As a parent, I’ve decided not to be afraid of social media and gaming. Rather, I have decided to embrace what they allow my children to learn about the world.
Over the past year in virtual school, I have spent a lot of time in class with my kids. I witnessed, first-hand, what public school is and isn’t. I know it’s not moving my kids in the direction of the future. While it’s hard to say or know exactly what the future holds, I believe school needs to respond to the demands of the current moment. Our schools are structured to produce adults more suited for the past industrial age instead of the dynamic, technological one we currently inhabit.
Social media and video games are indelible products of this age, but schools are not teaching my kids how to understand or work with them. Hence, I feel the need to step in. Instead of limiting the amount of time my kids spend on them, I have decided to be more intentional, making sure that they recognize the craft and creativity those platforms can nurture, and allowing them to spend ample amounts of time developing their skills.
In his book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell says, it takes 10,000 hours of intensive practice to achieve mastery of complex skills and materials. This includes anything from learning how to play the violin to mastering computer programming like Bill Gates did. If there is any truth to this theory, my kids need to spend a lot of time making tiktoks, curating pictures for Instagram, and playing Minecraft and Fortnite in order to master the skills needed for our current social media age.
Most parents worry that their kids will not have resume-worthy accolades if they spend too much time online, or fear that future employers will see their kids’ social media accounts and choose not to hire them. But I’ve figured out my kids don’t want those jobs anyway. I hope that TikTok, Instagram and Twitch will be their resumes or “calling cards”. Anyone hiring my kids will want to see how my kids have used those tools. I am banking that their mastery of these platforms will be the baseline for any future job or career.
I’ve watched my kids navigate these tools effortlessly to create, perform, and edit with absolutely no training. And none of the skills they have acquired were taught in their schools. To me, this kind of creativity and intelligence should be encouraged, not curtailed.
Of course, this encouragement and learning does not take away from the conversations we as parents need to have with children concerning the dangers of social media, just as we have conversations with our children about school safety. Our family openly talks about self-awareness, bullying, and privacy. Indeed, these types of conversations are a necessary part of helping our kids develop the discernment they need to be thoughtful consumers of the Internet.
Now, you may be thinking, what if I am wrong about the future? Let’s hypothetically say I’m off the mark. Will my kids really be at a disadvantage? Did our parents regret letting us read the comics or books we loved? I don’t think so. At the very least, my kids will enjoy their youth and acquire mastery of the latest technology. At the most, they will have developed skills that will serve whatever passion they choose to pursue in the future. I want confident, curious, and engaged kids who are living and embracing the current moment, not just pursuing activities to build a resume.
My daughter spends hours curating her Instagram. She scouts locations for photo shoots. She has a google doc of future captions that she will use on her Instagram account. It’s a job like any other. She has a “work ethic”.
My son studies YouTube videos of other players, watching and learning tricks and skills that will elevate his playing. He practices in his head as he watches. I’ve witnessed him do air motions and pretend controller motions as he watches videos. He has a “work ethic”.
My youngest daughter, who is just seven years old, learns how to properly and effectively create a seamless transition through many forms of editing — skills most people go to school to learn. Her desire to have an aesthetically pleasing social media drives her to learn and explore methods that make this possible. This is also what I would consider a “work ethic”,
More often than not, I call my oldest daughter (who is 23) for technical support whenever I am struggling with social media. She knows the ins and outs of fixing all the problems that I have. She’s been on social media for a really long time, which has allowed her to develop her technical skills. She can navigate almost all social media platforms effortlessly.
Like many parents my age, I struggle with the occasional “anti-social media” fears. But I have come to realize that a lot of this is due to the unknown — that social media was not something I grew up with. But it is something that is ubiquitous in our world today, and if my kids are not a part of that world they will be left behind. The more I observe them, the more I think that the time they spend on these platforms is actually a form of education, and in the end I pray and hope that it actually works out, just like other types of education they’ve received.
