Speaker: Prof Sonia Livingstone
Chair: Prof Ellen Helsper
Public anxiety about children’s digital lives and wellbeing is reaching a fever pitch, marking a notable turnaround from the decades-long efforts to ensure children are fully digitally included, literate and empowered. While arguments rage over what’s wrong with ‘screen time,’ ‘online harms,’ and data-driven forms of exploitation, this lecture hosted by the Digital Futures for Children centre made the case for a rights-based approach that puts children’s needs at the forefront of the design and deployment of digital services.
Sonia Livingstone argued: "A recent government report raised the question, is food good for children? It may seem odd to ask this, till you consider how food can be bad for them. Then you get the point: it’s the system that’s broken, in many ways – from invisible salt, sugar and fat content, unequal access to affordable vegetables, lack of resources to cook from scratch, junk food marketing, etc. The answer is not to ban food, though likely to restrict certain kinds of food. But clearly, multiple forms of intervention are needed to improve children’s lives, including fixing the broken food system. We can say the same of the internet. Is it good for children? It could be. It should be. But first we have to fix the broken system that is undermining children’s digital lives in so many ways. Our DigitalFutures4Children research proposes Child Rights by Design as a constructive way forward."
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