to kind of walk to the
Speaker 2: streets or to the shops or to the park unaccompanied
Speaker 2: and now Children are much more accompanied. So
Speaker 2: in a way the risk and the fear of getting
Speaker 2: it wrong has spread its online and it's offline.
Speaker 2: So, you know, I'm a social scientist, I believe in
Speaker 2: the summer of statistics, there's no more road accidents. Two
Speaker 2: kids now than 30 years ago. There's no more abductions
Speaker 2: by pedophiles now than they were 30 years ago. There
Speaker 2: is more exposure to online kind of risky content
Speaker 2: But there is not really more things going wrong in
Speaker 2: children's lives now than there was 30 years ago. So
Speaker 2: I think parents, you know, if you can stand back
Speaker 2: and give the child a bit more leeway, the paradox
Speaker 2: is that you'll have a stronger and more resilient child.
Speaker 2: A lot of the worst risks. They're incredibly rare, just
Speaker 2: as you know, the chance of your child being knocked
Speaker 2: down by a car on the way to the
Speaker 2: buy an ice cream is very rare and it is
Speaker 2: so beneficial that the child can make that journey by themselves.
Speaker 1: Mhm,
Speaker 1: wow, interesting. Yeah, it's really hard to get a worldwide
Speaker 1: picture of this, but it's certainly true that if we're
Speaker 1: looking at Canada and the us both child abductions and
Speaker 1: road deaths are down. But what strikes me here is
Speaker 1: that so much of the public discourse around safety online
Speaker 1: revolves around these sorts of really acute harms that Sonja
Speaker 1: is talking about.
Speaker 1: For example, you remember that Apple got into some controversy
Speaker 1: last summer when they introduced new measures to fight child
Speaker 1: sexual abuse material, which involved collecting some information directly from
Speaker 1: the phones of their users.
Speaker 1: This set off a huge debate about the balance between
Speaker 1: security and privacy,
Speaker 1: but I talked to someone who thinks this is the
Speaker 1: wrong debate to be having.
Speaker 1: This is Valerie Steeves, professor of criminology at the University
Speaker 1: of Ottawa,
Speaker 1: sorry, I was watching the clock, watching the clock and
Speaker 1: then naturally I got tied up in something on my
Speaker 1: computer just when it was time to log in. No problem.
Speaker 1: That's so nice to meet you find that's lovely to
Speaker 1: meet you too. Valerie does a lot of research around
Speaker 1: human rights and technology. She also co leads the equality
Speaker 1: project where she talks to kids policymakers and experts about
Speaker 1: ways to promote privacy and equality online.
Speaker 1: She makes the argument that this entire discussion is a
Speaker 1: distraction from the broader problems kids actually face online
Speaker 1: and that in fact it's in the interests of tech
Speaker 1: companies for us to be focusing on these kinds of
Speaker 1: security issues.
Speaker 1: One of the things that fascinates me that I don't
Speaker 1: think anybody really talks about very often outside of academic
Speaker 1: circles is the fact that companies made a very conscious
Speaker 1: choice to stop talking about privacy and start talking about
Speaker 1: security
Speaker 1: company started saying your child is at risk of being
Speaker 1: attacked by a predator. Online company started saying you should
Speaker 1: be concerned your child could be talking to a stranger online.
Speaker 1: I've collected data for years and all of the evidence
Speaker 1: indicates that when kids say they're talking to a stranger online,
Speaker 1: they almost always means someone in the context of their
Speaker 1: social network, their grandmother in Lebanon, that they've never met
Speaker 1: a person, their cousin's friend who also plays volleyball in
Speaker 1: the town next door.
Speaker 1: Now, if you think about it from a company's point
Speaker 1: of view, this makes perfect sense because if you get
Speaker 1: parents afraid,
Speaker 1: then they will consent to their Children being placed under surveillance.
Speaker 1: And companies very conveniently come and say, don't worry, parents
Speaker 1: will watch your child. We've got this will take care
Speaker 1: of your kiddies.
Speaker 1: And it legitimizes this constant collection of the minutia of
Speaker 1: young people's lives. So I think when we talk about
Speaker 1: the harms that Children face, it's important to realize that
Speaker 1: this is a constructive dialogue, you're being told your kids
Speaker 1: are at risk of these harms because
Speaker 1: it makes somebody money.
Speaker 1: Now in a previous lifetime, I was a criminal lawyer
Speaker 1: and I can tell you that from sex traffickers that
Speaker 1: I have talked to, that the Children who are vulnerable
Speaker 1: to that type of attack share a certain set of characteristics.
