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Guest post: 'Internet giants are exploiting our kids - and we need to take a stand'

6 replies

MumsnetGuestPosts · 21/04/2015 11:14

When I first walked into a room and saw six kids all simultaneously messaging rather than talking, I became concerned about whether they were ever 100% present in their own lives. That concern led to my making a film, In Real Life – and the process changed my perceptions on what exactly we should be worrying about.

As parents, we have drawn the internet safety conversation very firmly around explicit content, cyber-bullying and grooming, self-harming and pro-ana sites. All of these things are crucially important of course, but there’s another, less understood landscape at play, too.

Compulsive attachment to our electronic devices, who owns our kids’ data, whether they're being commercially groomed by being ‘made’ to click and engage with content that has no real value to them - these are issues we tend to consider less. Young people on social media are usually unaware that the technology is deliberately designed to extend their time online, that their need to 'attend' to every buzz, click and wobble is being exploited - not (as we are often told) to provide a better service, but in a race for what the industry calls Daily Active Users (or DAUs).

DAUs are the real currency of the digital world - the more a site has, the more valuable it is. They're the reason for all those ‘interruptions and distractions’, and they are affecting the development and behaviour of our young people.

The implications are infinite - socially, academically, and politically. A person who is trained to respond rather than critically think is less safe, less informed and less independent - and frequently overwhelmed. I have spoken to dozens of kids upset by the tsunami of messages and social demands, deflated by the activities of others from which they have been excluded, and over-exposed by so many people knowing their every move. Young people who have developed a 'habit' that sees them checking and clicking throughout the night. The statistics reflect this: we know that the longer a teenager spends using electronic devices, the worse their sleep will be, for example.

The most extreme story I heard was from a young woman of 15 who was held to sexual ransom for her phone. A recent report from the Children's Commissioner has shown that phone snatching, and refusing to give it back until sexual favours have been performed, is a growing norm for our young people.

Her description of how important that tiny machine was to her was vivid. It was a talisman, the thing that put her in the centre of activity. She would have been a 'non-person' without it, she told me, and the boys had exploited this. We have failed to understand the centrality of devices in young people's lives, and failed to take a stand on the deliberately compulsive technology they're exposed to.

So what we should actually do about all of this? The media would have you believe that there are two polarised camps - those who cannot see a way of making any concessions to young people online without turning into a police state, and those who wish to ‘protect and patrol’ their kids in ways that are, if not impossible, then improbable. We need to find a compromise; a way of teaching young people the literacy and creativity they need to contribute to the net rather than just consume it.

I believe that we need an agreed framework for how kids are treated online – a ‘bill of rights’, if you will. These are called iRights, and they are based on certain principals about how children should be treated. They are: the right to delete what you have put up if you are under 18; the right to know what is being done with your data and a meaningful ability to say yes to some things and no to others; the right to safety and support in a way that is universal and consistent across digital platforms; the right to informed and conscious use so that reward loops and the deliberate orchestrating of behaviour is much more apparent to the user; the right to digital literacy and a clear understanding of the possible or probable social outcomes of your digital engagement.

These five rights would take a comprehensive and sophisticated view and give developers a clear, finite set of principles to stick to. They can be used at every other level of the internet ‘food chain’, too - from policy makers through to commercial companies and campaigners, parents and the young people themselves. What is more, rather than concentrating on one issue at a time (safety, say, or data, or education, or compulsive use), these principals work across all issues.

The idea has a great deal of support, from Girl Guiding to the National Union of Teachers, and Barclays Bank to Mozilla - scores of organisations have signed up to put their voices behind a new deal for children and young people. We need an online world in which the young are considered, and I believe this is the best way forward.

You can find out more about iRights and sign up here.

OP posts:
Tianc · 21/04/2015 18:55

Interesting stuff.

Of course these issues affect adults too, but adults are - often wrongly! - supposed to have taken informed decisions about how to they allow their data to be used, or how they use technology.

I haven't had time to look closely at your iRights yet, and don't know how successful this bill of rights might be. But I like that you're looking at this across all issues. We're living through a time of huge change in the way people interact, and change in the information about our lives which can be collected in the first place, is published to the globe rather than shared with friends, and is permanent rather than transient.

There's a serious game of catch-up to be played in understanding the consequences of all our digital engagement.

wigglylines · 21/04/2015 19:40

Great idea i'm really glad this is being discussed.

bluejelly · 21/04/2015 20:06

100% behind this. Big companies have essentially monetised human interaction. We need protection from them.

GibberingFlapdoodle · 22/04/2015 08:59

I'm glad that this is opening discussion. I think iRights is a good idea, but perhaps we should include an iResponsibility too? (not to be confused with irresponsibility...)

The irights mention the need to feel safe and report problems: it doesn't appear to address the need to stop bullying others, particularly from the gender pov. This imbalance can become victim blaming.

I'm concerned about the gender bias in cyberbullying. Cyber bullying becomes revenge porn against girls, and your story about the girl being held to sexual ransom is illustrative of a couple of points. Girls get all the cyber bullying that boys get plus a whole extra range of threats. Yes girls need to understand that they should never accept bullying (if that had happened to me at 15 I would have reported the offender for theft, not be held to ransom). But equally boys need to understand that they should stop bullying.

There is a huge gender divide in Britain and it appears to be blossoming, if that is a good word for such a deeply unpleasant phenomenon, in the digital age. Do we need a split gender approach? Normally feminism would say that that makes things worse.

But at least irights should include an iResponsibility to not bully others.

GibberingFlapdoodle · 22/04/2015 09:07

Thinking as I'm going along...I guess that's what your right no 5 tries to achieve, but I don't think it is strong enough.

cdtaylornats · 24/04/2015 09:51

iRights all sounds nice and is undoubtedly a wonderful aspiration but not very practical. Universal and consistent standards is just another way of saying "no choice".

Which definition of child do you use, if its under 18 then how can that square with the idea of voting at 16.

I think that rather than forcing more regulations onto the problem it would be better to educate children not to bully, not to generate unsuitable content.

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