Skjerm Barna |
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16 February 2025 - Adetswil
Passing through the Oslo airport last December I came across the latest book by Maja Lunde, who Ane introduced me to many years ago. The title, Skjerm Barna, translated to English is "Screen Children: How technology took over childhood and what we can do to take play and life back". This being something that I didn't hit quite right with my own children who grew up during the dawn of social media, I decided to pick it up and see the Norwegian perspective. My kids had access to a desktop computer from the time they were small, just like a television all though we limited screen time on both. They were often kicked outside to play. At age 10 each of my four kids got their first laptop. They all started with Linux, because back then it really limited the gaming they could do and forced them to Google how to get things to work in that minority OS. I loved YouTube and Twitter and Gmail and encouraged all my kids to have accounts. Little did I expect that nefarious people on Tumblr were introducing my teenage daughters to the transgender cult. I was more worried about them having sex and getting pregnant like I was doing as a teenager. We protect our children from our own mistakes and entirely miss others. The kids all got cellphones when they were teens too. But my kids were also attending hackathons, writing software, and going to college in their early teens. I thought that I was preparing them for life in a digital world. And maybe I did.
Lunde's book was a difficult read not because of the language (it was written in fairly standard bokmål Norwegian), but because it's troubling to read how far the pendulum has swung to screens controlling kids' lives, making them dumber, and exposing them to people with nefarious motives, whether marketing to them or trying to get them to join one of these modern cults. Lunde's diagnosis of the problem is spot on. Where I disagree with her is the in the heavily regulated solution she proposes. Yes, schools and their screen-heavy curriculum need to change, but making prohibitionary laws against children is just destructive. Children need to be led and protected, not punished for problems adults have created for them. Lunde, however, also realizes that parents have to learn to set a good example too. The screen addiction epidemic is not just affecting children. If you have children or work with them, becoming familiar with the ideas in this book is important and definitely worth your time.
