The goal is to promote discerning digital content consumption with the overarching idea that as a nation we can have a robust disagreement on policies and issues. We can’t, however, carry on into the future as a viable entity if we do not agree on some basic truths and principles like the sky is blue, water is wet, and the proliferation of online hate and misinformation leads to violence.
My wife and I have a daughter in pre-school who is almost five and going on thirteen, I swear. Strawberry blonde hair, boundless energy, and a twinkle in her eye that simultaneously communicates, “I love you daddy” and “please tell me again for the fifth time to stop it, don’t do that, because I know you love repeating yourself over and over again, don’t you”. She is the light of our lives and has so much potential, hopefully for good and not evil.
Like most parents, we do our best to keep her busy with learning to read, trying to teach her addition & subtraction, art projects, building stuff, and general whimsical playtime. However, the pull of the devices is always strong. We do let her watch age-appropriate programming on her pad when she’s having some downtime and maybe some PBS Kids stuff during breakfast. I don’t think it’s an inordinate amount of screen time but possibly we could rely on it a bit less to keep her occupied, sometimes. Face it though, kids are addicted just as many adults are too. Trying to separate kids from their devices, as most parents would concede, can at times be a contact sport.
It is terrifying and exciting to think about the extent of the technologically-centered world she and tens of millions of other children are in the process of inheriting. I would say it is mostly terrifying, not just because of their emotional-mental dependency, but also because of concern for the online scrutiny and bullying she could encounter as she navigates her teenage years and early adulthood. One careless post and all hell can break loose in the life of a young girl. Fifteen minutes of bad judgment at an alcohol-fueled party combined with some punk ass kid’s smartphone recording away, and the course of her life could be forever altered; the record of the misstep or violation of privacy, permanently archived online. It’s one of many fears parents face these days.
These days our online activities and cyber-selves have more and more come to define who we are as individuals. This is more true than ever for today’s youth. How they craft their digital personas can yield substantial rewards in the form of fame and fortune. Or if it is mishandled or exploited by bad actors can result in devastating pitfalls. I am heartened by the pushback that has arisen on many social media platforms to counteract harassment and bullying. Bullies are being called out for their harmful and hateful posts, but the behavior continues and will always to some extent no matter how much we pull together to fight it.
Bullies and demagogues, as expected, exploit their digital environment. It doesn’t help when political leaders, entertainers, and crybaby grievance-filled billionaires set such bad examples for our kids on Twitter, Facebook, and various other platforms. Donald Trump, the original whining, race-baiting, carnival barker naturally assumed the role of America’s biggest digital bully when he started tweeting back in 2009. As time went on they grew more demeaning and insulting.
When Trump became President he accelerated his tweeting as Twitter became his biggest megaphone for policy statements and airing of grievances. Nasty in tone and packed with lies he has even used the platform to signal violent actions from his most hardcore followers. Far from using the platform as Tweeter in Chief to call for unity and healing of the wounds that are dividing us, Trump sowed fear and hate and demonized political opponents and whole groups of Americans. And for some reason, about 40% of the country was just fine with this behavior. He was finally banned following his violent and insurrectionist actions and statements. But now, after a couple of years, he has been reinstated by Elon Musk, the company’s new owner. So, we’ll have to see if he gets back on or just sticks to his hate-filled misinformation machine “Truth Social” (no truth in it, of course).
Of course, Trump’s followers will justify his tweets three ways from Sunday. They don’t seem to mind his rancorous vitriolic tone. For many, sadly, it’s ok to talk to people in a demeaning way; it’s ok to dehumanize and insult people online in an effort to tear people down and make ourselves look bigger. I believe more people, however, recognize that this is indicative of someone small, intolerant, someone with deep-seated insecurities. But unfortunately, every day that Trump is given center stage and remains the leader of a national political party more and more damage is being done to our social fabric. He wields his technological saber with unflinching savagery and sadly there is an online army of his followers loudly echoing and expounding upon his hateful rhetoric. They have been emboldened by his message and their voices are louder and more aggressive than ever.
White nationalists and various networks of hate-mongers are emerging from the shadows and they’ll tell you themselves that much of their newfound courage is because they have heard the message loud and clear from the former President, that it’s ok to be cruel. It’s ok to bully and threaten your opponents or someone with a different skin tone or religious background. “Many fine people”, he said about the group of violent, right-wing racists in Charlottesville. For hate groups, it’s now an open season of anti-immigrant and anti-democracy rhetoric. Their web operations are more sophisticated and targeted than ever before. and I’m afraid the early optimism that most of us shared that the internet would be more of a force for good and bring people together is quickly evaporating.
