"The Touch-Screen Generation": Reflections on The Atlantic Magazine's Report

When the April issue of The Atlantic first appeared, its cover story, "The Touch-Screen Generation," created a lot of buzz. It promised to answer some pressing questions on the minds of many parents today about letting small kids use smartphones and tablets. On the magazine’s cover, beneath the catchy bold cover line, was the question, "What's this technology doing to toddlers' brains?" Hanna Rosin, the article’s writer, asked early on in the piece, "How do small children actually experience electronic media, and what does that experience do to their development?"

Unfortunately, after more than 7,000 words, Rosin came up with very few answers. I don’t exactly blame her. The problem is no one really knows how tablets and smartphones might affect a young child's development. Not yet, at least. As Rosin herself writes in the piece, "To date, no body of research has definitively proved that the iPad will make your preschooler smarter or teach her to speak Chinese, or alternatively that it will rust her neural circuitry — the device has been out for only three years, not much more than the time it takes some academics to find funding and gather research subjects."

Exactly. The iPad debuted three years ago this month. So before 2010, a grand total of zero toddlers could be found playing with one — in a restaurant, a grocery store line or anywhere else. Before June 2007, no toddler had ever used an iPhone, either. (The Apple App Store, with its endless apps for small kids, didn’t appear until 2008.) Today’s toddlers are truly the first in the entire history of toddlerhood to ever use such touchscreen devices. So research in this area is understandably in its infancy. Rosin herself notes, "Because interactive media are so new, most of the existing research looks at children and television." Indeed, most experts agree: There’s a lot we just won’t know for some time.

But here’s something we do know: Toddlers and preschoolers are being targeted like crazy by app developers. The apps-for-tots market is exploding today as more and more developers scramble to get in the game. Over 80% of the top-selling paid educational apps in the iTunes App Store now target children, and of these, a full 72% are aimed at preschoolers. (See this study by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center.) Thousands of apps for kids are being released every year. And it doesn't stop at the toddler/preschooler level. At a conference of children’s app developers Rosin writes about in her piece, developers were testing apps for kids as young as a year old. We live in an age when people post YouTube videos of 2-month-olds poking at iPads — and app developers know it.

It’s not surprising that today’s parents have many concerns and questions about the effects of smartphone and tablet use by young children and babies. How much screen time is appropriate at different ages? Are there any risks of longterm harm from using these devices? Many parents are legitimately struggling over how to use this technology with their little ones. Some tell tales of toddlers begging for their iPad and throwing fits when forced to give it up. Some call it an obsession — even an addiction. Some worry their toddlers are zoning out on touchscreens to the point where they won't answer when they're called. (Just take a glance at this recent story about a 4-year-old in the UK being treated as an iPad "addict," or this follow-up in The New York Daily News on small kids hooked on iPads.)

For all its promise, Rosin’s article did not adequately address these concerns. It’s a lengthy piece, but in the end the big message seemed to be that parents should simply relax. Rosin writes that parents today have a “neurotic relationship with technology” and feel guilty about giving their small children tablets and smartphones to play with. She made the case in her piece — and in a slew of radio and TV and interviews that followed — that because there are interesting and various things kids can learn from interactive apps, parents really should shake their negative attitudes about them.

"Free yourself from this neurosis and guilt," Rosin said on NPR's "Weekend Edition." "Technology is with us. Just accept it. The phones are with us. The iPads are with us. Some of them are amazing — they're super cool."

In an interview with Boston's WBUR show "Here and Now," Rosin said we’re "in a neurotic place" now and talked about parents' "instinctive horror" over children using touchscreen technology. She urged parents "not to instinctively, automatically treat it like poison — talk about it like it's poison and a lollipop and sugary sodas. It's really not the same."

On "The Leonard Lopate Show" on WNYC in New York, she said, “Don’t pass onto your children the idea that 'this is poison, use it sparingly.' Understand that even for little kids there are interesting things that they can do and learn with this technology. It's not time wasted, it's not brain rot. It's actually something more interesting than that."

