There are no digital natives, only children: the importance of building a Digital Health foundation in elementary school.

Building towards adolescent and adult digital health starts offline, and starts young.

Do 10,000 hours actually make any of us wise?

Many thanks to Saber Khan, Briar Sauro, and Matthew Reininger for their generous feedback on this article prior to publication.

I’ve been a parent for almost a decade, an educator for almost two now, and young learners fill me with continual optimism. I am convinced that they will, that they must surpass all those generation who came before in their efforts to build greater societal equity, civility, prosperity, health, and be better stewards of human needs and interests. We, as parents, educators and role models, alongside our timeless roles have a newer hat we must wear to nurture these generations. As I’ve raised my own children and worked to meet the shifting needs of my students, it has become clear to me we must set them on a course to become far more savvy, skilled and grounded digital citizens than any of their elders are at present. Key metrics and indicators of the impact that personal data gathering and digital manipulation have on our societal, informational, emotional and behavioral health are just beginning to surface; these are most likely the tips of deep and complex icebergs that we will need years if not decades to fully comprehend. By the numbers, nearly all users of personal technology lack a nuanced, savvy and health-centered understanding of the digital devices they rely on and the services they consume daily. It is therefore utterly imperative that we raise the next generation of digital technology users with the skills, practices and awareness needed to plot a course through the evolving tech landscape that keeps their personal health and obligations at the fore. To this end, I set out to write this article to offer provide a conversational framework, for use at home or in classrooms, so that anyone with any level of tech savvy can engage with children as young as five or six.

Here, our goal is simply to make three foundational concepts accessible to children: free, respect, and addiction.

First: some acknowledgements and considerations to bear in mind as you read this. As parents, educators or concerned humans, we are all engaging with the challenge of sustaining digital health and preventing online culture from causing individual or societal harm. Our efforts to do so emanate from all points across the full range of human identities and conditions. We hail from different age groups, gender identities, geographies, childhoods, communities, levels personal tech use or savvy and experiences with raising or nurturing children, and on and on. Given such a range, we cannot expect any one-shot solution to exist that would effectively inoculate against any challenges of online life for all permutations of aforementioned life factors. Moreover, I am extremely aware of the fact that my upbringing in the United States as a white, middle-class cis-gendered heterosexual male has given me blind spots that are difficult, and sometimes impossible for me to see deeply into. I therefore must not claim that what follows will be as readily accessible for any of you whose experiences and identities are not my own, though I hope it will be in large part. My intention with this framework is to provide a malleable raw material, which ideally will be adaptable enough to help you begin the conversations you need to have with the children in your life. Similarly, as you engage in this work, try to identify what blind spots your own identities might create, as they often inform the snap judgements we make about the others whose online experiences, needs and habits differ from our own (and big thanks to Saber Khan for helping me pull this critical point out of my own aforementioned blind spot).

Digital natives are not a thing.

In case you need a brief primer on the term “digital native” before we jump in: the term was introduced into our vernacular in 2001 by Marc Prensky’s article (and has roots dating back to the 90’s in a publication by one of the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s co-founders), and became mainstream around a decade ago. The idea this label sought to capture was that our children were intuitively more savvy and natural users of technology, having had it as part of their lives for most or all of their years, whereas we adults were “digital immigrants” and lacked the same “native” intuition. Putting aside the deeply problematic implications of the diction itself, I emphatically reject this label and its underlying theory. While it’s undeniably true that relative to prior generations our children have spent a larger percentage of their time with digital activities and devices, this only amounts to time spent, not wisdom, savvy or knowledge gained. There are all kinds of lessons we can extrapolate from the ease with which children take to new digital interfaces and environments that bring the work of Piaget and writings of Papert squarely into the present moment, but that’s a topic for another essay. Let’s not think about our children as savvy and sage when it comes to the most nuanced challenges of online culture and digital impacts to personal or collective health, because (and I say this with love) they are not. While they are extremely experienced with these spaces and interfaces, this does not lessen their need for experienced figures and voices, offering them perspective, guidance, and wisdom on being human. Yes, the technological landscape is built on shifting sands, and adults are not all equally tech savvy or experienced, but neither of these facts detracts from our ability or obligation to engage in this work.

