The use of new media can drive parents to despair. But bans and technical restrictions are the wrong approach, says education and media scientist Jessica Wawrzyniak. Much more important: how children learn to take on digital responsibility. How you can help them as a parent.
And experience shows that as soon as an adolescent owns a mobile phone, everyday family life changes. Plus: Parents are sometimes overwhelmed. Jessica Wawrzyniak, an educationalist and media scientist, has written a helpful guide called "Screen Teens" and gives lots of practical tips on how to talk to children about digital responsibility.
In the interview with the expert, you can find out what educators need to know:
I could've become a teacher, but I prefer learning to teaching. Now I learn something new with every article I write. Especially in the field of health and psychology.
Every child wants to belong - and that includes having a smartphone one day. According to "MIKE 2021", the latest study on the media usage behaviour of Swiss primary school pupils, more than half of ten to eleven-year-olds have their own mobile. Among twelve to thirteen-year-olds, the figure is already three quarters.
**Mrs Wawrzyniak, let's start with an example from everyday life as a parent: My 11-year-old has accepted a friend request from a girl on Snapchat with the name "Looking for friend 12". Another one is called "Viola Mayer - awesome". My alarm bells immediately start ringing. And rightly so? ** Jessica Wawrzyniak: Yes, it does. Parents should seek a dialogue in such situations to get the child's perspective: Did they even recognise the potential danger? This also depends on what experience they have already had themselves or through friends. However, the basic rule is: controlling children at every turn is not a solution. Parents can't and shouldn't always be there. But before allowing them to use mobile phones and apps, parents need to give them the tools to do so. It is negligent to leave children of a young age alone with their devices for very long as long as they have not been informed about the dangers of the internet. After all, you wouldn't let your child play unsupervised at the edge of the pool if they can't swim yet. It's the same with smartphones and access to the internet.
**So, as a parent, am I secretly reading the chats on my child's mobile? ** Watching out does not mean monitoring. Children have a right to privacy. And it is important that they become independent, self-confident, responsible users. I would recommend that young smartphone users, i.e. ten and eleven-year-olds, are shown their chats more often. Take a proactive approach to the topic. Parents have a duty of care, of course they have an interest in what is written. But this interest must then also cease. In the case of young people, even from the age of eleven or twelve, parents are reliant on children approaching them if they have problems - including problems online. However, children only do this if they have a relationship of trust with their parents and are not constantly afraid of getting into trouble.
**How do I equip my children with digital skills? They often say: "I already know that anyway!" ** It's clear to the child that they always know everything better. These are normal generational conflicts. But: As parents, don't let this put you off, because often enough it's not true. Keep sensitising your child to the dangers online. If they then experience dicey situations, they will remember your conversations and will not completely lose faith if, for example, they are sent a nude picture without being asked. It's good if you have a concrete conversation starter, like your example with Snapchat. Then, as a parent, you don't look down on the topic from above, but meet the child at eye level.
**Screen time is a big topic. What advice do you have? The topic of screen time isn't really that big. Of course, children shouldn't be allowed to play on screens indefinitely. There have to be limits. But focus more on the content rather than the clock. It's not so much about the total screen time. After all, we can no longer distinguish between offline and online anyway, because almost all activities are moving online. We used to spend hours on the landline phone with friends. Today, we use Messenger & Co to communicate with friends in addition to making phone calls.
**So how do parents actually go about it? ** Take a look at your child's mobile phone use and proceed logically. But don't let the mobile switch off automatically at a certain time or after a set period of time. This is mean and provokes conflicts in the first place. Imagine your child is playing a game on their mobile and it switches off in the middle of a level. Or the video call with a friend is simply cancelled. That would be just as frustrating for adults. It is better to find plausible time units after which the child should put the mobile away. It doesn't depend on one or two minutes - you can't explain that to children. But you can explain to them logically why you only allow them to play a game for one level, for example, or talk to their friends for the duration of a school break.
**What topics do children need guidance with online? ** I'll list a few important topics, there's a lot more information in my book. Cyberbullying is something that children need help with: Why does someone bully, why is so much hate spread, what does anonymity do to people? Hate is a huge thing online, and all children who use social media need to learn how to deal with it. Take a look at the comments on the web with your child and think together: What is constructive? What is a hater comment? What is just carried by the crowd? Which comments would people never dare to say live to someone else? And which comments have been automatically created by bots?"
**Cybergrooming, i.e. adults approaching minors with sexual intentions, is also a huge issue. We could do a separate interview on this... ** Yes, children should know how they can free themselves if they feel harassed by cybergrooming. They can get help from trusted persons or counselling centres. Screen teens also need to know how algorithms work. Who you make friends with online is largely determined by contact suggestions. In other words, algorithms remember who you have been in contact with and suggest similar/suitable people again. So anyone who frequently experiences cybergrooming may be in what is known as a filter bubble. For this reason alone, it is important for parents to know what their child is doing online. Input equals output. Children - just like adults - create their own content.
**Hmm, we think we're being fed... ** ... but that's not the case. Anyone who has watched violent films 20 times will be shown violent films again and again. Anyone who researches via a search engine that collects massive amounts of data, such as Google, will later be shown matching adverts on all kinds of sites. Personal data, including the interests of internet users, is worth its weight in gold for companies. Another example: Anyone interested in specific conspiracy narratives online will also be shown more of them.
**A big topic here is also education about fake news. Children like to believe everything their favourite Youtubers or Tiktokers tell them. ** A lot is taken at face value, especially on social media. Without citing sources, without understanding what economic and political interests could be behind it and what damage false news can cause. Conversation helps here too. As parents, always address this and ask: How do you know this? Is this verified information? How does the influencer know that? This can also be practised with memes, which often contain an (alleged) fact without proof. Of course, children don't always find out the sources, and yes, their parents' questions annoy them. But at some point, children start to question their sources of information on their own.
**In your book, you recommend alternatives to the monopolists who collect and sell our data. Do children even think it's a bad thing to be transparent users? ** I have often given workshops in schools. When it came to personalised advertising, teenagers naturally said: "I find it practical when I'm shown ads for products that I like anyway." In the workshops, I did manage to get them to think about tracking and encouraging them to buy, but I don't know if it helped in the long term. Nevertheless, it's important to teach children: With most apps backed by a large advertising machine, the companies have a lot of funds with which to crush the alternative suppliers. The fact that an app is used by large numbers of people does not say much about its quality. Children should get to know alternatives, especially open-source, licence-free programmes that are not out to collect and sell data. There are also alternatives for WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter (now X). In my opinion, this is the first important step. Whether they will ultimately resort to the familiar apps is another question.
**When it comes to the topic of WhatsApp, young people may well understand the implications: If you explain to them: the company can access all contacts in the address book - even those who don't use the messenger service. And this violates the rights of these people. ** Yes, children recognise this moment of shock. But that doesn't mean they will stop using WhatsApp. In the long term, something does happen in terms of sensitisation. Once they have heard about data flows and traces as children and teenagers, they will remember them again as adults. With WhatsApp, many people have now realised this: Your data is not in good hands there. However, some people are reluctant to switch. However, it may be possible to encourage the entire school class to switch to alternative messengers such as Signal.
**When can children take on digital responsibility themselves? ** There are good reasons why most apps are 13 or 16+. You should stick to this. My advice: As parents, don't allow any app whose functions you haven't looked at and discussed with your child beforehand. At the same time, you don't need to go crazy when a new app comes onto the market. Because the mechanisms are the same: you exchange photos, you chat with each other - there's not much difference. This provides a lot of relief for parents who are worried that they won't be able to keep up with everything new.
