For the web giants, our children are all “child prodigies”, already on social media at less than 7 years old.
Despite the appeals, petitions and institutional (and self-referential) debate on the protection of minors online, the race for baby users does not seem to stop. The latest news is Instagram for teenagers.
News not so much on the presence of children and pre-adolescents on social media, but on the strategies and tools of the “little brother of Instagram” in defense of younger users. Meta, the Group that also leads Facebook and WhatsApp, promises a protected, child-proof digital environment. The problem, however, as Fondazione Carolina has long been arguing, is cultural rather than technological. Assuming that the algorithms responsible for selecting content work (despite all the doubts involved), but why must we necessarily take the presence of minors online for granted? The question we have been asking institutions and web giants for years is always and only this: WHY? Why does a kid HAVE to be in front of a screen when he has his whole life to do so? Why does his image MUST be online? We honestly don’t embrace the need, unless it’s commercial in nature. “Let’s take them when they’re small”, one might say… Or: “Small users grow up”, you decide.
The problem, however, is not with those who sell, but with those who buy. The majority of parents will almost certainly download the new application on their smartphone or, worse, on that of their son or daughter..
The truth is that tablets and smartphones represent the new fig leaves of those who should have the burden and honor of educating. After all, we are too indulgent and distracted to accompany our children along a complex and extraordinary path of growth.
Fondazione Carolina works so that every adult with educational responsibility has: awareness, tools and the will to share values, rules and dreams for the benefit of the younger generations. Teenagers who, more often than not, discover the world by themselves, but without experiencing it, if not through a screen. A belief supported by the many requests for help in the face of online disorders and addictions. Confirming how childhood is not a file to download, but rather an inalienable right of all children.
Ivan Zoppi
Secretary General
Carolina Foundation