Technology, Children and the Wild Wild West

I have two middle school aged children growing up in this technologically fast-paced world. This new frontier they face is unlike the landscape that colored the world for me when I was their same age. I recall when the newest and most revolutionary technological advancement was the three-way call. The three-way call was most likely invented because adults needed the ability to conference over the phone to get productive business accomplished within time constraints. Remember, there was no faxing yet, few people had car phones and only the wealthy had cell phones (those eight pound Motorolas, if you are old enough to recall), the internet did not exist (nor did personal laptops!), nor did Skype or Facetime.  

I managed to abuse the new three- way call system right from the start. I would hide silently on the line while eavesdropping on my best friend and another party (usually a boy being asked leading questions about who he liked). Another time, I recall tricking one unsuspecting friend into “confessing” how she lied about me while I had the person she lied to on the line as well.

Today the damage from technological misuse or abuse has far more perilous consequences whose ramifications are capable of being catastrophic and life-shattering. We see the same story played out all across America seemingly every week. That is, kids sending text messages that come back to haunt them in court by implicating them in criminal activities (such as hate crimes and other bullying), raunchy pictures and inappropriate homemade video content that takes on a life of its own, and even public figures such as politicians and celebrities from all walks of life who make the most personal mistakes and missteps at the most public levels—the world stage.

Kids sending pictures of themselves in compromising states of undress to other minors can easily become targeted by dangerous cyber-predators, or even prosecuted themselves and made to register for life as sex offenders for disseminating child pornography (of themselves or other minors whose pictures they forward to others). This new world is not too dissimilar to the Wild Wild West when lawlessness spread faster than the codification of laws could keep pace.

As the parent of two minors I am concerned about protecting them from themselves as much as from others. If I allow them to have smart phones with the ability to text I do so because I want to keep them safe—mostly by being able to track them down anywhere and converse in real time. Ironically though, the device that gives me a measure of control through the ability to track and monitor my kids is the same device that is a literal Pandora’s box.