We sat in our living room listening to our youngest Bryce explain to my wife Amy and I that we spend too much time on social media. Not only that, they told me I joke too much about artificial intelligence (AI) and use it too much as well. And the fact that AI is destroying the future for them, their sibling Beatrice, and all their friends. AI is altering education, the job market, and the energy required to power AI is destroying the environment. Both our kids are worried about it all.
And they're not wrong. But first, social media. Amy and I aren't on social media as much as we used to be and my weekly iPhone usage totals validate that (even though Bryce says we are). True, we both scroll for entertainment, but we aren't viewing individual pages much at all anymore, and while I post these articles I write here weekly, and a fun photo or drumming video now and again, our time online is minimal.
The irony here is that we've allowed our kids to have their own social accounts since they were 13. Since then, there's been enough research that shows how addictive and destructive social media can be for kids, teens, and yes, adults. We monitored what they view online when they were younger and check in periodically now that they're older. They're mostly on YouTube and we're not fans of some of their content, but we've approved and they've also done a good job of limiting their screen time.
If we could go back and have them wait until they were 16, 17, even 18? Maybe. That might've been a better move, but they're both managing to limit their time, get their schoolwork done, socialize with their friends (and us), and engage in activities that have nothing to do with screens. Also, any emotional and psychological struggles they've had as teens wasn't directly related to social media as far as we're concerned.
However, for many other kids and families it has been a big problem. Both Meta and Google lost a major social media addiction lawsuit recently because of this big problem. And there's more than likely a lot more to come. Will it change the way these platforms are run? Skeptics don't think so; parents hope so. Maybe it's just easier to not let kids start in the first place and for the parents to stay off. What was always billed as a way to stay connected has done more to isolate and disconnect. Amy and I are definitely considering staying off and going back to phone calls and letter writing to stay in touch with family and friends.
Then there are the Chromebooks our kids have been using since middle school. The pandemic led to more tech use due to distance learning (Google Classroom). Big Tech companies -- primarily Google, Microsoft, and Apple -- have invested billions of dollars in cash, free software, training, and heavily discounted hardware to secure their position in the K-12 education market, a sector where tech spending reached $30 billion in 2024 alone.
There are software safeguards, but too many kids have figured out how to circumvent and access YouTube and lots of inappropriate content. School districts across the country and now reducing their dependence on tech and the use of it in the classroom. Our own school district is looking at all this now. Thankfully our children have limited their usage of their school laptops to schoolwork.
AI is a tougher one for me as an employed parent. I work for a software company and we do provide AI features in our platform. Plus, I use AI every day to help me with work productivity. Like many new technologies I've had access to in the workplace since before public internet, I've always been an early adopter. That also included social media in the mid to late 2000's.
AI is different. Will be different. At first, I wanted AI to be banned in schools because of the fear of plagiarism and the impact on critical thinking (which is happening), but then we went the other way with seeing value in some AI tools for kids to study with and learn from, especially high schoolers.
The jury's still out on this one, though. Plus, lots of folks -- economists, tech pundits, naysayers, people struggling to find work -- all have different opinions on how much displacement it will have on the future job market for our kids, and what jobs it will literally destroy and possibly create.
Like every technology disruption before mainstream AI, we've always found a way to adjust in the workplace. For example, when my wife and I first dated in the late 1990's, we traveled as much as we could. Everywhere we went, we used paper maps and road atlases. We never really thought much about it; we grew up using paper maps and that was how we navigated travel.
Then came MapQuest, a free online mapping service, and navigating the world changed forever. However, many people early on printed the maps out from MapQuest to use, including us. Then came Google Maps and GPS and navigating the world changed yet again, forever.
Paper maps are still available, but for those displaced who worked in the printed map-making world, what happened to them? Were they displaced forever? Absorbed into the online map/GPS world? Into other industries? This may seem like an inconsequential example, but every disruption is consequential.
These are similar questions HR/TA leader Jan Tegze asked with unsettling clarity. The difference being, earlier technology disruptions took decades to transform, displace, and reabsorb those impacted. Hundreds of years in fact moving from paper maps to smart phones, GPS, and apps. What happens to all the workers when AI transforms in a fraction of the time?
If you haven't read Anthropic's Labor market impacts of AI research (makers of Claude), you should. Some of the highlights include "workers in the most exposed professions are more likely to be older, female, more educated, and higher-paid" and "there's suggestive evidence that hiring of younger workers has slowed in exposed occupations".
So again, what happens to all the workers when AI transforms and displaces in a fraction of the time? Will they be reabsorbed, or not? There's a lot of uncertainty ahead for our kids.
When Bryce told us, "You both have a problem", it turned into a much bigger conversation. It's clear that we all have a problem with where we're at today with social media, technology, AI, and our children's futures. Not to mention a changing job market, inflation, rising energy costs, climate change, limited affordable housing, geopolitical instability, authoritarianism, diminished rights, extreme polarization, bigotry -- I could go on, but I think we're all painfully aware of what's happening around the world today. And what's happening down the street.
When our family marched in protest with millions of others this weekend, it was about all of the things above for us. Our kids just want a better world. Blessings for our freedom to fight for it and make real impactful and positive change.
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