Children are children: May 03, 1999 issue of New Thinking

May 03, 1999 New Thinking:
Children are children

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May 03, 1999

Children are children

By Gerry McGovern

It’s so easy to seem to be what you are not in the digital age. The Industrial Age was a much more predictable world. Things didn’t change as fast. The world was quite physical. Not everything was as it seemed, but much was. In the digital age, and particularly on the Internet, the world is much more fuzzy. It can be much less or much more than what it seems.

It’s very easy on a website to promise more than you can deliver; to build yourself up with text and images into something much bigger than you actually are.

I read a report recently where a substantial number of online customers felt that what the website promised was not what it delivered. Not surprisingly, trust is one of the most difficult things to establish online. However, those who do manage to establish trust will reap rich rewards, as customers will flock to websites that they know they can trust.

I vividly remember as a young child listening to two older men commenting on a game of football. They were talking about a particular player who, they were saying, was overly rough. “You’d never think he was a priest,” one observed. It was strange but not unusual to come across people who behaved one way off the pitch and another way entirely when playing.

Maybe my opening sentence should be turned around. Maybe people become their ‘true’ selves when they are online in some chat room or on some discussion list? Maybe, when they feel the social shackles are off, they can be more free, open and perhaps aggressive and hurtful.

On many an occasion I have heard enlightened people talk about the need to take children more seriously. I remember doing an interview with musician Laurie Anderson, where she told me about how she had struck up a relationship with someone online. It was several weeks before she realized she was communicating with a 12-year-old.

When interviewing Don Tapscott, author of Growing Up Digital, for Internet News, the interviewer observed how mature the children quoted in his book sounded. “Other adults we interviewed who work with N-Geners [members of the Internet Generation] expressed the same observation without exception,” Tapscott replied. “That said, their clarity did surprise us at first, but that says more about us and our view of youth than it does the kids themselves.”

I have no doubt that children can have flashes of maturity and that they can have a wisdom and simplicity that surprises us. Children need to be listened to and taken seriously.

However, it is important not to forget that children are children. They are not adults. They like to play a lot, they like to experiment, they like to explore. Not everything they say is wise.

A doctor should help heal us when we’re sick. A judge should ensure that the rule of law is applied. A manager should organize, direct and motivate a team. A parent should look after, guide and educate a child.

All the computers, internets, play stations and televisions in the world can’t do for a child what a good parent can. It’s so easy in the digital age to accept things as they seem. But children are children and adults are adults, and we adults have the responsibility to know what is real.

Gerry McGovern

Next issue: Owning the future
Previous issue: Socializing children
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It is important not to forget that children are children. They are not adults. They like to play a lot, they like to experiment, they like to explore. Not everything they say is wise.