Speaker 1: One of them is not the mere fact that their
Speaker 1: online Valerie says those characteristics include childhood trauma,
Speaker 1: a history of sexual abuse, low self esteem,
Speaker 1: running away from home and minimal social support.
Speaker 1: In other words, if your child is vulnerable to that
Speaker 1: and they go online, you should be really worried if
Speaker 1: your child is not vulnerable to that and they go online,
Speaker 1: we haven't seen a case where that's worked out badly
Speaker 1: for you or your child. One of the markers and
Speaker 1: vulnerability is not the fact that your kid speaks to
Speaker 1: their friends on Tiktok. The real problems you should be
Speaker 1: worried about is the fact that everything they say on
Speaker 1: Tiktok is grabbed by the platform and used for its
Speaker 1: own purposes,
Speaker 1: usually not for the child's well being.
Speaker 1: So the recent news about Facebook, you know, intentionally gathering
Speaker 1: data and using it against young people to give them
Speaker 1: a bad sense of self for a bad body image. Well,
Speaker 1: that's good marketing. That's been around for 20 years. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's nothing new about this.
Speaker 1: These corporations are purposely injecting a child's social environment with
Speaker 1: these highly stereotypical media ties images to manipulate them for
Speaker 1: commercial purposes and to create sticky places where they get
Speaker 1: addicted and feel drawn to out of their own sense
Speaker 1: of insecurity because they drop more data about themselves when
Speaker 1: they're there. So it's a two pronged attack.
Speaker 1: You mentioned Valerie steve speaks to kids to did she
Speaker 1: share any of their thoughts on this? Absolutely, she did.
Speaker 1: And essentially she says they've caught on to what's happening
Speaker 1: and they're starting to adapt.
Speaker 1: Well, I've seen a real shift over time actually in 2001,
Speaker 1: when we first started talking to kids,
Speaker 1: they talked about companies as trustworthy online friends. Oh, it's
Speaker 1: a corporate side, it's got a dot com, I can
Speaker 1: trust that company by 2015 when you sit down with
Speaker 1: kids and talk to them about corporations on the internet,
Speaker 1: they call them creepy old men
Speaker 1: that they are just trying to manipulate us, Have you
Speaker 1: ever read a privacy policy? It clearly wasn't written, so
Speaker 1: I could understand it,
Speaker 1: you know, they're just trying to hoodwink me kids now
Speaker 1: talk about technology as kind of a necessary evil in
Speaker 1: my life. Yeah, I have a phone, I love talking
Speaker 1: to my friends, but I'm really careful what I do.
Speaker 1: In fact, in the last four years or so we
Speaker 1: found kids are withdrawing from online interactions. They have a
Speaker 1: fake online public persona
Speaker 1: that is really bland because they're trying not to attract
Speaker 1: any bad
Speaker 1: consequences, right? But at the same time, I remember about
Speaker 1: five years ago, somebody saying, you know, it's really sad now,
Speaker 1: all I can do is talk to my friends in
Speaker 1: person comes full circle. It does and I think that
Speaker 1: that's actually a really good sign because it shows you
Speaker 1: that kids are thoughtful
Speaker 1: and that they are not being Hoodwinked, that they figured
Speaker 1: a lot of this out.
Speaker 1: But the reason they have is because they've lived the consequences.
Speaker 1: Like I've talked to lots of kids who over the
Speaker 1: years suffered horribly because they posted a bikini shot and
Speaker 1: then they were just ripped into shreds by peers and
Speaker 1: strangers online. And so what they've learned is don't be online.
Speaker 1: They're looking at the internet much more as a flat
Speaker 1: entertainment medium.
Speaker 1: You have to really be sure of who you're talking
Speaker 1: to in the environment you're in to say something. You
Speaker 1: actually think that's what kids complain about. It's a burdensome,
Speaker 1: unnecessary, difficult world that we've created for them and we've
Speaker 1: created it largely because it works really well for tech companies.
Speaker 1: That's super interesting. It reminds me of something Scarlet said
Speaker 1: when I asked her if there's anything she worries about
Speaker 1: encountering online.
Speaker 1: Not really. I mean, I know there's bad stuff, but
Speaker 1: I don't really worry about encountering it because I just
Speaker 1: block them. Yeah, it's nice to have that power. There
Speaker 1: are some people that I would like to block in
Speaker 1: real life. It wouldn't that be nice if you just
Speaker 1: straight up block people who don't see them, don't hear them,
Speaker 1: don't know they exist. That would be great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's right. I also wish I could block people
Speaker 1: in the real world,
Speaker 1: don't we all Scarlet also runs some servers on discord,
Speaker 1: which is a chat platform with these really long codes
Speaker 1: of conduct.