So yes, at the moment, I am more concerned about the downside of technology and the internet than I am inspired by it. I am afraid for all of us but more afraid for the future of young people growing up in this fraught era. I’m afraid for the teenagers of today and for my daughter’s generation as they hurdle full speed toward a post-truth American future.
Have there been some positive outcomes to our digital advancement? There are several for sure. The internet has allowed us to stay in touch with friends and family more easily, through various platforms from email to Instant Messaging to video chat applications such as Skype, FaceTime, and Instant Messenger. In an age where our friends and family are flung here and there across the country and planet, it is comforting to be able to instantly connect. For my family, the ability for me and my little girl to be able to video chat with my mother, aka Grandma Jules, who lives 700 miles away is a priceless thing. They only get to see each other about 3-4 times a year. So to have that digital connection is so very important to us.
Another positive outcome I feel is the vast quantity of information we are able to access in an instant, the knowledge and information that enables us to solve problems and accomplish so many different tasks in our daily lives. Today you can go on YouTube and figure out how to do almost anything, short of brain surgery. It’s amazing! I can’t tell you how many times I have either Googled or just gone straight to YouTube as a reference for all kinds of projects. Want to know how to start a permaculture food forest on your property, Google it. Want to know how to install a garbage disposal or clean a rifle, google it. Wondering how to start up a fashion blog or YouTube channel, Google or YouTube-it or both, and you will be inundated with thousands of videos and volumes and volumes of text.
The internet has also simplified our lives in so many other ways too like online bill pay and banking. Online accounting programs like Quickbooks have facilitated the startup of tens of thousands of small businesses and empowered them to keep track of their expenses and grow for the future. And much to the chagrin of MDs around the world, we can now go to WebMD and research and speculate ourselves into debilitating anxiety about some possible new affliction or condition we or our children may have. Then we can march right into the Pediatrician’s office Monday morning and tell the medical professional what food allergy or bacterial infection we think our child has come down with. Obviously then, this can be a double-edged sword, but mostly I’d say chock this one up to the general philosophy that knowledge is power. So, the more information you possess the better off you are in most situations, even if your doctor is irritated by your earnest new amateur medical theories. So there are some positives to the internet, it certainly isn’t all bad.
But back to the problems. Many generations of Americans are dependent upon our devices like never before, but for young children, adolescents, teens, and young adults the extent of reliance on the constant feed of technological-conveyed content is a seismic shift the likes humanity has never seen before. Left unchecked and unbalanced by quality, non-screen time it can have truly debilitating consequences for inter-personal development. Counter to what should be a greater sense of connection and shared experience, the crush of social and accomplishment culture content can leave kids more isolated, more depressed, and feeling hopeless for their futures. Obsession with being noticed, liked, loved, and admired drives them to reach for their phones time and time again. Hundreds of times a day, checking Instagram and Snapchat. If they don’t post any cool pics, or like enough posts from friends, then they don’t feel like they exist enough, or even exist at all.
If this isn’t anxiety-inducing enough for society then add to that the latest evolving phenomenon of modern life; discerning what is fact and what is fiction online. What is fake news and what is a reliable source? And worst of all, we seem to be entering an age where the truth is suffering a slow death and facts may not matter much anymore. A world where we can cocoon ourselves off in a reinforcing echo chamber of cherry-picked content, impervious to fact-based content. Most of us sadly are already doing this and as a nation, we could be well on our way down the path where truth is just a quaint subject from a more innocent time. That’s good news for the folks over at Breitbart News, InfoWars, and 4-Chan whose articles often twist and mangle the truth at best and at worst spread outright lies. These sites represent just the tip of the spear of a large assortment of digital enterprises chiseling away at the foundations of truth and our collective faith in established democratic institutions. It could easily be argued, that with its mammoth viewership, Fox News’s failure to adequately fact-check and refute Donald Trump’s lies has America on the verge of unraveling. From their championing the launch of his campaign in 2015 through to his refusal to concede the 2020 election and the resulting insurrection, that cable network and its online misinformation factory have single-handedly put us on what feels like the doorstep of a Civil War; It was a calculated campaign of digital misinformation.
We can’t forget – so much has happened since then – the impact of Russia’s disinformation campaign in the 2016 election Presidential election. The scale of what the Russians achieved in terms of disinformation putting their thumb on the scale for Trump, cannot be underestimated. A wide-ranging group of Kremlin-backed operatives hacked in and stole Hillary Clinton’s emails. They were also probing voter databases in many states, setting up meetings with Trump campaign officials, and most damaging of all utilizing social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook to spread fake news and propaganda. They micro-targeted their ads and posts toward voters in swing states to sow fear and division amongst groups of voters who ultimately decided the outcome of the election. There is no way to accurately discern exactly how much influence these digital campaigns had, but suffice it to say it certainly had an impact on the views of hundreds of thousands of susceptible voters in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. These were the critically-tight states that decided the election in 2016.
