‘The Digital World Is Now Our Primary Residence’

A new book explores how to make the internet and social media better for young people.

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There was a time, not so long ago, when technology seemed all but certain to strengthen civic life. I wrote a whole book predicting the internet would collapse the distance between us; citizens would rally around common causes and community projects; email would bring the voices of regular people into the halls of power. Connection and engagement were the buzzwords of the early internet age. At last, we had the tools to build an Athenian agora on a continental scale, and the soft screen-glow of digital democracy would light the way into the 21st century!

The outlook has evolved somewhat since then. Instead of citizens assemblies, we got Twitter. Instead of Mr. Smith Zooms to Washington, we got Black Mirror and the Capitol riot. Loneliness, partisanship, and distrust are all on the rise, and parenting books are filled with advice about how to save children from the ravages of digital addiction.  So much for my celebration of “just-in-time social capital.”

Against our dystopian zeitgeist, Richard Culatta’s Digital for Good: Raising Kids to Thrive in an Online World feels almost like a throwback, a nostalgic reverie for a time when online life promised infinite potential for those savvy enough to embrace it. “Technology brings an unprecedented level of convenience and personalization, and it will allow our children to do more, learn more, create more, and connect more than any of us could have ever imagined,” Culatta writes in the opening pages. “The limitations of the physical world will not shape or constrain the design of our children’s life event the way they did mine or yours.”

That sounds like the rhetoric of a thousand bygone TED Talks, but Culatta is not an old-school tech evangelist. He’s clear-eyed about where our utopian hopes went off the rails, and he’s earnestly optimistic about the capacity of smarter teaching and parenting to get us back on track.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    So I agree with some of the premises of this author but disagree on others. And I disagree on the solutions. At the same time, I like the direction he’s going in trying to come up with solutions that aren’t just, “repeal 230!” At least he’s thinking through hard questions. I believe it’s eminently possible to use the Internet to enrich our lives through education, business, and more. I’ve learned to navigate and I think if more people developed the ability to compartmentalize we would be better off. At the same time, I believe strongly in the precedence of the real world. I will strictly control my children’s screen time (early on, they won’t get any), but I will also teach them how to operate successfully whether they are trying to learn, conduct business, or improve their lives. The Internet has a lot of dangers. It exists and sheltering children from it will never work. But it also has a glorious promise: the wealth of human knowledge. I believe humans are fully capable of both spiraling into an Internet hell and using it to enrich our lives. I will teach my children to be good digital citizens and it will be up to other parents to do the same for theirs.

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    Shawn Gallagher

    Having read Nancy Jo Sales American Girls and Jean Kresge's IGen...I have a different opinion. Nothing replaces in person and the past year should have taught everyone this. As a parent, technology brings nothing positive to the parenting table.

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  3. Jon

    Black Mirror is the best Netflix has to offer- and it has become incredibly accurate in its prediction. While amazing as a show- it is a nightmare to actually have as our actual society.

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  4. Ann G

    Or we can admit that online interactions will never equal those in real life and find ways to do less online interacting and teach our young how to step away from the internet. Hoping we can create a disciplined setting that removes the negatives from online interacting is an attempt to believe in an environment that does not actually work for healthy interactions. The internet is a good tool for quick, simple communications, but can never be anything more. It was a nice dream while it lasted, but the internet has been around long enough that we can admit it has failed in generating better social relationships. For that, you must learn to leave the internet and go offline.

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      Ben Connelly

      Ann, in general I agree with you on real life interactions and the need to leave the online world for physical spaces. And yet, the Internet has become a vital piece of most business and commerce and most people’s jobs. It has created millions of livelihoods. And as Patrick said below, we cannot put the genie back in the bottle. If the Internet failed, we need to fix it or learn to live with it. I think that to some degree we need to teach young people how to swim in it without drowning and how to navigate in it without sailing off the edge of the map. I will certainly limit my children’s screen time very strictly. But I will also teach them myself how to operate as digital and physical citizens.

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      Patrick O'Rouke

      I'm wrestling with exactly how to strike that balance. The internet is an amazing tool that I couldn't have even imagined when I was a kid, but it's obviously not a replacement for real life interactions. And no matter how real virtual reality gets, it still won't replace it. We've evolved for millennia with physical contact, including the threat of physical violence as a response to poor/irresponsible behavior and the reward of physical contact (i.e. sexual) as a response to certain other behaviors. When you remove those feedback mechanisms, people begin to behave in strange ways and if they get too acclimated, forget how to behave in the physical space. I also think the lack of physical cues that come from online interaction today make it far easier for people to misunderstand each other and get cross with one another.

      But we also can't put the genie back in the bottle, nor would we want to. Digitization has given us rapid advances in all aspects of our lives that have increased productivity and happiness in other ways. How do we preserve those benefits while minimizing the negative impacts? I'm afraid it's only done at the individual level. I did my first digital fast for Lent about two and a half years ago and I've become a big proponent of that approach. It's a great way to figure out what's a time waste and what's a useful tool. That's not as satisfying as a big, technocratic fix like creating the NPR of social media, but it's more likely to have an impact as far as I can see. The trick becomes how to evangelize for personal restraint on the internet without coming across as too preachy. Perhaps the church has a role in this, given its centuries of experience in balancing (to mixed results, no doubt) evangelism with approachability.

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      1. Ann G

        That's an excellent comment, Patrick, and you've pointed out some of the difficulties well. I think we need to adjust our expectations of online interactions and understand they are always a limited form of communication. Early on we had hopes that we could increase intimacy through online interacting and we've seen that instead the internet increases division and often exacerbates lack of understanding. We don't expect a shovel to dig our garden and then plant it and tend it to fruition, and I think we need to see online interactions as a very basic starting point and nothing more. And always remember that it is an incomplete picture. I hope the church can help people find their way off the internet. The addictiveness may be helped by a spiritual solution. Thank you for your reply. It was most informative.

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    MarqueG68

    Thanks for the review and discussion--tho I'm not sure I can add another book to my teetering to-read list.

    The idea of teaching ourselves better self-control has seemed quite obvious to me for a while. The problem is one of how to force better manners when individuals choose not only to be rude, but to engage in sending out threats of violence and real harm to others via the seeming anonymity of the internet.

    I'm about as anti-elite as they come, but there's simply no excuse for permitting those with psychopathic tendencies to use threats to cow elites--be they elected officials, public servants, or popular commentators--and the only way I can see to stop it is through law enforcement.

    Apart from group pressure and better training, there needs to be more aggressive policing of online misbehavior, it seems to me. Concretely, people should be actively prosecuted for threats. Real world sanctions are likely to have some effect, encouraging people not to hit send on communications they know they'd never get away with in public just because they happen to be in an inflamed state of mind.

    I don't see how you end the worst online misbehavior until there is a real-world cost to it.

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