The handiest thing about children is that you can lie to them for your own gain and largely get away with it.
You can say things like “the ice cream van only plays the song when he’s run out” or “the park isn’t open today”.
Or “there’s no more episodes of Bluey left” or “don’t cry or the man will come over and get cross with us” while pointing at a perfectly innocent stranger just trying to enjoy his coffee in a cafe.
Full marks for creativity goes to the viral TikTok dad who puts his kids’ cartoons in Spanish and tells them “they’re just too tired to understand and need to take a nap” and changes it back to English when they wake up.
But sometimes the simplest is often the best. The classic “the internet has closed for the night” works perfectly.
It’s something we should institute for adults. We have seen enough of the internet for now, there is nothing else on it for us, only getting into arguments with people on Twitter who aren’t brave enough to use a real name or photo as their profile picture. You want to get called a woke moron by what appears to be a Persian cat called Mr Fluffy? No, you don’t. Hush now.
We should truly be thankful for what technology has given us. But also we should never stop being suspicious and scared of what it can do to us, especially kids
Go to bed, ignore your loved ones the old fashioned way, by turning over and reading a book with your back presented to them. Isn’t that better? Lovely.
The internet has given us so much. It has allowed activists to organise in strict regimes. It has provided opportunities and access to marginalised communities.
We should truly be thankful for what technology has given us. But also we should never stop being suspicious and scared of what it can do to us, especially kids.
Kate Winslet this week won a Bafta for her performance in I Am Ruth, a film she said she made “for families who feel that they are held hostage by the perils of the online world, for parents who wish they could still communicate with their teenagers, but who no longer can”.
After drawing on experiences of trying to shield her own daughter from harm, she called on the people who can make the changes to criminalise “harmful content”.
According to research conducted by the children’s commissioner for England, more than half of kids aged eight to 17 have been exposed to harmful content including but not limited to content containing violence, porn and self-harm.
Maybe we should all put parental controls on websites so that we only use the internet in ways that serve us. I would like to be allowed news websites, online banking (essential even if it’s bad for our mental health) and Google Maps
Adults are exposed to these kinds of things too but we of course are old and ugly enough (for the most part) to take care of ourselves online. Some of us had childhoods before the internet and were encouraged to go outside, where we engaged in good old-fashioned safe behaviour such as playing in building sites and playing chicken with trains and asking strangers to buy us drink and spray painting bus stops and cutting up the neighbour’s garden hose to make bongs (arts and crafts!) – and we haven’t shut up about it since.
I don’t know what the solution is for protecting children. It’s a crisis each generation of parents has to work out on their own as technology advances, and I don’t envy them. It’s difficult to ask kids to give up smartphones when we can’t tear ourselves away either.
Maybe we should all put parental controls on websites so that we only use the internet in ways that serve us.
I would like to be allowed news websites, online banking (essential even if it’s bad for our mental health) and Google Maps.
The latter is less about getting around and more about looking up the photos people post of restaurant menus so I know if it’s worth visiting. Those people are unsung community heroes.
Maybe this is how we get back to using the internet for good. Something that makes us feel connected and part of something bigger than ourselves. For its real purpose -which everyone knows is reading complete stranger’s reviews on booking.com about how the poor salad portion of the buffet selection at their all-inclusive hotel COMPLETELY RUINED OUR FAMILY HOLIDAY.