When it comes to raising healthy and smart kids in the digital age, there really are no easy answers. Parents are often the gatekeepers or guides of our kids’ relationships with technology—and it’s so easy to be overwhelmed by warnings about the dangers of screen time that it can be difficult to think about how to steer them towards safe and healthy digital experiences. But parents are not alone. Policy makers, pediatricians, tech industry leaders, and researchers are working to address these challenges too.

The Joan Ganz Cooney Center is thrilled to announce a new podcast that explores issues around kids and technology. With Into the Digital Future, hosts Jordan Shapiro (Cooney Center Senior Fellow and author of Father Figure: How to be a Feminist Dad and The New Childhood: Raising Kids to Thrive in a Connected World) and Laura Higgins (Director of Community Safety & Digital Civility at Roblox) guide listeners through an amazing roster of experts and researchers who work across media, gaming, health and education as featured guests. Jordan and Laura invite these experts to “look into the crystal ball” to help us understand and plan for the future. In contrast to frightening headlines about screen time or predatory online behaviors, Jordan and Laura guide listeners through a series of casual, fun, and thought-provoking conversations around topics that parents, researchers, and industry professionals can all relate to. 

Our guests offer various perspectives on parenting in the digital age, childhood and digital well-being, the responsibilities of the tech industry, fighting hate and inequality in digital spaces, and how all of these things have been impacted while living through a global pandemic. 

 

Listeners may be surprised—and reassured—to learn that some tech companies have public policy experts on their staff to set goals and standards for families and children, and to lead discussions across the tech industry. Some individuals are working to ensure our kids are not subjected to commercialization, while others are analyzing gamer chats and creating standards of play in an effort to fight discrimination and hate crimes in gaming. Still others are designing gaming spaces to promote inclusivity and self-expression or talking directly with kids to help grown-ups learn how to ask better questions.

Our first episode features pediatrician Dr. Jenny Radesky, who shares issues that parents have had during the pandemic, a time when technology use has been higher than ever before. Listen in for a perspective on health that encourages going beyond monitoring how much “screen time” and shifting instead to understanding how kids are using technology as part of their “digital wellbeing.” 

You can listen to the podcast here, or through your preferred platform! Find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Stitcher.

 

Full episodes:
Jenny Radesky: Pandemic Parenting and Kids’ Digital Wellbeing
Sonia Livingstone: Finding Balance in the Digital Future
David Kleeman: Youth Media Trends During the Pandemic
Quazar: Exploring Identities in the Digital Age
Alicia Blum-Ross: Parenting in the Digital Age
Michael Preston: Understanding the “Missing Middle”
Kimberly Voll: Fostering Healthy Communities Online
Amanda LaTasha Armstrong: What Black Feminism Can Teach Us About Children’s Media Experiences
Daniel Kelly: Changing Gaming to Fight Hate with Daniel Kelley