OK, we get it. But the interviews — and indeed the article itself — seemed too dismissive of many genuine concerns and real-world parental choices about technology and kids today. Two years ago, The New York Times ran an in-depth piece about Silicon Valley execs who chose to send their own kids to a Waldorf School that uses no computers or screens at all. It quoted parents like Alan Eagle, a Google employee with a computer science degree, who said, "The idea that an app on an iPad can better teach my kids to read or do arithmetic, that's ridiculous." Parents like Eagle had reasons for feelings as they did. Rosin mentioned this article on "Here and Now" but quickly brushed aside these tech execs' choices. "When you deal with a technology so much what I realized is that your paranoia maybe gets increased instead of decreased," Rosin said.

"Paranoia"? There’s no question that tablets and smartphones have a high coolness factor and can potentially offer kids great experiences and opportunities for learning. Indeed, Rosin spends a big chunk of her article detailing exactly how cool various interactive apps for kids really are, in her opinion. But does it do parents any favors to call their cautions and desires to limit screen time a "neurosis"?

In interviews, Rosin repeated one story again and again — something she seems to be basing much of her conclusions upon. As she writes in her article (though you have to get to the very end to find this out), she conducted an experiment with her youngest son in which she gave him unlimited access to an iPad for six months. She put it in the toy basket and let him use it whenever and however he wanted, no restrictions. 

While it was "extremely annoying" at first — Rosin's son wanted to use the device for two-hour stretches at inconvenient times — Rosin says he eventually dropped it under a bed and forgot about it. It fell out of rotation for weeks. "Now he picks it up every once in a while, but not all that often," she writes. "It took the edge off my thinking, 'Oh my God, his brain is turning to mush, he’s going to become addicted to this thing,'" Rosin said on "The Leonard Lopate Show." "I no longer have that thought."

Rosin told Lopate she wishes she "could urge all parents" to try the same experiment to put their minds at ease. Does she mean all parents of kids of all ages? Is any age too young for giving unlimited use of a touchscreen? Rosin calls her son a "toddler" in the article but doesn't specify his age. On NPR's "Weekend Edition," though, she said he was 4 when she conducted this experiment. Is a 4-year-old toddler with unfettered access to an iPad any different from a 15-month-old toddler with unfettered access to an iPad? (Are 4-year-olds even technically "toddlers"?) What about a 12-month-old? A 7-month-old? A 3-month-old? Would Rosin have conducted the same experiment on her son if he had been 18 months old at the time rather than 4? Would she have drawn the same conclusions?

Generalizing about "toddlers" — especially based on one experiment with one 4-year-old — seems dangerous here. And that’s one problem The Atlantic piece has: It discusses some research involving kids of certain ages — Rosin cites one study (unpublished as yet) her own child participated in that documented behaviors of 32-month-olds using iPads, for example — but offers nothing regarding any new research or data on even younger children, say, the under-2 set.

Even research on children and TV, after so many decades, becomes more scant when it comes to kids under about age 3. And we know kids 2 and under are being handed tablets and smartphones (forget about TV) with increasing frequency these days. But The Atlantic, despite its promised focus on "toddlers," seems to wander away from any real focus on touchscreen use by the very youngest of our children.

The hundreds of comments from online readers — on The Atlantic’s website and elsewhere — were telling. What they told is just how complex an issue this really is. Some commenters pointed out what else wasn't covered in this 7,000-plus-word article – big topics like the importance of manipulating 3D objects to the early development of young brains. A month later, the comments are still coming in. I’d like to let some speak for themselves here. First, a few comments from The Atlantic’s own site:

- From Rob O'Daniel, who calls himself "a career IT guy, not some head-in-the-sand Luddite": "…children only have a tiny sliver of time in which it's allowable for them to be children. So why cut into that precious time by preemptively trying to mold them into junior technologists and rapid media consumers? My son will have the rest of his life to be enslaved to PCs and other techogadgets, While he's 6 yrs old, I'd like for him to indulge every Lego-playing, finger-painting, bike-riding, earthworm-digging, silly-dancing, fort-building impulse possible. If I've given him a strong foundation that will allow him to survive and thrive in the analog world, the digital will come effortlessly."

- From "Robert SF": "Children need to learn to manipulate 3D objects in a 3D world. Playing ball and getting hit, running around and falling, building something and watching it collapse, all teach that, but a flat screen cannot teach that."

- A similar thought from "djoelt1," who has three young children who aren't allowed to use screens: "At the stage of life the children are in, the laws of physics, chemistry, magentism, optics, and sound are so everpresent and fascinating that nothing on a screen could rival it." This person wrote about the activity of constructing jumps for bicycles, for example. "No amount of fancy graphics or imaginary bike jumping program can teach about how to harness balance, center of gravity, speed, and ramp angle to ride off a jump and land on one wheel or two."