Nearly 4 out of 5 adults in the US carry smartphones and consume 9 hours of screen media per day.

Finally, let’s briefly sum up our digital state of affairs in 2018. We are all digital consumers, and digital citizens, regardless of age (and as per much of the research, class, race and geography as well). Therefore, as adults we need to partner with youth, instead of fingering their generations as age-contained problem areas — we all need a strong tonic. Teens and children are not, as some claim, uniquely and singularly impacted by the challenges of digital life (though these challenges come during a key developmental period). We are all increasingly digitally engrossed, parents and educators being no exception (with 77% of adults chasing the ~89% of teens who carry Smartphones in 2018). As Manoush Zomorodi describes at length in her recent book Bored and Brilliant, this is costing us all dearly. Smartphones disrupt our cognitive capacity by merely existing in the same space as us, and by the numbers we adults are all under their spell: about 80% of everyone ages 18–49 uses Facebook (and is over 50% for ages 50+), with other popular apps diverging slightly: Instagram and Snapchat use reaches ~75% up to age ~24, falls to ~50% in ages 25–29 and lands at 40% and 25%, respectively, for ages 30–49 (Pew Research Center, 2018). As for teen habits, Common Sense Media’s 2018 survey showed 3 out of 5 use Instagram & Snapchat, with the latter twice as likely to be the teens’ most used App. How on earth can we single out children and teens as groups to be concerned about when the 2016 Common Sense Media digital census clocked parents as typically consuming 9 hours of screen media per day? We all have considerable work to do, as the digital industry is not hiding its efforts to make behavioral manipulation an engineering objective, and leveraging neuroscience and machine learning to effectively target every demographic in their user base, regardless of age.

Good? Let’s go then.

Part One: “Free”

Talking economic principles with teens, or even adults, is a daunting snooze fest in most cases. If our audience is five or six years old, how the blazes can we translate concepts like capitalism, profit motives, and the value of money for them? Fortunately, I don’t believe we need to go out of our way to do so. While largely in the abstract, kids as young as three grasp the basic concept of money, and this awareness continues to develop through the elementary years. Most of them will come to understand it as a means of access, or a material that denies access, but all of them understand the concept of free. After multiple experiences of asking a parent for something and being told “no” because of something to do with money, or being told “yes” and observing a transaction, the concept of free becomes accessible as a label that removes the “no” or improves the likelihood of “yes” outcomes. Moreover, free rapidly becomes captivating because of how sought after, talked about and celebrated it is in our adult consumerism and media, all of which they absorb. Count how many times you use the word in reference to a thing or a service in the presence of children any day of the week — I’ll bet it’s at least 10.

So, for a kindergarten or elementary student, if all they know is that free means one can obtain something in the absence of cash (or those plastic cards adults use that somehow equate to money), we now have something to build upon. Free is linked to a successful transaction that normally requires money, but now does not. This opens a door for us to begin to speak with young students about alternative economies: paying with time and attention.

First, use the physical world around them to begin to point out places where even there is no opportunity for a monetary transaction, something still nibbles away at our time and attention, or insinuates itself into conversation. If your family watches TV, commercials aimed at kids are a good place to start, as are trailers for upcoming movies. If you drive or commute, billboards and subway ads are great fodder. Free things given away in front of stores, in malls, at transit hubs are also useful opportunities. Don’t instruct, and instead ask your young learners to begin thinking about these phenomena with prompts such as:

• Why do you think they let us have this [toy/food/candy/T-shirt] without asking for any money?
• Why do you think we’ve seen that [poster/billboard/commercial] so many times?
• Isn’t it interesting that we are [talking about/singing the jingle for/thinking about] that thing we learned about via that [poster/billboard/commercial] a few days ago?
• Can you think of some things we enjoy doing or talking about that we’ve done less of since we’ve been [thinking about/talking about/wanting] that thing we saw in that ad a few days ago?

