I watched the hit Netflix series Adolescence with two hats on. As a professional, the online misogyny wasn’t new. I’ve written about online extremism before. But as a parent, with a kid the same age (and freckles) as the main character sleeping upstairs, the show hit me differently. My son, like all teens, is actively… Read More →
“You are always on the iPad,” I said as I rounded the corner into the dining room and spotted my son on his device. As soon as I said it, I knew it wouldn’t lead to a productive conversation about my kid’s tech habits. I wasn’t surprised when I didn’t hear a response like, “Oh,… Read More →
“If you could design your own digital spaces, what would they look like?” I recently posed this question to a group of young people. As adults, it’s easy to focus on what we don’t like about the online world. It’s also easy to assume that we see the harms clearly while young people remain thoughtlessly… Read More →
“What is the site or platform you wouldn’t want to live without?” For years, researchers at Common Sense Media have asked kids and teens this question. It’s a revealing one—it cuts through the noise of ever-evolving platforms and trends to uncover the digital spaces that truly matter to young people. While news cycles tend to… Read More →
1. Can We Hold These Three Truths About Tech and Teens at the Same Time? This is an important moment. We have an opportunity to move forward with adolescent needs and development in mind. However, doing so requires that we step up to a challenge: We need to take steps guided by both attention to… Read More →
The school year starts and, it’s easy to get caught up in logistics—schedules, transportation, supplies, before and after school care, and on and on. I approach these tasks with mixed feelings: on one hand, I’m already nostalgic for the more relaxed pace of summer; on the other, I’m slightly desperate for routine. Hence my focus… Read More →
Sometimes it’s hard to observe transformative changes in real-time. We tend to look back and think, “Ah, that was when everything started to change.” When I set up my first “Friendster” account, it certainly felt new and exciting. I thought carefully about which songs and photos best represented “me” for my little corner of the… Read More →
There are moments when I look at my phone and think, “What a time to be alive!” The device in my hand is one thousand times faster than the last generation’s supercomputers. Our lives benefit from this small device’s connection, information, and efficiency. There are other moments when I long to slow down all that… Read More →
“I wasn’t surprised that my kid looked at inappropriate content online. I know it comes with the territory,” a parent recently confided. “What upset me more is that he lied about it.” “This is always so tricky,” I sympathized. “We only see a little snapshot of what is going on. And it can be hard… Read More →
I can still remember the poster hanging in my fourth-grade classroom. Against the backdrop of a star-studded night sky, a comet blazed across the image accompanied by text that read, “You can be a star!” As a child of the eighties, I grew up during the self-esteem movement. Posters, programs, and books consistently communicated, “‘If… Read More →