- On a different note, from Natalie Danner: "How are children learning social skills, self-control, attention, persistence, and the ability to entertain themselves without technology?" 

- Dennis Noble brings up the possible dangers of radio waves emitted by wireless devices: "Anyone with any awareness these days knows that exposure to wireless is considered a risk to health. The International Agency on Reseach [sic] on Cancer classified the Radio Frequency radiation as a possible carcinogen, the same classification as DDT and lead. Children are far more vulnerable to this and as we expose young children to this technology, we are playing Russian roulette with their brains, their bodies, and their DNA." (See the IARC's 2011 press release on this here. For more on the subject, see what the National Cancer Institute says about cell phone use.)

- From "sammybaker," a point, made rather pessimistically, about what kind of foundation might be laid when kids use screens at very young ages without a parental "media plan" in place: "Handing little kids a tech device is like handing them a bag of cookies and expecting them to have the frontal lobe ability to not scarf them down. What they learn at 3 or 6 or 8 will stay with them as teens. Those years go by fast. If you don't navigate childhood with a media plan, be ready for that chubby cheeked 'pester power' pro to mutate into an entertainment obsessed 7-year-old and then a texting, sexting force of nature risk taker at 13. When mine turned 8, we had a written set of rules they had to agree to for that iPod, etc... If they are not able to do that, don't hand them a tech device, unless you commit to the time to sit next to them and play with them, edu apps or not."

- With more on possible down-the-road effects of being plugged in early (and often), reader Anthony Davis commented on "digital natives," whom Rosin defines as "the first generations of children growing up fluent in the language of computers, video games, and other technologies": "Yes, and I still have to teach these 'digital natives' in college that copying and pasting from Wikipedia and checking out the first entry on a search engine don't qualify as research. The smartphone is not a back up for poor short-term memory during a quiz. The squiggly green and red lines on the documents in their word processors are actually trying to tell them something basic about their writing ability. Skimming off Sparknotes.com is not the same as synthesizing and analyzing…" (He continues on from there...)

- "Kira" observed that not having access to digital devices makes kids work to find creative solutions: "We restrict use quite a bit in our household and I've noticed that in those ‘I'm bored’ moments, not having access, makes our two kids work together to have fun - build things, play cards, play keep it up with a ball, etc...To me that is worth restricting the app use."

- Reader Hal Horvath had similar thoughts to "Kira": "We use breaks, including days at a time, from the finite world of apps/games, and I can tell you from repeated experience that an interesting thing happens. After a day or two without the Wii, computer, or Kindle, our daughter doesn't even seek them out, but continues building and creating her own stuff, out of found materials."

- Another reader, "pavopax," linked to this recent article from Fast Company, "Why Your iPhone Addiction Is Snuffing Your Creativity," also on the importance of, well, boredom.

A few more interesting comments from other sites:

- From "mld," on Rosin's interview with WBUR's "Here and Now": "I think its [sic] the wrong question to ask. More important to ask 'why are we so enamored with a toddler's ability to operate a touch screen?' So what? It isn't difficult--not like they learned to play the violin or learned to read." 

- From "Sally," on the interview with WNYC's Leonard Lopate: "I have an 11 year old son, and I find that he becomes very aggressive when he spends a lot of time on an electronic device, especially when playing video games. I limit screen time for him."

- From "Taylor," responding to a post on The New York Times' parenting blog "Motherlode," by KJ Dell'Antonia, about The Atlantic's article: "[A]fter introducing the iPad to my toddler to keep him entertained on a long car ride, we are now awash in a sea of regret. He asks for it CONSTANTLY, cries and throws things when we say no, already knows how to navigate to the movies we've downloaded, go back to the beginning, etc. It's crazy to me. We've done a great job of standing our ground so far - he's allowed to use it only once a week, only supervised, etc. But it's the whining about it that drives me crazy. Anyone with tips, please let me know what worked for you to curb iPad cravings."

