What happens when there is dirt in your digital footprint?

Online reputation, once ruined, can lead to catastrophic consequences. The frontiers of algorithmic discrimination are expanding: they range from being denied access to education and employment to being shamed forever by all of humanity.

“I Did Not Mean It!” is Not an Excuse

It’s easy to make mistakes in the digital world. Especially if you are young and “did not mean it”.

Teenagers do not give a second thought to the fact that everything they post online is permanent and not private. The sheer amount of content they overshare with adolescent impulsivity makes mistakes inevitable — simply by the law of large numbers. Somebody would be offended by what…

“Being enough is an inside job” (Anne Lamott)

Comparison Trap

Social comparison is the name of the game on social media. The race is on to accomplish perfection in the world where everyone seems superior. No matter how many hours a day young users spend to build a perfect profile, it’s an impossible goal — there is always someone prettier, smarter, better than you.

“Comparison is a thief of joy”, said Theodore Roosevelt in the beginning of the 20th century.

“Pride is the root of all sin”, said the Bible 2000 years ago.

Both the ego inflated by “I am better than…

At the first sign of a feeling they reach for the phone. Boredom is the most frequent emotion, but there are others: anger, sadness, fear. When uncomfortable feelings arise, they take an easy way out:

• The feeling is expelled out of the system into a social media post, or
• The feeling is drowned in distraction of another YouTube video or gaming session.

The emotion itself is not addressed. By taking the path of least resistance, young people who never learned to deal with their feelings fall apart at the first sign of adversity. …

The Trojan Horse of Surveillance

If you value your freedom, consider keeping your home “dumb”. Smart devices are all the rage, but the privacy policies of Internet of Things (IoT) reveal them for what they really are — the Trojan horse of surveillance.

Designed to destroy the sanctuary of our home and our body.

Gadgets are fun, miraculous, they save time and money, they make us look cool, they even facilitate good habits! What’s not to like?

The ancient Greek myth about the Trojan war is a cautionary tale. In the story, the Greeks besieging the independent city of Troy designed a cunning plan to…

Tools for Distraction and Cheating

Smartphones at schools wreck our children’s education and destroy their capacity to learn. Teachers stand no chance against YouTube and Instagram.

The phone with all its distractions is accepted as a necessary evil, and is integrated as an education “tool”. Teachers even assign homework that requires students to make photos and videos on their phones, assuming everybody has one.

Parents of high schoolers in our district also talk of rampant cheating. Kids use their phones to copy each other’s homework, look up and share answers for tests, and upload entire assignments to websites that do the work for them. …

Let’s face it — our children are distracted.

When they are supposed to do their homework, the siren call of digital distractions is just too strong to resist. My son’s favorite is memes. I would estimate that any given hour of his homework is 10 minutes work, and 50 minutes time wasted on mindless entertainment.

• They are watching YouTube and TikTok.
• They are browsing Instagram and Snapchat.
• They are playing Minecraft and Roblox and AmongUs.

All the time while pretending to do “homework”. Getting their fake “education”.

It’s not their fault. It’s not a flaw in their character. Nor is it our parenting failure either. It’s an intentional…

The more frightened we are by the messages on our screens, the more likely we are to pay attention. Our animal brain is scanning the environment for danger — and digital media delivers.

Fear is a powerful manipulation tool. When fear is activated, our biological instinct of survival takes over, and our rational brain turns off.

Viruses, terrorism, natural disasters, breakdown of democracy, real or perceived assaults on our rights are broadcasted online to activate our evolutionary survival mechanism. If you are afraid, you dare not disengage. Shock value of fear-inducing content grabs and holds our attention and converts it…

“Never get in between a drug addict and their drug”.

When parents attempt to take devices away from kids, what might follow is an extreme emotional meltdown — the dreaded “tech tantrum”. Children are screaming, raging, smashing things (including expensive devices they are addicted to), threatening parents with property damage and bodily harm, and even assaulting them physically. All hell breaks loose when it’s time to transition to some normal human activity: sleep, family dinner, or homework.

What happens when an addict loses access to his drug? They get violent. When the object of addiction is taken away, drug addicts hurl verbal and physical abuse toward loved ones who are…