HAL9000 and my kids

[Forward: This entry is contemplative and wonky, so forgive me. I must exorcise the thoughts.]

Access to technology has forced the several battles and a strategy rethink amid the Rising Family's childrearing campaign. TV and cellphone screen time have launched a hundred headaches in the last six months. The problem is that one kid now has a basic cellphone. The other one doesn’t, which is an affront to the kids’ perceptions of natural justice. It’s the perennial question: why does she get one just because she’s older? It’s not fair! Slamming doors, tears, and terse silence at the dinner table abound.

So how have these tiny screens -- and the software and the expanding artificial intelligence that make them all so addictive -- provoked such outrage? Why do smartphones, YouTube 'slime' videos and texting hold swath over the Rising Daughters’ budding brains? 

Courtesy of Facebook

Rhetorical question #1: If 2016 proved that Facebook subverts our democracy, what will Alexa do in 2020?

Before Stephen Hawking died, he warned that AI could spell the end of the human race. His prediction feels a lot closer to reality to me when I cannot pry M. away from Siri long enough to hold a real conversation.

Sometimes I get the Technology Terrors when I think about the future. Visions of my daughters being deprived by my weak discipline in the face of the siren song of Tech. Giving in means sleep affected by screen time before bed; micro attention spans; lapses in logical reasoning; difficulty in socializing; incipient ADHD diagnoses; and eventual fears over contact with online predators. These dark visions come with every hour they spend on the PC or with eyes glued to the cellphone. Let alone the opportunity cost in outdoor activities and organized sports. Doom and gloom stuff, right?

Maybe so, maybe no. I think previous generations of parents had similar fears for their kids about the advent of radio, TV, and personal computers. 

Silly rhetorical question #2: 2001: A Space Odyssey’s infamous HAL 9000’s vocal sounds have a Canadian accent. Stanley Kubrick chose a Canadian stage actor for HAL’s voice because he wanted a flat, geographically ambiguous tonal delivery for the emotion-free, murderous supercomputer.

Anyway, I think Technology need not provoke Terror. I love The Matrix trilogy—even the third film. Something about our lives being simulations on another being’s program…supreme fodder for daydreams. And, if nothing else, The Matrix showed that what makes us human are feelings such as doubt/disbelief, fear/fright of things we don’t fully understand, shame/pride, and any number of emotions and feelings that go hand-in-hand with the technology pervasive in present-day life.

Yet humans are not logical beings and we often consciously make poor choices. Computers don’t. Life isn’t as easy to understand as a smartphone application or made easy by rigid adherence to algorithms. So maybe the key is first regulating their technology impulses until the kids can make their own informed choices. Sounds like classic Parenting 101 after all.

We can still deactivate HAL with effective parenting! Thanks to MGM for the screenshot.

I boil this down thusly: kids are similar to tiny drunk adults. They have poor impulse control. They scream bloody murder when their worldview, decision-making, or desires are called into question. That’s when the sober ones in the room have to take away the keys until the time is right to unleash them back into this brave new world.