Wychowanie przy ekranie - Quick Review
When someone asks what I do, I naturally answer that I work in the IT industry. I usually add that despite this (or perhaps because of it?), I remain highly skeptical of many tools and gadgets that IT provides us. For quite some time now, I've been interested in the impact of social networks on how people function. By complete chance, I learned about the book "Wychowanie przy ekranie. Jak przygotować dzieci do życia w sieci?" written by Magdalena Bigaj - I quickly picked it up and encourage everyone to do the same. Not just parents, because this is definitely not a book only for parents!
From it, we learn about the enormous impact that screen devices, the abundance of content, and notifications have on our children and on ourselves: overstimulation, increasingly worse learning outcomes, threats on the Internet (not just the popular pornography, but also challenges on certain platforms), sleep deficiency, and more. There's a whole host of issues, and the emerging picture is quite disturbing: either we address this, take matters into our own hands, or things will end poorly.
From it, we learn about the enormous impact that screen devices, the abundance of content, and notifications have on our children and on ourselves: overstimulation, increasingly worse learning outcomes, threats on the Internet (not just the popular pornography, but also challenges on certain platforms), sleep deficiency, and more. There's a whole host of issues, and the emerging picture is quite disturbing: either we address this, take matters into our own hands, or things will end poorly.
I'll state upfront: this book is not a crusade against smartphones, tablets, or the internet. Not at all. Its purpose is to show that times have changed. Many people - especially older ones - may nostalgically recall how children used to behave differently, how they spent their free time outside on playground equipment. Sure, but life is different now, and it's time to recognize this, as well as the fact that parents face new responsibilities. This includes the responsibility to ensure that children know how to skillfully use screen devices and the Internet: because if not us, then who would teach them? Corporations like Meta? You wouldn't want that, believe me.
Moreover, as parents, you'll find information about why your child sometimes spends so much time in front of screens. From personal experience: during middle school and early high school, I spent hours in front of the computer... Together with several friends (yes, from the Internet!), I created a website, conducted interviews, organized contests with game publishers in Poland. Later, I also volunteered providing technical support for a certain tool, completely non-profit... I didn't have many friends around me, but online I was engaged, active, doing something important to me. Was this understood by those closest to me? Usually not, but no one asked what I was actually doing there, why, etc. The point is that no one taught my parents about the Internet and how to raise children with it: my generation was the first to experience this transformation. As a parent, I should already possess such knowledge.
What's fantastic about this book is that it was written by someone from Poland, so we have a direct 1-to-1 translation of what we struggle with and encounter. There are no cultural differences that are noticeable when reading books from the US, for example. What's more, Magdalena is a parent herself, so she gives us examples, advice, and dilemmas taken from real life. Exactly the same ones we encounter ourselves. As a result, the book is not only a treasure trove of knowledge but also something like a dialogue - sophisticated yet without intimidating the reader with very specific scientific terminology.
What more can I say - I simply recommend it. Check it out yourselves, and also visit the Digital Citizenship Institute's website.