There is still time to right the ship with regard to our online landscape, but we don’t have much time. For these reasons and all of the online perils discussed already, as a country, we must do a better job of preparing teens to be more discerning and conscious online consumers. The Stakes couldn’t be higher. No less than the future of Western Democracy is dependent upon waging and winning this successful campaign of digital literacy. We have to formulate a dynamic set of courses that will inspire and empower teenagers to take charge of their digital lives. Today’s generation must learn to shed their nascent outer layer of complacency and acquire a thick skin of skepticism to filter out propaganda that seeks to prey on their fears and anxieties. Nefarious, conspiracy-driven entities that conspire to convince you that what you are seeing and hearing is not true, that there are alternative facts to consider. 2 and 2 do not equal 4 and actually it equals 5 or 6. Online groups like QAnon have captured the fascination and allegiance of millions of adult Americans, weaving bizarre alternative reality plots that defy belief but are embraced without question. And with the increasingly realistic advance of virtual technology that enables the creation of deep fake video content, we are truly on the edge of being unable, as a society, to distinguish up from down.
Despite all of the present and looming threats, we have no choice but to push for the continued creation of a culture and philosophy of confidence that pushes young people to own every aspect of their digital existence. They must be taught to understand what constitutes a reliable news source from a fictional viral post. Scores of citizens are already flexing this skill set, but there are not enough yet actively fighting to combat the darker forces converging on the horizon. We have to steel them to the pitfalls and give them the tools to reach out and make connections but fight back when necessary against individuals or larger forces that violate their trust and goodwill.
How do we help steer young impressionable youth clear of the trove of sites peddling hate, fear, and general snake oil? It’s no easy task but one we must continue to wrestle with. How do elected officials and tech leaders combat these elements without stomping on Americans’ freedom of expression and engaging in blanket censorship? These efforts are underway in the halls of congress and in board rooms across America, but I’m afraid that presently the forces of hate and division may be lapping the forces trying to obstruct their advance. While well-meaning people in government and influential companies hand-wring about the right balance between privacy rights vs. oversight and monitoring, bad-meaning people are exploiting society’s gaps and wounds by pouring in their toxic salty brew to fester and spread.
What these forces on the fringe understand is that you do not need to win over a majority of people to their poisonous anti-Semitic, racist, and homophobic messaging. They know that if they can garner support and sympathy from just 20-30% of the citizenry then that is winning. If they can whip up the passions, fear, and hatred of this vocal, reactionary minority of people they can, potentially, have an outsized effect on the rest of society. This has been the playbook of totalitarian and fascist regimes throughout history, from Europe to South America.
It’s what happened in Germany in the 1930s and 40s as an ambitious, charismatic populist politician capitalized on nationalistic furor and anti-semitism to construct the nazi regime. Their ideology was supported by less than a third of the population when they began the brown shirt campaign of intimidation and brutality. The unity and purpose, pulsing through Hitler’s dark movement, became too much for the more passive and uncertain majority of the population to resist. It quickly became, for most people, a choice of life or death whether or not to join the Nazi party. That was as long as you were not Jewish because in that case, you did not have a choice. Your choice was simply to flee if you were lucky enough to escape the territory. Or you could stay and be killed, turn into a traitorous spy against your Jewish brethren, or wait to be shipped off to a concentration camp and almost certain death. There were no good options.
Today in America, the far-right fascist and white supremacist movement is ascendant again. They have weaponized digital platforms and social media. Emboldened by fear-mongering, hate-spewing politicians, numerous groups are taking advantage of the rising political discord and uncertainty in this moment of demographic and societal change. They are emerging from the shadows, stretching their dark wings, and actively recruiting new members online.
Nativist, anti-immigrant, and anti-LGBTQ sentiment has emerged as the biggest force coursing through the Trump MAGA movement. It is the glue holding this hardcore base together. Their goal is to demonize and dehumanize the “other”. They come running at the sound of racist dog whistles and whining, angry messages of victimhood, and imagined nostalgia for a bygone America. Unfortunately, we will never be able to completely eliminate hate and violence in the world. At this moment though, and for the sake of our country’s future, the question is will we be able to check the reach and meaningfully dilute the influence of race-based, lie-spewing culture-warring that is infecting our online communities? A better-educated, more culturally tolerant, and digitally-empowered-for-good younger generation will be the best weapon for truth and decency to win in the battle for America’s future.