Your Child's Phone Is a Bedroom Made of Glass

Dear friends, Katharina recently wrote about why there are no game consoles in her house. Alexandra Nolte, a mom of four who is “older than Google,” is also often shocked by how casually her friends hand their kids phones. She doesn't want a “glass bedroom” for her own kids. Here she tells us what's on her mind, and then answers a few of our questions.

“No Glass Bedroom for My Kids”

“I'm old enough to remember getting kicked offline whenever someone needed to make a phone call. But I never stopped growing up with the internet. And once I saw The Matrix, I was hooked. The digital world has been a part of me ever since.

“Now, though, with AI, I can see how fast you get left behind. If it's happening to me, even though I keep learning about this stuff all the time, how are other people doing? So I started explaining to my friends what can go wrong, where the dangers are hiding, and how to deal with them. One thing led to another.

“Now I'm taking this topic public. With ‘The Invisible Worlds Behind the Screen,’ I'm trying to raise parents' awareness and get them to face the uncomfortable topics of data privacy, cybercrime, and media literacy for kids.”

Alex, you say that as a mom of four, you're often shocked by how carelessly your friends hand their kids phones. Can you tell us about a specific situation?

These situations happen more often than you'd think. Say, at a restaurant. A kid gets restless, and Mom or Dad hands over their phone. Of course, the YouTube settings aren't what they should be for a child. The playlists and the algorithm have already been trained, on purpose and by accident. Now there's content available that kids maybe shouldn't be seeing.
In my case, it's my love of Tim Burton. That content is totally unsuitable for my youngest, but it shows up because it's what I like to watch. The important thing is to know that this is how it works, so you're not left wondering how it happened.

Which features do you think are the most underestimated?

AirDrop (or QuickShare) is especially underestimated and dangerous. Suddenly a button pops up: “Accept.” The child taps it, and no matter who dropped what, it's there, it shows up, and it's saved to the photo library. If it's just a picture of a flower, you got lucky, but under the wrong circumstances, content can come flying in that you'd never want your child to see. Very few people know that this feature doesn't need Wi-Fi or anything like it. The files arrive, get accepted, get saved on the phone, and they're just there.

You say you can see how quickly even you get left behind by the rapid development of artificial intelligence. How so?

Let's just take generating videos for social media. A year ago, you could tell pretty quickly whether a video was generated or not. The AI wasn't able to produce realistic hands, for example. That changed in no time. Now reality and fiction are practically impossible to tell apart. If you don't keep up with these topics day by day, you miss things that really matter, and you miss them frighteningly fast. And it's safe to assume this will get stronger rather than weaker in the future.

You started explaining to your friends what can go wrong. Tell us about that.

I started showing them how much you can find out in a very short time from information people share voluntarily. Let's stick with social media. WhatsApp counts too, and the status feature isn't as private as you might think. You can build a very nice profile of someone's movements from it. Add a post or two from Facebook or Insta and you've got a map. Where does this person like to eat, get a haircut, work out? How is their home decorated? And much more. You can even find their exact address pretty quickly, their kid's daycare, school, everything.

When I then show how fast AI can fake content, most people are shocked. With AI, I can make anyone say anything I want, or create pictures and videos of situations that never happened. That's scary.

Where do you think the biggest dangers lurk in the “invisible world behind the screen”?

I think there are several dangers, and they all go hand in hand. The algorithm decides what content to show based on the child's click behavior. AI learns from that data with frightening speed, figures out what it takes to keep the child on the screen, and starts rewarding the child for the behavior it wants. It does this on a level that neither the parents nor the child actively notice.

Then there's the warped sense of reality. On social media, everyone is a superstar, super brave, super beautiful, super trendy, and super rich. And if that's not enough, they slap a filter on top. Ads keep getting played, and they aren't always recognized as ads, because the favorite influencer always has that product with them anyway. And before you know it, you're stuck in a bubble that's hard to get out of.

Take a kid in the teen years. They already feel misunderstood all the time and are fairly easy to influence, and joining in and fitting in matter enormously at that age. The algorithm remembers which content works on this kid to keep them on the phone. The AI learns along the way and keeps shifting that content without anyone noticing. Faster, louder, maybe more emotional, and it starts setting triggers that get stored in the child's brain without them realizing it. Every like, every little heart releases dopamine. The reward system kicks in. That's what makes it addictive.

On top of that comes the comparison with a fictional reality: everyone is prettier, thinner, richer than I am. A feeling of inferiority gets created very quickly. Add a certain bubble with a predetermined direction, and the content the AI picks can steer not just buying habits but opinions too. I think the biggest danger is that we end up raising kids who've never gotten to know themselves.

