Childhood, Rewired: Growing Up in the Digital Age WRITTEN BY MARIANN CSOMA
I f you’re a parent today, technology probably comes up in daily conversations and even negotiations with your child. How long should they play video games? How do they handle social media? When should they get their first smartphone? These questions are now part of family life and can often lead to disagreements. But these daily challenges are just one part of a bigger change. For years, parents and schools have been figuring out how to keep up with new technology. Many adults didn’t grow up with it and have had to learn as they go. One thing is clear: the digital world isn’t going anywhere. Technology has opened new ways to learn, communicate, and find information. We quickly saw the benefits, but it took longer to notice the downsides. In many ways, it took a whole generation growing up before we really understood how the digital revolution affects young people. As Professor Jonathan Haidt says, we have put children through what he calls “the largest uncontrolled experiment humanity has ever performed on its own children.”¹ This might sound worrying, and the rapid growth of AI makes the digital world more complicated. Children are growing up in this environment, so the challenge is to keep them safe while helping them become confident digital citizens. HOW DID WE GET HERE? To see how we reached this point, we just need to look back about 30 years. Gen Z, born between 1995 and 2010, was the first generation to go through their teenage years with nearly unlimited access to the digital world.
They were the first to grow up always seeing posts from friends, acquaintances, and faraway influencers. Watching user- made videos and streaming entertainment became normal. Algorithms began deciding what appeared on their screens, pushing them to keep watching and scrolling. Then, in 2007, the arrival of the smartphone took this transformation to another level. This pocket-sized device gave young people 24/7 access to the internet, apps, social media, and constant notifications. We can see this in ordinary moments. A familiar scene is young people waiting for a bus or sitting together in a café. Instead of talking, joking, or being bored together, they often look at their phones, connected to something or someone elsewhere. Sherry Turkle’s phrase “forever elsewhere” captures this shift in our attention and relationships.² The generation that followed, Gen Alpha, born after 2010, has never known a world without smartphones, the internet, and constant connectivity. For them, the digital world is not something they have had to get used to. It has been part of their lives from the very start. FROM A PLAY-BASED TO A PHONE-BASED CHILDHOOD Interestingly, while this transformation unfolded online, another shift took place in the physical world. Parents became more concerned about children’s safety and adopted a more protective approach. Compared with previous generations, unsupervised outdoor play declined, and children were given less independence. At the same time, computers, smartphones, and tablets became more attractive to children for spending their free time.
Here lies a striking paradox: while parents worked hard to reduce risks and increase supervision in the physical world, children were often given greater independence online. Many adults did not understand what was happening there, what the risks were, or how to set appropriate limits. Professor Jonathan Haidt¹ describes this transformation as the shift from a “play-based childhood” to a “phone-based childhood,” changing not only how children spend their time, but also how they experience growing up. GROWING UP IN A DIGITAL WORLD To put the scale of this transformation into context, most children in the EU have their own smartphone by age 10, and
INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL PARENT AUTUMN 2026 | 48
Powered by FlippingBook