Technology and kids

I’m a bit afraid of raising kids in this era because of social media. Maybe it’s because I’m just in that last generation where social media wasn’t part of our childhood. But I see kids today like my younger sister who is 12 that’s just glued to YouTube or Tik-tok all day and it worries me.

When I was a kid, I was definitely glued to a computer screen and it worried my Dad quite a bit. I loved surfing the internet and playing computer games. I guess this is part of me just getting a bit old and out of touch with the kids of these days. But I feel like social media is a completely different animal than playing Starcraft with your friends.

There’s a lot of scary studies on the negative effects of social media on our kids these days. It seems that people are generally unhappier and are suffering from lower than ever self-esteem. Of course, this all could just be overblown by the media narratives and I need to chill out a bit.

All that said, I’d be lying if I wasn’t worried that my kid(s) won’t want to play catch with me or attend a ball game together. It seems that we’re closer that the norm will be attending a football game via a VR headset than stadiums becoming completely full again.

For now, I’m just operating under the principle that change is inevitable. Our kids will have much different childhoods than Sophia or mine. Despite all the potentially scary stuff, the optimistic in me does believe that our kid(s) will have a better childhood than mine.