There are few things that surprise me about technology these days and even fewer about how people use it. But the age at which children are getting unsupervised access to technology seems to be getting younger.
Take the recent survey conducted by internet safety charity CyberSafeKids, which showed 82 per cent of children between the age of eight and 12 had access to smart devices in their bedrooms. Some 28 per cent said they can go online whenever they wanted and half said they spent too much time online.
People are asking: “Are we okay with this?” I suspect not, when we really sit and think about it. But how many people have handed over a smartphone to a small child as a last resort to get a few minutes of uninterrupted time or to distract them until food arrives? I certainly have – until there was an incident with a Peppa Pig cartoon that wasn’t really. And that was the end of that.
[ Ciara O'Brien: Keeping children safe online is not child’s playOpens in new window ]
We all know what we are supposed to do: supervise every online interaction. But the more ubiquitous technology has become, the more it becomes a normal part of our lives. The unintended consequence of that has been that we aren’t as tuned into its pitfalls.
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It used to be easier. There was one device that accessed the internet in your home if you were lucky: the family PC that experts advised to put in a well used part of the house so whoever was online would be under the watchful eye of someone with a bit more sense than the average 11 year old.
No one talked to people online that they didn’t know without a healthy dose of scepticism that they were telling the truth.
But now there are smart TVs and games consoles with online connections, tablets that can be squirrelled away in bedrooms, and the ubiquitous smartphone. Relationships are formed and nurtured online. The internet is everywhere and, barring a global catastrophe, it is not going away.
If you thought you were safe because “everything is locked down” think again. You might have missed the story of the Apple iPhone getting its first native porn app, something that would have been unthinkable two years ago.
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But the dismantling of Apple’s walled garden in the European Union has had another unintended consequence: the tech giant can no longer keep the adult-themed apps out and it can’t police the content offered by these app stores as closely as it would have in its own App Store.
Content ratings could be bypassed as could in-app purchase limits. If you were relying on parental controls to restrict access to new apps, you now have a few more boxes to go back and check.
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Access to technology is something that has been the topic of discussion at home in recent months. We have managed to get to more than 10 years of age without a serious request for a smartphone and it feels like a significant achievement.
It is easy enough at this stage though. As parents, we hold all the control for now. Phones are banned in primary school unless by prior arrangement. When it gets harder is as the children get older, turning into teenagers and young adults. It’s harder to restrict or remove a phone when they are funding it themselves.
And kids are resourceful. Think back to the tricks you used to pull to keep your clandestine activities hidden from your parents. Now put a tech spin on it and the advantage that children have by being digital natives.
My seven-year-old calmly punched in the pin number on his Switch that I thought I had hidden from his view
The oh-so-expensive pouches that schools are being encouraged to invest in, when many schools are struggling to fund equipment and basic upgrades for the classrooms, can be defeated by handing in a broken or burner phone instead.
With a bit of tech savvy, you can get around the screen time restrictions. It is not just the cybercriminals you have to watch out for when it comes to your codes; my seven-year-old calmly punched in the pin number on his Switch that I thought I had hidden from his view.
The point isn’t that parental controls don’t work; it is that we need to stay on top of the latest developments to make sure that these are still working. It feels a bit like a full-time job.
Not only do you have to watch out for grooming online on the services that you use, you now also have to make sure that you are up to speed on the ones you don’t but that your child does. That’s before you even get started on the spread of misinformation and how you teach the younger members of the family to evaluate critically what they encounter online.
Social media creates unprecedented opportunity for connection, but we feel lonelier than ever. The internet gives you access to a world of information at your fingertips, but with the good comes the bad. Again, unintended consequences.
Look to the United States to see the outsize impact that tech billionaires and their ambitions are having on society. Money talks, and in the US it talks loudly and over everyone who disagrees with the billionaires and their ambitions. That is less of an unintended consequence and more of a deliberate effort.
But again, we have to ask: are we okay with this?
