I’m sure our readers are familiar with my endless tirades against older generations. Much of it derives from how baby boomers refuse to connect with the youth while smugly judging their economic ruin. Yes, we get it, you worked so hard in an environment where college tuition could be covered by two part-time jobs, good on you. Then again, almost no generation refuses to connect with their successors; we’re witnessing it right now with millennials decrying TikTok (my dudes, TikTok’s just Vine with extra teenage dancing).
All of this I state to make a simple statement: I do sympathize with parents nowadays. Not only do they have to deal with a generational gap that seemingly keeps widening with every new iteration, but they have to coach children through the technological age. It’s really difficult (read: nigh impossible) to shield children nowadays from the endless onslaught of data that is on the internet. Toxicity, hatred, and misanthropy bleed into every online crevice, and no I don’t think that’s being too dramatic.
PC Mag’s research attempted to gauge just how well children seem to be utilizing the internet under the guidance of parents: are they learning from the source, or is it just saccharine fast food? Well, parents seem to largely categorize their children as drawing from the latter. Of the 1,079 US parents that responded to the survey, a total of 66% of parents expressed concerns ranging from mild to severe. In contrast, 21% took a neutral stance, and only 13% of parents were relatively or completely unconcerned.
However, the hard stances that our elders took toward technology seem to have softened, albeit grudgingly. While 28% of the sample population strongly agrees that a child under 12 years of age should not have smartphone access, 38% also agree that technology helps prepare children for their future. Only 8% seemed to disagree with that last statement on any level.
Of the screen time that children were exposed to, 82% of parents stated that their kids watched YouTube. 67% noted their children playing video games, 35% of the youth spent their time interacting with digital assistants, and 24% created and published online content. That leaves 8% of the population, from which 3% did absolutely nothing, and 5% invested their time elsewhere. On the bright side, parents do seem to believe that their kids have picked up some useful skills. Typing skills and computer literacy were learned by 64% of the children respectively. 25% even learned coding and programming, which is such a boost in today’s tech-oriented world.
by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World
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