- From Mike Kaplan, also commenting on the "Motherlode" post: "One thing missing from iPad play is the tactile interactions with objects, and I wonder what we're losing when we replace three-dimensional playtime in the world of objects and space with 2-dimensional time in the world of simulated objects and simulated space. The coordinated input from multiple senses that you get when handling and looking at an object may be more important than it appears, especially during early development."

- Elaborating on this same idea, Amy L. Slutzky, a pediatric occupational therapist of 33 years, wrote in to "Here and Now" a rather technical explanation of exactly why it's important for babies and toddlers to explore their 3D world. Part of her post: "I 
think we are wise as adults to be cautious regarding exposure of very young
 children to any electronic screen use. When we talk about child development, 
development of the brain, it is easy to limit our thinking about cognitive
 development to visual and auditory learning. However, development, especially
 during the earliest months and years, depends on a gradual expansion of sensory-motor, 
or physical control of the body and the hands during movement, directed by the 
visual system…. Spontaneous
 three-dimensional manipulations with infinite varieties of intensive tactile
 qualities and resistance is critical to development of skillful dexterity, or
 eye-hand coordination. Each specific interaction with the environment contributes 
to a storehouse in the brain for future reference."

Slutzky cites two experts who each "estimated that one-third of our children are failing to develop the
 musclulature of the hand, and the eyes for competent use... The precision muscles in the palm of the hands and the fingers, as well 
as the tiny but all-important eye muscles that control movement of the eyes 
hands [sic] do not have the opportunity to develop in the complex context of the
 three dimensional world no matter how 'interactive' a designed program might 
be."

Indeed, while Rosin lauds the interactiveness of many children's apps, several online commenters argue that apps necessarily have built-in restrictions and limitations. Here's "Jane," for another example, responding to the Leonard Lopate interview: "As interactive and educational as the apps may be, they are REPLACING children's imaginations with pre-determined choices, rather than allowing the children to come up with their own ideas, or allowing them to learn to interact with the world around them."

In a recent New York Times piece called "The Child, the Tablet and the Developing Mind," reporter Nick Bilton quotes Dr. Gary Small, director of the Longevity Center at UCLA, saying, "We really don’t know the full neurological effects of these technologies yet." Bilton writes that Small, author of iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind, says "we do know that the brain is highly sensitive to stimuli, like iPads and smartphone screens, and if people spend too much time with one technology, and less time interacting with people like parents at the dinner table, that could hinder the development of certain communications skills."

When it comes to our children, caution seems prudent on so many fronts — especially in an area of life in which so much is yet unknown. Hardly anyone would criticize a parent for wanting to limit her young child’s or baby's TV time. Why such a different response to parents' choices about mobile screens held inches from their children's faces? Parents’ concerns need support and understanding. Let’s respect the challenges parents face when it comes to technology use and tots and keep the "neurosis" talk out of it.

Teach Online Privacy Early, Say Google Execs in "The New Digital Age"

Never mind the birds and the bees. It's the "online talk" that kids need to hear first.

That's what two Google executives write in the new book The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business. 

And when top guns at Google say teaching kids about online privacy and security should come even before sex education, you might want to listen. They know a thing or two, after all, about collecting personal information online.

"Whether you're in New York or Saudi Arabia or a part of Asia, educating the next generation as they're coming online young and fast is going to be important, regardless of what kind of society it is," Jared Cohen, director of Google Ideas, told NPR's "All Tech Considered" this week.

Cohen, a counterterrorism expert and former State Department adviser, teamed up with Google's executive chairman and former CEO Eric Schmidt to write The New Digital Age, out today. The book lays out a vision of what the near future will look like in an increasingly "connected" world.

"Parents will have to talk to their kids about online privacy and security *years* before they talk to them about the birds and the bees," reads a post on the Facebook page for The New Digital Age. "Online privacy and security will be taught alongside health class."

Schmidt and Cohen say that kids today are part of a generation unlike any that came before it when it comes to virtual identities and permanent online profiles.

"The parent sits there and says, 'There's really no delete button for what my 10-year-old or 11-year-old is about to post, and I really don't want this following them for the next 50 years,'" Schmidt told NPR.

"From birth till your death now, going forward, your online profile will be shaped more and more by online events, what people say about you, and it will be very difficult for you to control that," he said. "And so the reality is that a child growing up today will find more and more of the things said about them and the things they do accumulate over time. We'll all, of course, deal with that as a society, and there will be a change in social mores. But the fact of the matter is that our generation never had this problem."

