Balancing A Computerized World

Human history is replete with touchstones of achievement that changed and sped up the course of all that followed.  Training animals led to livestock and expanded agriculture.  The wheel led to transportation of people and goods.  The written word led to communication and the spreading of language.

We often had to accept the bad which accompanied the good.  The Bronze Age led to tools of utility, but also to weapons of war.  Combustion engines led to mechanized travel, but also to accidents and pollution.  The Industrial Revolution gave us widespread accessibility to modern conveniences, but to accidents and pollution as well.  

Humanity has often felt the need to regulate many of these advancements in order to balance the good and the bad.

The most prevalent of recent touchstone advancements has surely been the widespread accessibility to personal computers and other similar devices.  In many ways a technological marvel, computers have simplified mathematics and word processing, sped and detailed design and record keeping, and expanded communication exponentially.  They are limited only by our imaginations and can facilitate almost anything people can dream up to program them to do.

The cost of this unbridled accessibility, however, is the unregulated access itself.  Humans are animals, and our brains have limitations on what and how much we can process effectively.  

Like most animals, we are tribal by nature, and while individuals can train themselves to think on a more global scale, the majority are not wired to process that to which they can’t directly relate.  

But computers, and the internet in particular, brought the entire universe into our homes in an instant.  This tsunami of infinite information without sufficient preparation has affected us in ways which have only begun to reveal themselves.  Most such things existed before computers but were regulated by their segregation.  Now they’re everywhere, at the touch of a button.

Pornography is one obvious example.  Porn has probably always existed in some form, and expanded with the onset of film.  For a century its access was limited to seeking out a dirty magazine or a specific theater, which eventually expanded into homes with videotapes.  Adult consumers could seek it out if they chose, while children were generally protected.  

That has all changed, and quickly.  The most graphic porn is now reachable in an instant on any device which supports internet use, and a generation of young people have satiated their curiosities with unrealistic depictions of sexual expectation.  While everyone develops their own sexual tastes, those proclivities were generally established through personal trial and error at a pace of one’s own comfort.  

Not anymore.  

Besides lighting a fire much too soon to the natural curiosity of developing minds and bodies, many kids are showing signs of depression as they fight their natural reservations in order to be included in what they now perceive to be “normal” sexual behaviors.  

The most outlandish, over-the-top activities have become the new baseline, and many kids are made to feel prudish if they don’t comply.  This is especially damaging to young girls, who have not yet found their confidence footing and will often do what they think they’re supposed to do to satisfy a boy.

Don’t kid yourself, this hurts boys too.  Being inundated with behavior that belongs in a fetish dungeon causes misplaced priorities and expectations on both themselves and their prospective partners.  

By adulthood, many teens have been so overexposed to hyperbolic sex that they can’t enjoy a healthy and intimate exploration of their needs collaboratively as a couple.  They’ve been shown countless examples - which are not for everyone - of things that they believe are expected of them.  This is their new norm.

It’s not just pornography.  The internet has connected young people with all sorts of things for which they’re not prepared.  Online gaming connects players to untraceable seeds of influence around the world.  If your kids have played games like Halo online, you should know that they’ve had conversations with faceless adults who have proclivities for playing games with children.  

Think about that.  

Every adult gamer is not a pedophile, but there are certainly forums that do nothing to dissuade those who are.  And it’s another modern out-of-sight, out-of-mind activity in which we trust our kids to police themselves.

Social media is also a culprit.  When your child was bullied in school years ago, you could meet with their teacher, principal, or the other kid’s parents to address it.  But many parents today find their kids suffering from mood swings with no apparent source.  They should infiltrate their social media to find answers.  

The desire of the internet generation for exposure and acceptance has led to predictable negative feedback, as online bullies make fun of words and images for kicks.  We’re all susceptible to this, but young people are especially so.  

“Friends” who wouldn’t have the guts to criticize them to their faces feel comfortable doing so from the safety of their computers, leaving many kids despondent.  Worse, this trolling is seen by everyone, heightening the level of embarrassment.

How do we balance the amazing advantages computers provide with the dangers they simultaneously present?  There are grass-roots regulations like site blocking and other parental controls, though most adults don’t think to regularly follow up and savvy kids often figure out ways to circumvent them.  

Many threats are also hidden in sites we mistakenly believe to be safe.  TikTok and YouTube Kids seem inert on their surfaces but sign on and see where their algorithms take you.  Social media is often a cesspool that young people find compulsory to their existence.

It’s hard to keep up, and many parents have effectively quit trying.  They’ll put their foot down when they discover something obvious, but most of the problems hide behind the scenes.  Schoolwork often requires internet access, and unless you have the time and inclination to look over your kid’s shoulder the entire time they’re online, they will often find a way to go where they shouldn’t.  

Taking cell phones away is proactive, but they look at their friends’ phones when they’re out of your sight.  Cable TV brings graphic behaviors into our living rooms, and many kids can figure out how to get around parental controls. 

It’s easy to say we should simply cut off their exposure, but since the internet has become a staple of our world, doing so would leave them behind the 8-ball.  Like it or not, it has become the driving force behind most of our commerce, communication, activity - everything, really.  Kids will be unprepared for their futures without a strong working knowledge of modern computers and the internet so that extreme would be counterproductive.

I usually try to present alternate options to the issues I raise, because otherwise, it would just be venting.  Nobody wants to listen to a complainer without proposed solutions.  But I admit this one has me stumped, and I’m open to suggestions.  Perhaps we all need to put our collective heads together to not only come up with a workable plan but to collude as adults to cut off the backdoor access kids rely upon.  

The chain of parenting is only as strong as its weakest link.  

Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author's own.