If We Don't Give Kids Freedom, Screens Will.
If we don't give them independence IRL, they'll go looking for it on a screen.
I was minding my own business on Instagram, and saw this…
Gianna Toboni highlights that: “… if kids don’t experience independence, they miss opportunities to assess risk, problem-solve, and develop social skills… and according to one theory, they may just seek independence where they CAN find it: screens.”
YES. Exactly.
This instantly reminded me of a conversation I had almost exactly a year ago with Deepti Doshi, where she said:
“… if they can’t go out on the streets on their own, then they need to stretch their creativity by finding YouTube…”
When I spoke to her, Deepti had just written an excellent post on Jon Haidt’s After Babel about how Next Door was warping parent’s perspectives on safety. She said:
“Unfortunately, Nextdoor can make anywhere seem dangerous. What Caitlin sees on her phone is a warped version of our area, mediated by Nextdoor’s money-making algorithm. Isolated incidents from nearby areas are highlighted and made to seem like an epidemic of crime.”
So much of how we see our world is now shaped by algorithms, and that includes us — the parents. We need to be acutely aware of how much of our own anxiety stems from platforms that are (as Deepti says) “in the business of fear.”
We have to snap out of it. Our kids need independence and freedom, and if we do not give it to them in the physical world, they will find it elsewhere. As I said in my essay about kids + phones:
“For kids, a phone is freedom in a world where they have none.”
The phone is often the only place where they can communicate with their friends, explore, read, etc… without an adult hovering over them at every moment. This is why it is insufficient to limit or delay a phone — it MUST be accompanied by an increase of freedom and independence in other parts of life.
Complicating things: while to kids a phone is freedom and privacy… that is not at all what they are getting. They are getting algorithmically-mediated freedom, with the ILLUSION of privacy.
They cannot see or feel the degree to which what they experience as freedom is actually controlled by someone else. They don’t realize that they are trading their parents for corporations that have the singular goal of using the information they collect to addict and manipulate them. And I’m not sure parents realize this either.
The challenge is how and where to give children freedom in America, when daily life has so many obstacles to unstructured free play:
Parents work 9-5/6/7.
We don’t live where we live: in America you tend to live your life away from your home… you commute, constantly, everywhere.
Kids just aren’t outside. This is a collective problem.
We don’t know our neighbors.
If streets are unsafe, it’s not because of kidnappers, but because of cars driven by people who are staring at their phones while speeding through neighborhoods.
I am acutely familiar with the challenges, and understand that I have the privilege of focusing on this. But the bottom line is that much of the feeling of independence and freedom requires spontaneity and proximity to friends (or mobility). This is very hard to find in the U.S., and while you can craft it… it really only works if there’s a collective situation where other kids are around… others have to do it with you. (Deepti shares some great advice on how to do this in her After Babel piece.)
Again, as Deepti Doshi said:
“If you don’t know your neighbors, everyone on the block is a stranger and potential threat. Kids like Liam stay inside to play video games, and when they get older, scroll social media. They become the data points of our loneliness epidemic.”
“The data points of our loneliness epidemic.” These words echo in my brain almost daily, and have been the push I needed to snap out of my own anxieties and find ways to help my kids build their independence muscles.
The uncomfortable reality is that much of this starts with us, the parents. Do our kids learn to navigate the world with us, so we gain trust in their abilities? Do our kids see us hanging out with our friends? With other parents at soccer practice? Or are we consumed by whatever is happening on our devices?
I know, the realities of life in America make any of the above feel like a luxury — and that’s not far off. I understand the obstacles for parents, especially those barely making the basics work. But still… it’s true, and it needs to be said, because nothing can change until we look the truth right in the face.