From The New Digital Age Facebook page

Cohen said he and Schmidt met with parents across the world as they conducted research for their new book. In the process, they came to a greater appreciation of the importance of teaching online privacy to kids.

For more on The New Digital Age and the authors' forecasts, both bleak and hopeful—and on Google's own troubles with privacy (they've been sued repeatedly over privacy concerns)—see this Huffington Post review. 

And for more on the authors' journeys to various autocratic regimes, and what might happen as 5 billion more people log onto the Internet in the coming decades, joining the 2 billion already online, listen to this second discussion with "All Tech Considered." The authors explore such questions as What will the Internet in Burma look like? and Will North Korea ever really be online?

New Yorker Cartoon Roundup: Reflections on Generation Tech

Here's one just for fun. Through the decades, The New Yorker magazine has captured the changing digital landscape with true genius through witty cartoons that are spot-on. Here's a quick roundup of some of the magazine's best cartoons from the past few years on growing up digital by an array of clever artists. Enjoy!

From September 27, 2010, by artist Emily Flake (who was also highlighted in this earlier post):

Is this what's coming next? From December 17, 2012, by artist Harry Bliss:

Another classic by Emily Flake, from April 11, 2011:

Here are two recent cartoons on "the Cloud." First, from August 13, 2012, by Emily Flake again...

... and from October 8, 2012, by Tom Cheney:

This is not about young people per se, but I couldn't resist. It's one of the funniest cartoons I've ever seen about the Internet. From June 25, 2012, by Roz Chast:

From September 5, 2011, by Alex Gregory:

From October 1, 2012, by Matthew Diffee, about a girl's Klout score, or alleged social media influence:

And finally, my absolute favorite. By Mick Stevens, published March 15, 2010. This one says it all:

"Present Shock" Author on Kids and Digital Media: When and How to Use What

Forget "future shock" — the stress of dealing with rapid, accelerating change. Our problem is the present — the real-time, "always on" immediacy of today's digital culture, says media theorist Douglas Rushkoff in his new book, Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now.

Rushkoff has been studying the impact of digital media on society for the past 30 years. It was Rushkoff who coined the phrases "viral media" and "digital native." In his latest book on media, technology and culture, out today, Rushkoff argues that trying to keep up in the digital world can be overwhelming — and comes at a cost.

"Thanks to the Internet, we travel more on business not less, we work at all hours on demand, and spend our free time answering email or tending to our social networks," Rushkoff writes in Present Shock. "Staring into screens, we are less attuned to light of day and the physiological rhythms of our housemates and co-workers."

Rushkoff, who made the 2010 PBS Frontline documentary Digital_Nation, calls us "citizens of the virtual city that never sleeps" in Present Shock. He describes such new phenomena as "digiphrenia" — the divided attention that results from being in multiple "places" at once and having multiple "selves" existing online simultaneously.

I won't dig much deeper into Present Shock here — you can read excerpts published in The Wall Street Journal and on "Medium;" read the reviews in The New York Times and Forbes; watch Rushkoff's recent speech on the subject at WebVisions New York 2013; listen to his interview on NPR's "On Point" today; and read this Q&A, just posted on Edutopia. It's all great stuff from a man who writes, "The future is so yesterday." 

Instead, I'd like to devote some space to what Rushkoff has written recently on children and digital media. Rushkoff has said that the constant pings of texts are taking kids out of the present moment rather than helping them live in it. And that growing up on Facebook — developing socially in an online spotlight — can put a lot of pressure on young people. (See why Rushkoff quit Facebook himself last month in this CNN.com piece — a scathing critique of what he calls an "anti-social social network.")

In two recent blog posts on Edutopia, Rushkoff offers parents advice on introducing digital media to children of different ages. The father of a 7-year-old himself, he has some firsthand experience. Here's a look at what he says in each post:

"Young Kids and Technology at Home," on Media and Younger Kids

Babies and toddlers are still developing the ability to understand the 3D world, Rushkoff writes here. "They don't fully understand the rules of opaque objects (that's why peekaboo behind a napkin poses endless fascination), so high quantities of time spent sitting in front of 2D screens may actually inhibit some of their 3D spatial awareness."

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), and indeed most pediatricians, recommend that children under age 2 have no screen time whatsoever, for this reason and others. It's a time of tremendous, critical brain development, and the AAP stresses that young children need to learn through interactions with people, not screens.

