Rather Than Making The Internet Safe For Kids, Make Your Kids Safe For The Real World
We've been talking a lot lately about the massive moral panic going on right now, claiming that the internet is somehow inherently dangerous for kids. As we've noted, the evidence simply does not support this. Over and over and over again we see the actual data and actual research shows no evidence of any inherent harm to children from the internet and social media. Indeed, much of the evidence suggests that most kids get real value out of the internet from the ability to communicate with friends and family to access information and people they wouldn't otherwise have access to.
That's not to say that no one is harmed, or that no one is bullied, or that no one is made to feel bad about themselves online. Because that happens. And there's nothing wrong with looking for ways to minimize those things, or to minimize the impact of those things. But some of that is human nature, and you're not going to change human nature.
Unfortunately, most of the political class and the media have completely bought in on this moral panic. And lots of others are buying it, despite the lack of evidence. When I wrote an article recently highlighting how little evidence there is to support the idea that social media is bad for kids, I literally had someone email us to demand I retract the article because it was obvious" that social media is dangerous. But the data just doesn't show any of that.
Last year, I wrote an article about how dangerous this moral panic actually is for kids. I noted that this mad rush to try to clean up" the internet to make sure everywhere was perfectly safe for everyone was the equivalent of raising children at Disneyland, and then on their 18th birthday, releasing them into the real world outside the gates, and expecting them to be able to survive. It's doing the opposite of preparing kids for the real world. It's hiding the real world from them and failing to give them the tools to survive.
Thankfully, at least someone else out there agrees. Wired has a great article by Lux Alptraum arguing that we don't need age verification" or other protect the children" laws in order to protect kids from adult content. We don't need censorship. Instead, we just need to talk to your children honestly not just about what they might see online, but about their own bodies." It opens up by talking about decades of attempts to clean up" the internet to protect the children" online, and notes how silly this, and how little it does to prepare kids for the real world:
Debates around the pros and cons of these various solutions get into what freedom and privacy we're willing to sacrifice for the sake of keeping kids from seeing adult content-as well as considering whether these censorship laws and filtering programs actually accomplish the things they promise. But one thing that never seems to come up, is this: Let's say the filters work, the age verification platforms work, and kids are 100 percent prevented from seeing any adult content until the day they turn 18. What then? Does censorship alone ensure that kids will grow up to be sexually healthy adults?
Not really. If we want kids to grow up with healthy ideas about sex, we actually need to offer them more than just censorship. And when they are equipped with healthy messages about sex, they'll be resilient even when censorship inevitably fails to protect them from all possible adult content.
None of this is saying that anything goes, but that when we educate kids with age appropriate concepts rather than trying to shield them from everything, they are much more likely to be able to deal with the things they come across. As the article notes, educating children helps to inoculate them against whatever nonsense they might encounter online.
A big thing that I hear from parents with concern about pornography is the way that it presents gender roles," says Heather Corinna, founder and director of the youth sex education site Scarleteen. OK, let's think about it: What kind of education and support have you already given your young person about gender roles? Have you already done a really good job of educating them on the bullshit of sexism?" If you've already educated your kids about how to respect people's bodies and autonomy, then that message is going to carry over into sex-and it won't be magically erased just because they stumble onto a porn flick that features a sexist story line.
The article includes a bunch of tips for parents about how to have age appropriate conversations about bodies and sex. But it should also serve as a good guide for other topics as well. Having conversations and discussions about bullying, about violence, about drugs and crime and many other topics is how you prepare the kids for the real world. Kids can be taught to recognize when they come upon a situation that is dangerous, and can be taught to go to adults who can help (parents, school officials, other trusted adults), but only if they trust those adults to talk with them openly about these things, not pretend none of it exists at all.
Yet, because of the wider moral panic, and a variety of laws around the world, all of this will become much more difficult. The focus is on censorship and denial, rather than education and preparation. All that will do is produce a crop of young adults wholly unprepared for the real world.