Speaker 1: Number one. Be respectful, civil and welcoming. Number two, no
Speaker 1: inappropriate or unsafe content. Number three do not misuse or
Speaker 1: spam in any of the channels. Number four do not
Speaker 1: join the server to promote your content.
Speaker 1: Mhm.
Speaker 1: If people break the rules, she has a series of
Speaker 1: warnings which escalate to them being banned, she seems like
Speaker 1: she's figured out how to keep things manageable and civil.
Speaker 1: This is something that really struck me in a lot
Speaker 1: of these conversations is just the sophistication of the self
Speaker 1: governance that's emerging in these spaces. People have
Speaker 1: real rules and guidelines for how they want people in
Speaker 1: their communities to behave.
Speaker 1: Kids included. Absolutely, absolutely. The final thing I want to
Speaker 1: talk to Valerie about is whether there's anything parents can
Speaker 1: do to make things a little bit better and a
Speaker 1: little safer. She had a piece of advice that's pretty simple.
Speaker 1: Don't be a hypocrite.
Speaker 1: The first thing you should do as a parent is,
Speaker 1: take a real look in the mirror and take an
Speaker 1: inventory of your own tech use because one of the
Speaker 1: consistent things we hear from kids is how much they
Speaker 1: hate the fact their parents use devices.
Speaker 1: I remember when my kids were in high school and
Speaker 1: they came in one day and I was answering an
Speaker 1: email on work on my phone and boy did I
Speaker 1: catch it hot, you know, like I can't believe it,
Speaker 1: you know, you're not paying attention to me, I want
Speaker 1: to talk to you about this.
Speaker 1: And I realized that as soon as my kids came
Speaker 1: home from high school I put my phone in a drawer,
Speaker 1: I didn't want it anywhere near me.
Speaker 1: Not because they sat down and talked to me every day,
Speaker 1: but because like it's not about, there's no such thing
Speaker 1: as quality time. There's only quantity time you need to
Speaker 1: be there because between 1105 and 11071 night, they might
Speaker 1: want to tell you this terrible thing happened at school.
Speaker 1: If you're not there, you don't get it. The interesting
Speaker 1: thing is from kids point of view if I'm on
Speaker 1: my phone or if on my ipad and my computer,
Speaker 1: I'm not there because I'm somewhere else. I'm on the screen, right?
Speaker 1: And the last thing I want to ask you is
Speaker 1: really stems off that is
Speaker 1: what parents can learn from their kids here. And I
Speaker 1: think that modeling behavior is probably one of the big ones, right?
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. I think it's actually in all forms of parenting,
Speaker 1: it is our strongest tool. Kids don't really hear the
Speaker 1: words you say they watch your actions and the way
Speaker 1: you live. So if we model a healthy relationship with technology,
Speaker 1: it's easier for them to navigate this world.
Speaker 1: Keep in mind that it's becoming increasingly common for kids
Speaker 1: to talk about disconnection
Speaker 1: About three years ago, I got a call from my
Speaker 1: friend Val Michaelson and who was at Queen's, She was
Speaker 1: working with a group of kids that wanted to do
Speaker 1: some youth participatory action research. And they were interested in
Speaker 1: social media and how social media affected them. I've heard
Speaker 1: kids for years say, you know, I worry that all
Speaker 1: these devices make me lazy. I worry that they cut
Speaker 1: me off from my friends.
Speaker 1: I go over to my friend's house and everybody's on
Speaker 1: their phone that's boring.
Speaker 1: So we worked with this group and they decided that
Speaker 1: they wanted to try a disconnection challenge. They wanted to
Speaker 1: completely unplug from technology for a week. And they were thrilled.
Speaker 1: This is amazing.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be so cool. We will see how technology
Speaker 1: affects us. And one kid said, oh, except for school.
Speaker 1: You know, my teacher is not going to let me
Speaker 1: not use the internet for school. Okay, So no technology
Speaker 1: except for school. Yeah, it'll be amazing. Oh, except my
Speaker 1: parents will never put up with that. Because when I'm
Speaker 1: in ballet, my mom always wants me to text her
Speaker 1: to let her know when to come.
Speaker 1: And they went, oh, I can't because my coach sends
Speaker 1: me my schedule on my phone. I can't because my
Speaker 1: boss tells me when I need to come in on
Speaker 1: saturday on my phone and they turned to the two
Speaker 1: adults in the room val? And I And they said,
Speaker 1: what is wrong with you adults? Why are you always
Speaker 1: forcing us to use technology?