Rushkoff acknowledges the stresses and realities of parenting — and the lure of the screen — and suggests a compromise: no more than 20 minutes of screen time twice a day for the very little. Still, he says, this should only be DVDs designed for kids that have long scenes their brains can process and elements such as nature that they wouldn't otherwise see. "And no, they can't sit next to Junior while he watches Lego Star Wars," Rushkoff writes.

Rushkoff says this is good policy for kids even up to 7 or 8 years old when it comes to devices like the iPad or Nintendo DS. That's because there's so much else kids need to learn first — such as gravity. Rushkoff writes:

"Little kids play with balls, seesaws and slides as they develop their vestibular senses, and come to learn about the wonders of gravity. They move on to Frisbees, bikes and Hula Hoops as they explore angular momentum and harmonic motion. The weightless world of a digital game or virtual environment fascinates us for the way it defies the rules of the real world; until we are firmly anchored in the former reality, however, these new principles are not neurologically compatible with a developing sensory system."

In other words, it's best not to mess with developing feedback mechanisms in a child. Let kids learn to navigate the real world before they venture into virtual ones, Rushkoff says.

"Technology at Home: Developing the Social Self," on the Tween Years and Beyond

Once your kids hit the tween years, it's important that they understand the various media they're using "from the inside out: who made this, how does it work, and what does it want from me?" Rushkoff writes. Kids should understand the motivations of the developers behind all the media that's competing for their attention, he says.

"An app is not just an app: it is a marketing plan, an influence platform, and an effort at manipulation. This doesn't mean it's bad – just that it has a purpose," Rushkoff writes. Young people especially, he says, "are unaware that the virtual environments they inhabit may not be constructed with their best interests in mind." Parents should help them understand this.

It's OK to let tweens play with and learn from digital media for one or two hours each day, he says, but it should not be their primary means of social engagement.

"Why? It's not really social!" Rushkoff writes. "Social development is a body-to-body, face-to-face affair. As our social selves form, we learn to read and send messages to other people. This is when we learn most of the 94% of communication that occurs non-verbally: body positions, tone of voice, pupils dilating or contracting... in other words, the stuff you can't see in a chat room or even a 4-inch video window."

Rushkoff doesn't recommend letting tweens on Facebook or other social media until they are "fully socialized" themselves. And if you give a tween his own mobile device, he says, make sure you're in charge of when and how it's used. Keep computers and other media devices in family rooms where you can monitor kids' usage. Do not allow them in kids' bedrooms.

"Let your children enjoy and learn from this stuff, but let them know from the outset that these are not mere toys; there are people on the other side of the screen — developers and programmers — whose job it is to make it really hard for a kid to stop playing." Empower kids to turn games off, Rushkoff writes. "If you can't turn it off, it means you're losing the bigger game." Let every minute a kid goes over her allotted time for the day cost 5 minutes of time the next day, Rushkoff advises.

As for teens, Rushkoff says they "shouldn't be online until they understand how to create their own online spaces." Teens should learn basic HTML and learn about databases. They should be exposed to coding languages and should learn to think critically about digital tools and virtual worlds. Schools and parents alike have the responsibility to encourage this education, Rushkoff says.

"The computer isn't a bad or dirty thing, but it is a portal to the outside world," he writes. "It provides access to love and hate, sex and war, ideas and ignorance, support and abuse. Just like the front doors to our homes, computers may welcome our dearest friends, but anyone can knock."

And when the lights go out, he writes, so should the smartphones. "Exceptions to the rule are that Hurricane Sandy hit, or the kids are at a sleepover. 'Johnny may ask me to the dance' is not an exception."

Note Rushkoff's great list of resources for parents and other interested parties at the end of this post, too. It includes Talking Back to Facebook, a 2012 book by James P. Steyer, founder and CEO of Common Sense Media, that addresses many parents' concerns about social media and offers practical advice. In this age of "present shock" and in-the-moment digital living, it's advice many parents will eagerly hear.

Sneaking a Peek: Is It OK to Read Your Kids' Text Messages?

When does parenting become spying? It's a question that comes up often in this age of mobile kids with virtual social lives. But the answer is rarely straightforward.

