This was so interesting! Bans like these worry me, we treat children like lab rats and less-than-people, the internet did a lot of bad things for me as a teen, but it also taught me sex education, critical race theory and that being gay was okay in my conservative-leaning community.
Your point about infrastructure is such a good one too! I research histories of adolescence and teens of the past had letter-writing, magazines, radio, third spaces like cinemas and places to loiter, teens are left without any of these organic resources and then, suddenly, no phones either!
I'm fascinated by how many anti-tech activists today are gen-Z/gen-alpha — they're (we're..?) self-aware enough to take charge of their (our) own wellbeing. I don't think the past is always better than the present, or that we're being overly nostalgic about how we used to hang out in the past. You're so right — some critical parts of adolescence are just absent (re: digital revolution) from the gen-z/alpha experience, is it really so bad to try and bring them back?
mild tangent: in the mid00s to mid10s, i used to frequent this website for kids that revolved around flash games but had plenty social and creative aspects too, it was quite popular at the time in my country (estonia; mängukoobas the site was called), but it was left dying a slow founder-disinterest death as social media started slowly taking over online, before being closed for good in 2021.
and really a part of me still mourns the fact there don't really seem to be any known suchsort sites for kids and youth these days, with social media seeming to be the primary choice for them these days.... any actually productive systematic solution against that would likely take a lot of effort, i feel like.
This was so interesting! Bans like these worry me, we treat children like lab rats and less-than-people, the internet did a lot of bad things for me as a teen, but it also taught me sex education, critical race theory and that being gay was okay in my conservative-leaning community.
Your point about infrastructure is such a good one too! I research histories of adolescence and teens of the past had letter-writing, magazines, radio, third spaces like cinemas and places to loiter, teens are left without any of these organic resources and then, suddenly, no phones either!
I'm fascinated by how many anti-tech activists today are gen-Z/gen-alpha — they're (we're..?) self-aware enough to take charge of their (our) own wellbeing. I don't think the past is always better than the present, or that we're being overly nostalgic about how we used to hang out in the past. You're so right — some critical parts of adolescence are just absent (re: digital revolution) from the gen-z/alpha experience, is it really so bad to try and bring them back?
mild tangent: in the mid00s to mid10s, i used to frequent this website for kids that revolved around flash games but had plenty social and creative aspects too, it was quite popular at the time in my country (estonia; mängukoobas the site was called), but it was left dying a slow founder-disinterest death as social media started slowly taking over online, before being closed for good in 2021.
and really a part of me still mourns the fact there don't really seem to be any known suchsort sites for kids and youth these days, with social media seeming to be the primary choice for them these days.... any actually productive systematic solution against that would likely take a lot of effort, i feel like.
words CANNOT describe how badly I want an adult version of club penguin