Gen Z’s Online Habits Aren’t Necessarily a Bad Thing
Parents need to adapt to their child’s digital exposure
On the one hand, we are dealing with almost surreal technology growth and on the other hand, the gadget prices are becoming competitive. This has led to the fast growth of online media and opening up the dimension to connect to a broad set of audiences having a substantial effect on parent-child relationships.
The digital medium’s content is not only engaging adults but also holding the attention of children and teenagers. Such a medium is also influencing the one on one interactions of parents and their children. This trend has impacted parents ‘ involvement in their children’s lives, along with schools in sustaining the role of parents in children’s education.
The young generation understands and is happy with digital technology from birth. We may call them “digital natives,” while digital means and technological advancement from the previous generation are later known as “digital immigrants.” Students are, thus, preferably ‘digital natives,’ rendering parents as ‘digital immigrants.’ The parents struggle with the pace of digital technologies because of this difference. There is a generation gap in
This struggle presents challenges in keeping up to date on digital instruction, programs, learning software and other knowledge for parents whose children are interested in online learning. Parents must not only resolve digital analphabetism but also identify and acknowledge the new e-learning applications and software. There is a need for parents to comprehend how they can interact with their children and use technology to play a vital role.
Here are the key points for parents to accept their child’s digital world and embrace it rather than muting their opinions about it.
- Bridging the gap: Parents need to bridge the gap between digital native people and digital immigrants to meet young online media users’ speed.
- Mentoring: A modern parent’s position changes from being a mere parent to a ‘media mentor.’ A trusted adult who can communicate with children and make innovative and exciting use of technology.
- Learning results: The use of technology contributes to parent-child engagement in ways that directly affect academic, social, and emotional learning, especially amidst the pandemic-driven lockdown. Software use at home is related to improved learning and academic achievement.
- Educational involvement: Schools should connect and include parents and lead to better parent-child relationships over a digital medium. Parents can update their progress with various subjects, lessons, tests, homework, learning strategies, and projects via the school website.
Being a parent today is more challenging, mainly because you might attach yourself to an old school thought of hand-written letters and maintain a journal but you’d still do emails and might use the Lugelo app for multimedia journaling.
Meaning, you cannot write off technology if you are living in modern society. My interactions with friends and families made me learn a few things. Check out their problems and see how they navigate their child’s exposure to the digital world.
Perspective A
This is about parents who are relatively calm and confident about digital life. They have found a way to be clear about their values and to live close to them — including with social media so that the technology is not something weird or contradictory in their lives.
Alina and Martin live on a low income and have an arty background; they really value creativity. Their small condo is crowded with old art, crafting and photography materials, where their daughter curate’s computer games which reflect her alternative aesthetic — including games that resemble their favorite Escher’s art.
Emma is a single parent, also on a low income, and with health problems. Like many migrants, she values education. Her family helped her buy a laptop, which her daughter now uses to study online while also teaching her about the digital world.
My cousin Winston and his wife Laura are putting best of their efforts to pump up their son’s confidence as he suffers from moderate autism. A couple of years back he got passionate about digital designs. Now, they are helping him draw it on their professional media systems with graphic slates to support his creative learning.
James values the digital for itself — he is excited about the digital future and believes that geeks will inherit the earth. And therefore, he encourages his 12-year-old Ryan to learn programming, saying that coding is the new Latin.
Perspective B
Here, the same group of people seemed relatively calm and confident about the digital share of decision-making within the family, negotiating instead of imposing, respecting their children’s interests and finding pleasurable ways to share digital activities.
James loves it when Ryan invites his friends’ round, and they all play Minecraft together. He sets them coding challenges, and she enjoys their collaborative problem-solving.
Winston and Laura take leads from their autistic child and click digital pictures as he sketches the art. They are creating memories while also driving special affinity between his academic needs and the digital world.
Alin and Martin accept that their sons want to play popular video games with friends. But by sharing some alternative games around education with them, they also get to share their values.
Emma relies on her 16-year-old cousin to fix the computer system when anything goes wrong with it. Also, prior to lockdown her cousins would flood her house to play music loud and party on some off weekends.
Remember, the key lies in balancing both the ends. It is better to come out of denial and accept technology not as the future but also the best way forward for the generations to come.
I understand that parents may have their own reasons to protect their wards from screen exposure — eyesight/vision issues, addiction to games or multimedia content, tech for instant gratification, and much more.
The parents should rather aim to solve the digital dilemmas by discussing it with their children and brief about applying their values to their digital activities. But I reckon it helps when you talk your perspective to the children rather than making them follow your commands and opinions.