A parent recently asked Common Sense Media (CSM) if it's OK for parents to read their kids' texts to make sure they're not getting into trouble. The response, by CSM's parenting editor Caroline Knorr, was a bit nuanced.

In short, Knorr wrote, it's essential to discuss responsible cell phone behavior with your children — and do this in the beginning, when you first hand a child a phone — and to set consequences for breaking the rules. And yes, you need to keep an eye on their cell phone behavior. But as far as outright reading their texts? "There's no absolute right answer here," Knorr wrote. "It depends on your kid's age, personality, and behavior."

Some behaviors will set off louder alarm bells than others. Changes to a child's appearance or actions could mean something is up. If you suspect that your child is going through something bad but won't talk about it, Knorr says, you may have "probable cause" for peeking at texts.

The links throughout Knorr's piece to other CSM articles offer further advice about sexting, responsible texting, setting cellphone use rules and deciding what devices to give your kids when — do they really need a cell phone with texting? At what age? Knorr's "Parents' Guide to Kids and Cell Phones" is a great place to start for help with these questions and many more. See the CSM article "Are You Spying on Your Kid?" too, on walking that fine line between protecting your children and invading their privacy.

And read what some kids had to say in the comments sections, too. "Parents, it's true that we do treat phones like diaries," writes one 13-year-old. "If you go through them without asking, it offends us a little that you don't have trust in us." This young person said it's OK for his or her parents to read texts as long as they ask first. "I love them, but I'd rather they not just read them whenever they feel like it."

Then there's the 11-year-old who simply answered the "Is it OK" question with, "NOOOOOOOO!" No ambiguity there. Other kids who had their own phones at as young as 6 and 8 years old weighed in on the issue, too. Not surprisingly, they had something to say on the matter. 

"This Is Part of Raising Children Now": TV Report on Monitoring Kids' Online Lives

There's no excuse for not staying on top of your children's online activity, experts said in a recent TV news report from WRAL in Raleigh, Durham and Fayetteville, North Carolina.

WRAL reporter Amanda Lamb talked to social media experts who agreed that parents must educate themselves about the media platforms their kids are using, and educate their kids — from the very beginning — about the various pitfalls involved. (See the TV report here.)



Lamb spoke with some kid experts, too. Twelve-year-old Kalyse Connor said social media is a "huge" part of her middle school life. Even her 7-year-old sister, Kaiya, is online, using sites like National Geographic's Animal Jam and doing Facetime with her mom.

But Kalyse and Kaiya's parents closely monitor all of their online activity. "Our girls cannot go on any social network without our permission," said Angela Connor, who manages social media for a communications company. “I think we have to be involved as parents," she said. "It's not OK to say, 'Oh, I don't know. We didn't do that when I was a kid.'"

A top concern of many parents is kids posting things that will get other people, or themselves, in trouble — now or down the road.

"We don't know what college applications are going to be like in six years," said the girls' father, Derek Connor. "Are they going to Google you? Are they going to go back and look at your Facebook page and see the things you've posted?"

"It's really important for parents to understand that they have to do this," Angela Connor added. "This is part of raising children now."

Watch the full report above, or read the story — which includes an Internet safety checklist for parents from North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper — here.

Edutopia: More Great Resources on Raising Kids in a Digital World

For anyone looking for guidance navigating the digital world of today's kids, the site Edutopia has a great resource page that's a must to bookmark.

"Media and Digital Literacy: Resources for Parents" is an excellent collection of articles, videos, tip sheets and other resources compiled by the editors of Common Sense Media. These carefully curated links contain a wealth of useful information. Learn how much privacy a kid gives up in one hour online. Find out what to do when Facebook photos go wrong. Learn how to create a healthy media diet for your kids.

The topics on this site run the gamut, from keeping kids safe online to the ins and outs of social networking sites. Need help dealing with digital harrassment? Check out "When Texting Turns to Torment." Want to learn more about digital security? Read about the dangers of phishing and spyware here. If you're not too clear on how kids can use digital media ethically for schoolwork, there's a section of resources on hi-tech cheating, digital piracy and copyright law. There are even links on the influence of media role models and why these role models matter.

Edutopia, a site published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, has as its mission improving K-12 education. The well-organized site catalogs innovative practices in education. Thankfully for interested parents and caregivers, it catalogs articles like the above as well. It's an easy-to-navigate site and well worth a look.