Today’s kids will never know a world without screens

It’s sad that so many kids want to be influencers. A Youtuber, a social media celebrity…what do they have that kids want?

Every time you open an app, you are automatically met with a different world. The assortment of content, anything you can imagine (and can’t even begin to fathom) fits into the palm of your hand.

It’s a crazy thought, and often a little scary.

In my years of working with young children, the overwhelming majority of my time was spent with those under the age of six—and most of that time was with kiddos under the age of two.

It was a bit of a culture shock this summer to spend more time with school age kids, ages five to eleven. It was a learning curve, but I had a lot of fun. They have their own thoughts and opinions, they can hold a well-thought-out conversation, their motor skills are more advanced, and they can say the craziest things.

One of the biggest changes, however, was that their lives are already experiencing the effects of social media.

The whole world seems to be debating about kids’ exposure to the world of apps and screens. We have the research to say that screens are not good for developing brains and eyes. We know both the harm and the help that social media can cause. It seems every which way we turn, we hear a different argument about how old a child should be before being allowed to own a phone or have access to the internet. 

For most of us in college right now, we were born long enough ago that we were some of the last kids to be raised without a smartphone. My parents had flip phones until I was almost in middle school, and I didn’t have a smartphone until I went to high school. 

The world has changed dramatically in the past almost-twenty-one years of my life and I see its effects on the kids I am around. Though not yet in kindergarten, they know how to operate their parents’ phones. They can play games, they can take selfies, and most of all, they know how to watch videos.

When I asked some of the school-age kids what they wanted to be when they grew up, I was actually a bit shocked to hear the ones who wanted to be Youtubers. 

Then I wondered to myself, why? Why would I be shocked? They are people of influence, people these kids look up to and want to be like. I suppose it is the equivalent of saying twenty years ago that you wanted to be a movie star.

To me, it isn’t the same thing. A movie star is acting; who you see on the silver screen is not who they are in real life. They are an actor, given a role, and pretending to be that person. It can be a bit harder to discern if a Youtuber’s content is real or not. It’s easy enough to edit a video and make it seem real to the viewer, but in reality the content is heavily edited.

On a side note, there is satire, but in some cases, satire is hard to differ from reality. This can be very confusing in itself, especially for younger minds that can’t grasp abstract concepts such as satire and discern it from reality.

Technology is a great resource and it takes great responsibility. So many things change day by day—it’s hard enough to keep up as it is. For young children, watching what appears to be the perfect world lived in by perfect people starts a wave of insecurity if not handled properly. 

As adults in society, it is our responsibility to be sure that the world is safe for those younger than us, to the best of our ability. Keeping our own social media in check can help set an example for those around us. Teaching kids that what they see on a screen is not reality, encouraging them to appreciate what they have and not idealizing people who appear to be perfect (because we all know that there is no one perfect). 

Even if you don’t have kids of your own, we are the ones to make and receive lots of media. We are able to influence what goes on in our own generation and help pass it down to those after us. We need to help stop the idolization of people who videotape the most perfect points of their lives, making us seem like we can’t be happy if we aren’t them.

Not that I’m not guilty of this. Sometimes relaxing means scrolling mindlessly after a busy day—and it’s easy to lose track of time. We can all work on being conscious about screen time and who we watch, what we read and how we interact online.

It can be as simple as scrolling past something we know is going to sit wrong in our brains. Leaving accounts alone that make us feel inferior or produce negative content. Stop reading and contributing to polarized comment sections (has anyone’s mind ever been changed from arguing on Reddit?).

Don’t idolize perfection; you will always be disappointed.