These opportunities are usually myriad. The goal here is not to judge if advertising or consumerism is good or bad, but rather to become mindful of noticing how we notice these things. When we pause to watch/read/stare at ads, this takes moments of concentration and time away from us, which is a microtransaction in and of itself. Again, not judging, just noticing that it is happening, and that we’re using (or, as the saying goes, spending) time consuming and thinking about these catchy, flashy ads.

With a little bit of an awareness foundation laid, it’s now appropriate to begin to layer on some real money transactions, from the angle of behavioral economics. Expand the conversation to include some key why prompts, which can be more directional:

• Why do you think that jingle is so catchy?
• Why does this [food/toy/book] seem so [exciting/delicious/thrilling] in this [poster/commercial] as its shown here?
• Bonus: if you’ve tried the thing and it’s dull or lousy, ask them how can this be when the promise was so enticing?
• What do you think the people who made this [poster/video/free sample] would like us to do someday soon?

The last prompt is clearly an attempt to direct their thinking, which is justified by how crucial it is to surface the motives of all of the many items vying for the child’s time and attention: a desired monetary transactional outcome. Your conversations could unfold in countless ways from here. You may find that children have follow up questions that, in their unique childish ways, probe the intentions, honesty, morality of the entities offering these enticements. However, rather than go down the capitalist economics rabbit hole, this is the place to pivot and finally move the conversation into the digital context. Remember that your digital experiences as an adult are not their digital experiences as five, six or seven year olds; you’ll need to know your audience and think carefully about how to make this conceptual transition. In general, many children at these ages have consumed a video on YouTube or YouTube Kids (alone or with a sibling or adult), seen a Netflix show, and/or either played a casual videogame or seen someone else do so. Those you are working with may have more or less experience, so you’ll want to frame these prompts using the specific language that will make sense to them:

• If companies that make games need to make money to pay the people that work for them, how can they make games that are free?
• …and if we’re not paying them money to get the same, what are we paying them instead?
• Is YouTube free? How can the videos be free to watch if someone has to make them (and needs to by a camera or computer to do so)?
• What do you notice about the ads that come up between videos? Can you skip them? Are they showing you things that you might like?
• Are there things that are paid for with family money that also cost us in some other way?
• What does Netflix, or a video game we bought at a store (or in the App store), also take from our family?
• What might some problems with paying with our time and attention instead of money?

Modeling is also extremely important here. As parents or educators, we are never not being observed by the young learners around us. Building a robust self-awareness of our own navigations through our enticement-laden online environment and Candy Crush-ing commutes is crucial, for our own sakes and to model effectively. Vocalizing as we navigate these spaces and make choices is paramount for our constant tiny observers (“oh, here’s a video clip I can’t skip showing me something that this site knows I might like because it keeps track of what I watch” or “I wonder if I should give this app my phone number for a free thing, because then they’ll know how to call me anytime they want” etc etc). If things that don’t involve money begin to sound transactional as well, they will begin to become aware of the attention economy, and more importantly, that their time is precious. We need to show them that the choice of how and where to spend time, as with money, should be informed and autonomous.

Part Two: “Respect”

Our present cultural zeitgeist lacks a full appreciation of the broadly negative social impacts that our increasingly digital interaction are having, though rumblings of acknowledgement are spreading. Countless potential ways in which a shift to digital socialization can and will impact discourse, civics and policy are even more elusive and concerning; though the studies are increasingly plentiful, the costs are not well understood. But even without a clear picture from exquisite research, what we do know about confirmation bias, implicit bias and the backfire effect makes it to impossible to doubt that algorithms tuned to show us more of only what we consume are not engendering divisive opinions about individuals, policy matters, and critical scientific and social issues.

Of all the Wicked Problems that haunt the last paragraph, I want to highlight just two for our intended young audience. First, how do the implicit biases of the architects of the online world, who are not representative of the diverse actual users of the same, become incorporated into the most fundamental levels of the online experience? And second, why do people feel emboldened and unfeeling enough to treat an avatar or other online representation of what they know to be a flesh and blood human (even one they know) far more harshly than they would offline?