Speaker 1: So Nicole, I'm curious to hear your thoughts about those conversations.
Speaker 1: Yeah. You know, one thing that stood out to me
Speaker 1: is is the creepy old man archetype and how it's
Speaker 1: undergone a pretty interesting shift.
Speaker 1: You know, where once upon a time kids imagine the
Speaker 1: stereotypical internet predator as a man waiting for them in
Speaker 1: a chat room
Speaker 1: today. Instead the creepy old man is actually the tech
Speaker 1: company gathering their information and watching what they do.
Speaker 1: And I think that shows how sophisticated kid's understanding of
Speaker 1: online harms has become. I completely agree. And it really
Speaker 1: struck me
Speaker 1: that people who have spoken to kids over a decade
Speaker 1: see a real change in how kids see this space
Speaker 1: and see harm in this space where originally there was
Speaker 1: this digital divide where the kids understand technology and parents
Speaker 1: didn't and parents were scared of it and kids weren't.
Speaker 1: And it seems way more sophisticated now where
Speaker 1: kids are actually concerned about some real things. They just
Speaker 1: don't frame it the same way as parents. It's not
Speaker 1: this kind of
Speaker 1: predator and a trench coat. It's like you say it's
Speaker 1: more nuanced. It's the type of trolling. They receive the
Speaker 1: type of bad behavior, the data collection, the invasions of
Speaker 1: their privacy. And I think we switch our terms of
Speaker 1: our conversation to theirs. It can be a much more
Speaker 1: constructive place
Speaker 1: for talking about online safety.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. The other thing that I found interesting is something
Speaker 1: Sonia Livingstone said about
Speaker 1: giving kids privacy, you know, I think before hearing from her,
Speaker 1: I was pretty guilty of thinking of it as a
Speaker 1: one way street where parents demonstrate their trust in kids
Speaker 1: by giving them autonomy.
Speaker 1: And she kind of brought to mind for me that
Speaker 1: the more we create spaces where kids are able to
Speaker 1: play and make mistakes and not feel too surveyed,
Speaker 1: the more trust kids will have in their parents and
Speaker 1: in the adults in their life because
Speaker 1: they'll know that they don't need to hide the fact
Speaker 1: that they've made a mistake or that they've encountered something
Speaker 1: in an online environment that makes them uncomfortable
Speaker 1: because their parents have given them the freedom to go
Speaker 1: out and have those experiences. And so there's that kind
Speaker 1: of built in confidence that comes from the fact that
Speaker 1: they know their parents trust them to Rome. So I
Speaker 1: get that and I understand the point that they were
Speaker 1: all making that we need spaces online where kids can
Speaker 1: take risks and have privacy
Speaker 1: and have their own identities. The challenge I face, I
Speaker 1: think as a parent is you want those risks to
Speaker 1: be acceptable. You don't want to let your kids loose
Speaker 1: in these places knowing that there's all these benefits they're
Speaker 1: going to get. Well also they be subjected to real
Speaker 1: potential harm.
Speaker 1: And so that for me takes us into a conversation
Speaker 1: about governance. How do we collectively want to set the
Speaker 1: rules for some of these spaces? So yes, kids have
Speaker 1: freedom and privacy and are able to have independence and
Speaker 1: take risks but also not be subjected to the worst
Speaker 1: harms we know potentially exist in this space.
Speaker 1: And that we're gonna be talking about next episode when
Speaker 1: we really dive into some of the governance opportunities in
Speaker 1: this space that are being deployed around the world.
Speaker 1: So stay tuned.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to this episode of screen time from
Speaker 1: tvo Antica Productions and the Center for Media Technology and
Speaker 1: Democracy at McGill University.
Speaker 1: I produce this show along with our senior producer, kevin
Speaker 1: Sexton production assistants by Emily Marantz Research support by Sonia
Speaker 1: Solomon Kody, Hakka and Helen Hayes mixing and sound design
Speaker 1: by Phil Wilson.
Speaker 1: Our executive producer is laura rigor Stuart cox is the
Speaker 1: president of Antica, Katie O'Connor is the senior producer of podcasts.
Speaker 1: A tvo Lori. Few is the executive producer for digital tv. Oh,
Speaker 1: if you like what you heard tell a friend.
Speaker 1: Yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah,
Speaker 1: nobody reads the terms of service is nobody
Speaker 1: literally, it says terms of services and just click accept
Speaker 1: immediately because nobody cares. I barely have the patience to
Speaker 1: make a sandwich. I'm not going to read that.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm
Speaker 1: hmm