When the author’s eldest child was born, the parent immediately created Gmail and Twitter accounts in the child’s name and broadly shared the baby’s photo across platforms. In other words, a digital footprint was established long before the child could walk.
A couple of years later, with the arrival of a second child, the author reversed course: preserving privacy became a priority. The parent did not want the child’s birth to become public record or the child’s face to feed algorithms. Over time, the author also scrubbed much of the early online presence created for the first child.
What prompted the change?
The author points to a growing awareness of the internet’s darker sides: the addictive pull of smartphones and social media and platforms’ potential for misuse. The shift was reinforced by the author’s wife, a pediatric nurse, who increasingly encountered children admitted for issues like body dysmorphia and cyberbullying linked to online interactions.
As a result, the family deliberately limited technology: their children used simple flip phones and were not on TikTok. This caution is not unique — many people the author knows who work at big tech companies also keep their children at a distance from social platforms, locking phones or forbidding accounts altogether.
Even Mark Zuckerberg, the author notes, does not publicly share his children’s faces on Facebook or Instagram.
Policy responses and social trends
Concerns about children and technology have produced political and social responses. Jonathan Haidt’s 2024 best-selling book The Anxious Generation helped bring the subject into mainstream debate, though some developmental psychologists have criticized his conclusions. Around the same time, governments began enacting or proposing restrictions: Australia was the first country to introduce a social-media ban for children under 16. Other countries, described as “from Austria to Indonesia,” have announced similar measures. In the United States, the Supreme Court recently upheld an age-verification law in Texas that functions as a de facto ban, and several states have considered their own regulations.
Schools have also reacted: many districts have banned educational devices like iPads and Chromebooks in favor of physical books. Among children themselves, a strand of tech skepticism appears: the currently fashionable gadget for Generation Alpha is reportedly a vintage Sony Walkman.
Preparing children for the real, technologically saturated world
At the same time, technology cannot be entirely avoided — it permeates everyday life. The central question is how to prepare children for the actual world we have created, not an idealized version of it.
To explore the issue, the author worked with the editors of Anyway, a magazine for teens and tweens known for meeting its audience where they are. Editors at Anyway asked young people how they feel about artificial intelligence and the future; those responses were complex, fascinating and often thoughtful.
A middle path: fewer public posts, selective device use
The author has slightly loosened strictures: still avoiding many public photos and remaining concerned about social media and AI, but allowing more device use. When the older daughter started high school the family retired her flip phone in favor of an iPhone; the younger child now wears an Apple Watch. These devices have expanded their world in practical ways: they help form friendships that blend digital and physical spaces and allow more freedom of movement across the neighborhood and city.
Along the way, children learn and test boundaries — and parents do, too. The author’s closing point is that parents must adapt and learn as they try to protect their children’s privacy and mental health in a world shaped by evolving technology and AI.