Here again, it’s important to begin with guided observations, tailored to the experiences specific to the children you are speaking with. Since many children at this age have consumed passive online content (YouTube, iPad games with linear narratives, etc.), doing a survey of the media they’ve seen so far is a good place to start:

• What types of people have they seen represented digitally (in games in particular, but also videos, websites, learning apps, etc)? What body types, skin tones, nationalities, gender expressions, races, types of physical ability, clothing styles etc. have they seen in the media they’ve encountered?
• Think about the peripheral media as well (faces on App icons and video thumbnails, stock photography they’ve seen on packaging or in online ads, non-main characters), and who is represented (or not) and where.
• Once you know what kinds of identities they’ve seen represented online, then ask them who is not being represented? Why are they being made invisible?
• Similarly, focus on which identities are being overrepresented in an unkind way (are all the “bad guys” in a game overweight/extremely skinny, or dressed a particular way)?
• Finally, help them brainstorm how these digital worlds ended up with a representation problem: these digital worlds are built by humans, and humans make mistakes, can these mistakes end up in their virtual worlds?
• What does it do to our expectations of the real world if five people create a lopsided virtual world that is used by five million?

As adults, it is also imperative that we also educate ourselves on how these human biases and harmful assumptions are inextricably built into the algorithmic underpinnings of the digital realm, far beyond just online Apps and social media, and all the way into banking, law enforcement, employment and education. There accessible and important books we can use to educate ourselves on these complex topics, as well as Buzzfeed-worthy examples that we’ve probably winced at already. The smartest minds in software engineering are creating machines with speed and profit, and not morality and social responsibility, as their primary design objectives. As the result, we are left with dangerously imperfect systems reinforcing structural inequity, and to the topic at hand, potentially steering social-emotional child development off course.

This algorithmic canundrum is clearly not an age-appropriate topic for an early elementary student. So instead, if they’re friends with Alexa, Siri, Google (or Cortana or Bixby just to be inclusive) as many already are, use that familiarity as a vehicle to introduce the ideas of algorithms and non-human predictive entities in a context they can relate to. To accomplish this, it’s important to keep an ear cocked to their interactions with the device, and interject either at moments when the virtual assistant is confounded by a child’s sincere (but non-syntax) request, or when Alexa is getting bossed around or treated in a fashion that crosses a line. There are lots of avenues to explore here:

• How can some easy questions be unanswerable?
• How do you think this assistant gets its answers?
• How did this assistant come to be?
• If the people that created Alexa/Siri/Google/etc didn’t know the answer to something, does that mean that the assistant would not either?
• And conversely, if the creators of this assistant thought a wrong answer to a question was the right answer, or wanted to play a joke, could they make Alexa/Siri/Google give you a wrong answer?

Finally, we must delicately acknowledge that interactions with real people, when using screens as an intermediary, can often yield tense, brief, cold and snippy exchanges. Even in instances where people are being intentionally harmful, the non-neutral digital medium is still further shaping the message. We are rigged by thousands of years of exquisite evolutionary tinkering to react to facial and other non-verbal cues with empathy and compassion. Inboxes, timelines, feeds, dead-eyed avatars and time-shifted communications circumvent our biological feedback mechanisms, and encourage us to let fly in the absence of cues that help us moderate or self-arrest. Of course, some people can be jerks in person, facial queues be damned, but let’s set them aside for the time being and assume that most people would rather not hurt others if their decision making process was fully intact.

