By Peter Trankner
Pediatricians complain that social media made young people sick and affected their development. Pediatricians and adolescent doctors now accuse many parents of failing to manage screen time and demand better protection of children and young people from social media.
They claim that children can hardly escape the crass influence on the platforms and young people are almost no longer able to form a free opinion. It has been proven that social media makes young people in particular sick and dumb. “There is a serious parental failure in terms of social media and screen use. Parents must set limits and act as role models. Unfortunately, this happens far too rarely, they don’t do it, or they fail in trying to enforce rules,” a physician said. Even toddlers already have headphones on and a tablet in front of their noses. There is a trend to distract even smaller children with the devices. Apparently, we have invented the perfect babysitter: just hand a child a smartphone or tablet -- and peace and quiet are guaranteed.
Raising a child requires time, attention and boundaries. Kids need guidance. An algorithm cannot provide any of these. It can only provide endless entertainment, endless distraction and endless scrolling. Perhaps it is time for parents to remember a rater old-fashioned concept: parenting.
Where can this ultimately lead when children become increasingly isolated from real life and increasingly immersed in a digital world of bullying, hatred, humiliation and violence? The worst-case scenario is no longer unimaginable: kids killing kids in schools.
We have just seen the horror in Thailand. And the Philippines has already experienced its own deadly school shooting in Tacloban, where three students were killed by two teenage suspects.
It seems that teachers as the frontliners are left alone to clean up the mess. Parents hand children a smartphone, algorithms shape their attention and behavior -- and teachers are expected to deal with the consequences in the classroom.
France is now the first European Union (EU) country to ban social media from children and young people under the age of 15. Several member countries, including Spain, Greece and Austria, want to legislate a social media ban on minors up to a certain age. Germany will probably follow. Associations of pediatricians and adolescents in the EU are now open to banning social media about 14 years of age.
And the highly developed Scandinavian countries Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark are undergoing a paradigm shift from digital-first education towards a more balanced, age-appropriate and largely analogue approach, particularly for children under 10. Sweden has made the most pronounced shift. After having been one of the pioneers of digital education, it is now putting much greater emphasis on printed books, handwriting, reading and basic arithmetic. Digital learning tools are increasingly regarded as something that should be used selectively rather than as the foundation of early education. The new approach can be summarized as: Less screen time, more books, handwriting, reading, writing, mathematics, direct interaction with teachers and hands-on learning.
