Technology and Children

Joel Bakan, a law professor at the University of British Columbia, wrote an op-ed in Sunday's The New York Times describing how the development of the modern, for-profit corporation has undermined children's welfare. While a 700-word op-ed is hardly the place to make a strong case for one's point, still I found Mr. Bakan's argument short of evidence and long on assertion. More importantly, Mr. Bakan seems to make one point at the beginning of the piece, and another at the end. To my mind at least, the first point is far more interesting.

That first point begins with a description of the technological habits of Mr. Bakan's teenagers, about which he, "feels like something is wrong." "Virtual worlds," says Mr. Bakan, and "endless[-] video clips," create teenagers who are increasingly "absorbed by the titillating roil of online social life." One could "dismiss[-]" these "as mere generational prejudices," but Mr. Bakan believes there's reason to think otherwise.

It is at this point which Mr. Bakan and I diverge in our thinking. Mr. Bakan believes that the legal development of the corporation as an entity with similar "rights" and "entitlements" as those typically conferred on people has led to a conflict between corporations and children. There may well be credence to this assertion, though I have also heard reasoned arguments for treating corporations as single entities. Mr. Bakan does not help his case much by turning the argument toward the evils which corporations have rendered upon children through junk-food, violent video games, psychological medicine, and toxic chemical exposure. These points are all worthy matters of consideration, but the reasons they all happen is far more diverse than simply that corporate entities are given similar rights as individuals. But again, an op-ed is not an ideal medium for careful development and exhibition of ideas, so we'll leave it at that.

Yet Mr. Bakan makes an interesting point. After describing the particularly potent effects of modern technology on his children, Bakan asserts that, "There is reason to believe that childhood itself is now in crisis."

When I first read this, I thought, "Oh, okay, the author believes there's something uniquely disturbing about the effect of modern technology on children; not just a generational prejudice, but something fundamentally dangerous." This is a point on which I could very much agree. Modern technology, to speak vaguely, brings with it many benefits and costs. It would not surprise me if these costs were not yet well understood. Intuitively, I believe they could prove far higher for a lot of people than we at present believe. If that proved true, then Mr. Bakan's assertion that "childhood itself is now in crisis" could prove quite accurate.

So that is an alternative direction which Mr. Bakan might have taken. The point is, for-profit initiatives have existed far longer than the modern corporation-with-individual-rights that Mr. Bakan seems to believe is at the heart of a fundamental conflict between the rights of children and those of corporations, yet the place of children in society has improved markedly. The Internet, video games, and other rapidly-evolving wireless technology, however, have only been around the past 15 or 20 years, and their extreme use by children is a more recent phenomenon still. Perhaps there is something fundamentally different about generation gaps today. Perhaps that is reason for concern. Or perhaps not. Something to consider at least.