So how can we describe this phenomenon to children without accidentally inviting them to view the digital realm as a Westworld of sorts? Obviously, with care and caution. I typically suggest starting with what is accessible, ubiquitous, and familiar to most children: vitriolic Tweets or “posts” from various platforms that are talked about incessantly on news media. These come from musicians, actors, politicians and athletes, and are repeated ad nauseam on radio and TV broadcasts — are background noise in rooms where children play. Language exclaiming that “this person [posted/tweeted/said online] that this other person was some horrible thing” a constant stimulus at this point, one that we’re becoming so numb to we often don’t register that we’re not the only set of ears in the room. So, if we take this exposure and build upon it, we have a real life context in which to ask the questions: “is a respectful way to speak about another person?” and critically “this was something that was written and sent to many people while this person was far away from their victim — do you think they would say the same thing if they were standing right in front of them?”

Another opportunity presents itself is via multiplayer video games. I’ll define multiplayer as any game where other people have an in-game presence that can be interacted with in a realtime or a time-shifted fashion. These games can allow simultaneous play for people in the same physical space, or remotely/online (i.e. friends at different houses). I’ve personally seen games with online and social components such as Roblox, Minecraft, Fortnite, Shell Shockers and many others become popular in ages as young as five or six, and crucially, they often know who at least some of the other onscreen players are in real life. Children don’t have to be the ones actually playing these games; watching siblings or friends play in person is common, as is watching online recordings of others playing games on YouTube or Twitch. Note, if the latter surprised you, take a moment later on to educate yourself about streamers and the phenomenon of watching others play games on YouTube, and in particular, Twitch, since this content gets more viewing hours than most other forms of media combined.

If playing or watching games with any frequency is part of your child’s experience, talk to them to learn how the game sessions unfold as they play or observe them. This is to ensure that you’re invested in learning about the activity you’ve sanctioned (this is on your dime, after all), but also to listen for the moments when someone your child knows in real life is being picked on, harassed or targeted in the game (if you hadn’t heard the term before, this behavior is griefing). The child you’re speaking with may be an observer, or the target, or even the aggressor in these instances. Rather than articulating the understandably strong knee-jerk thoughts we might have, instead take a breath and use the opportunity to begin a conversation with similar prompts: “[are you/is that player] friends with that child in school?” or “why would they do this to a friend?” and finally “what’s going on here that makes them think it’s okay to [do the antagonistic thing] to someone they know and care about?” If the game is a game where collaborations can turn into competitions and there is an emphasis on slow building of resources and structures (Minecraft, etc.) and one player is stealing or destroying another’s items or creations, the question becomes simply “would they ever steal from that friend or break their projects in real life?” Help them probe into what makes this space feel different. Both we and our children alike need to be able to the clearly when people are making choices to behave as lesser versions of themselves in these spaces.

One more thing to think ahead to if you teach, know or are raising male-identifying children, even ones who have yet to identify their sexuality. And yes, it’s porn. I have little I can say here that Adam Savage doesn’t say far better than I ever could in his amazing Moth story about how he navigated this conversation with his twin sons. He distills it to an axiom that is so memorable and powerful, and serves as a foundation to build future conversations: “the Internet hates women.” This is even more true when human bias and oppression get baked into algorithms and target women who aren’t white, as Dr. Safiya Noble explores. Obviously, it’s equally important to talk about porn with non-male identifying children at the appropriate time, but particularly for male-identifying children, an early and potent inoculation is needed to protect against the damaging misogynistic impressions the online world features so prominently. And seriously, listen to Adam’s telling of this story, as this punchline-spoiling doesn’t do it the justice it deserves.

Part Three: “Addiction”

Before I was a parent, I’d often mentally wargame my future conversations with my hypothetical children about sex, drugs, vaping and dubstep, envisioning all of these unfolding as we neared preteen years. Instead, I was surprised when I backed into a conversation about heroin & other opioids, caffeine and other substances after answering a series of questions about online video games. The common thread here is obviously addiction.