You're talking about how an algorithm works, and how AI amplifies all of it…

Exactly. The algorithm is pretty crude about what it remembers: yes or no! Cat picture or dog picture! But AI can think beyond that: if you like dogs, you probably need balls to play with, too. Don't you want to buy a ball for your dog? Look, here's a really nice ball. Kids can recognize and see through this kind of manipulation once someone has explained to them what's actually going on.

What do you tell your own kids about data privacy and cybercrime? And starting at what age?

That bad people can be anywhere, on the playground just as much as on the internet. That starts pretty early. Don't go anywhere with a stranger. Start with the youngest kids. And: If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. That one comes a little later.

I honestly can't say exactly at what age we started, because we grew along with the topic. Personally, I treat cybercrime the same way I treat offline crime. Talk, talk, talk! Informed kids are strong kids. When one of my kids asks, they get an explanation they can understand. 

Why should location sharing on WhatsApp be turned off?

Because otherwise anyone can see where you are right now! Even people you think are annoying, or worse, people you don't know at all. Why do we check a shop's legal notice (the contact and ownership info German sites must list) before we order? Because I can build you a fake shop in 3 minutes. Come here, I'll show you how.

Explaining why you shouldn't chat with strangers in a public Roblox chat (ideally, don't go in at all) matters just as much as teaching “Don't get in a stranger's car, even if they say your mom sent them.” In our family, we have a code word that only the kids and we parents know. It's a safety net, just in case. The most important thing is to be honest, answer questions, and point out dangers, in a way kids can understand but always honestly.

You also find it problematic how much data apps collect and what that does to kids' media consumption…

It's not just about name and age. It goes much deeper. What did the child watch, and for how long? When did they swipe on? What color scheme keeps them watching longer? Which sounds do they prefer? What's their reaction time? Can their current mood be read from it? Do they respond to rewards? And much more. A personality profile can be built in no time. Movement data, learning behavior, strengths, weaknesses, social interactions, voice recordings, images! That's how an elementary school kid becomes the perfect customer.

You think it's important to “lock down” a phone and not give kids open devices, because that opens the door to their room to any stranger. Can you explain that a bit more?

To me, an open phone is like a bedroom made of glass! Anyone can march in and out as they please. The uncontrolled flow of data lets absolutely everything in and absolutely everything out. I don't want that in the offline world, and I definitely don't want it in the digital one. What few people know: even totally harmless apps can have chat functions. That's a pretty easy way into my child's room. I can't step in, and my child can't yet judge the dangers. 

If I lock the device down, it's not impossible, but it's a lot harder to reach my child. There are so many forms of crime on the internet. Even though I can't protect my child 100%, I want to be a shield and be able to help my kids if they've had to go through something bad. That's why I want to help other parents stand protectively in front of their kids, so the kids can explore the web with curiosity. 

Do you see opportunities too?

I actually see more opportunities than downsides. The internet is full of opportunities, creativity, and endless possibilities. It connects people, teaches, and opens up worlds that were unimaginable not long ago.
The big “but” is that we as parents never learned how to handle it, and now we just shove our kids in and leave them alone there.

If we manage to guide our kids so that they understand the internet as a tool they can use responsibly and creatively, we'll have very happy kids. The internet gives all of us the chance to discover and develop talents. We can shape it creatively instead of just mindlessly consuming it, we can boldly build projects, and we can make friends across cities and borders. 

To wrap up: How can we make a digital childhood safe?

A safe digital childhood works pretty much like a safe offline childhood. We wouldn't send our kids to play alone on the highway, either. It's the same in the digital world. We can't just let them figure it out on their own and close our eyes to the dangers. We have to know the digital world, and we have to stay involved so our kids can move around in it freely.

It's like a playground: the kids get to run, climb, test themselves, and be curious, but we stand at the edge and are there if something happens. A locked-down phone doesn't mean my child is restricted. It means they have a safe starting point, so they can try things out and be curious. 

We can't protect our kids 100%, not offline and not online, but we can talk about it, and that really is the most important protection! Even about things that are uncomfortable for us. A very important topic: sexual harassment online. A truly awful topic. But only a child who knows what it is can come to us and say, something happened, it felt weird, help me. That's the only way we protect our kids: by talking about it, by staying involved ourselves, and by understanding what our kids are doing.

Kids need parents as companions, not a phone ban. With a ban, my child only learns that if I do something, I get punished, so I won't talk about it. And bam, the digital world is no longer safe, just like the offline world. We have to talk to our kids, we have to educate them, and to do that, we have to be informed ourselves. And that's exactly where I'm trying to help parents. As a mom who has the very same worries and struggles. Media literacy isn't a nice-to-have. It's super important for strong, curious kids.