After observing, as a family, that some of the screen-based activities both they and their friends were drifting towards could affect people’s moods and choices, we sat with our 5- and 7-year old children and began to unpack the reasons why our brains are built to reward us for doing enjoyable things. Being a biologist, I began with evolution: most mammals need to be able to form habits that encourage them to continue important behaviors (eat, rest, reproduce, stay hydrated, maintain social structures & care for young). To that end, our brains squirt out chemicals that we experience as enjoyable as a reward for these actions, to encourage us to make them habitual. However, the types of behaviors we find enjoyable and the sensory feedback mechanisms that we rely on to limit consumption or shift focus are both known to and exploited by the tech industry. Tristan Harris lays it all out extremely well, and I would encourage you to familiarize yourself with his work, and the neuroscientific exploits he details, because once you are aware of them you will see them everywhere. Like all those people on subways and in waiting rooms Crushing Candies.

Turning the focus back to our target audience, how do we translate this for them? We began by naming the problem: addiction. The definition that worked with our children was along the lines of: “when the brain wants something so badly it thinks it needs it, and will make bad choices to get more.” That worked for us, but you may need to experiment; I would suggesting differentiating want vs. need, and the linkage between addiction and poor decision making in however you end up phrasing it.

The core focus here is to make the term addiction familiar, and not inherently frightening to young learners. With this is their vocabulary, you can then explore topics that are perhaps familiar to them through observation, such as:

• Why does [dad/mom/other adult] say they have to have coffee every morning?
• Why do you think it’s so hard for [some adult] to stop using their phone when it’s time for dinner?

And if the news media consumed in your household mentions alcohol or opioids, if you’re brave and it would not upset them, perhaps:

• The opioid and alcohol chemicals they’re mentioning on the news clearly make people’s lives very difficult and can harm people’s bodies. Why do you think people keep consuming them?

And once again, make the transition to digital. Fortnite makes this an easy pivot, since even if your child doesn’t play it’s likely they can do one of the dances that they learned at school, and are casually aware of it as a game or activity. Let them know that games are filled with challenges, tricks and features that are designed to make the feeling of playing them as addictive as the caffeine in morning coffee their teacher jokes about needing to keep from turning into a grumpy monster.

A second level to build onto this new foundation is the resulting impact on mood & behavioral health. In a conversation with a group of 8- and 9-year olds recently, the majority of them readily volunteered that they themselves or their adults were cranky, upset, and unhappy when they had to stop using a screen. Talk to your young learners about how this is a sign of something addictive being taken away. Moreover, this presents a problem for classrooms and families, as it makes other important, enjoyable and enriching activities less pleasurable and harder to re-engage with, both individually and with people we love. And of course, tie this back to the aforementioned notion of alternative economies: a free game, like Fortnite, can cost time, enjoyment and depreciate our quality of life if not consumed carefully and responsibly.

Bonus: “Bored”

There is no need for me to talk about the value of non-stimulated time, and the personal and collective cost of a constant-stimulation society, since Manoush has done that in a comprehensive and brilliant (but not boring) fashion.

Here’s what I will add to her thesis, however. If we are concerned with our young learners falling too fast into digital entrapment, when the digital and online realms are an eternal wellspring of fresh, vibrant and deeply entertaining content (and increasing social importance as they age), we need to consider one of the major drivers of digital distraction seeking behavior for all ages (yes, I’m implicating us adults in this as well): we have pathologized boredom and downtime as unacceptable outcomes, anomalies that need swift correction, or a deficit in our ability to find rich stimulation at any waking moment.

We need to reverse this. My suggestion? Listen to this Studio 360 segment where Manoush is interviewed and talks with neuroscientist Jonny Smallwood about the mode the brain can only enter into during periods of under stimulation or tranquility: the default mode. The piece provides a much better explanation, but the spoiler here is that there is a neuroanatomical reason why your best ideas are in the shower, or staring out a bus window when your phone died: it’s how we’re built.

Technology will continue to evolve, our culture will shift, and change will remain our only constant. While none of the above are bulletproof or guaranteed means for achieving better digital health in every family structure and classroom setting, we all must do whatever we can to lay a strong foundation for our children. I believe the above represents a number of starting points to act or iterate upon. We must make a sincere, directed effort to foster genuine individual awareness and vigilance in our youngest learners as they begin to passively (and, increasingly, actively) absorb and explore digital culture. Our generations created these challenges, and we owe them this.