“That’s It! No Phone!” No—What Matters Is What the Child Does With It
How do we find the balance so that children use technology to the full without it leading to problems? A long series of important Children’s Digital Stories set out to help us search for that delicate middle path. More than 350 parents and relatives of children up to age 11 took part in the site’s survey. Donika Borimechkova is a psychologist and psychotherapist with more than 14 years of experience who works with children of all ages. Before turning to psychological counseling, she spent 5 years on the staff of a public kindergarten. She holds a bachelor’s degree in primary and preschool education and a master’s in developmental psychology. We prepared the survey together, and now it is time to discuss the results and look for the key points. About the fear of the digital, about the great challenges of technology and artificial intelligence. About balance. As in the other conversations, the emphasis falls on useful advice which, I hope, will help more adults help the children around them so that technology becomes their friend.
22“Right Now, the Conditions Simply Aren't There for AI to Make a Dramatic Leap”
With Krasimir Kostadinov you can talk about geopolitics, astrophysics and history, all in the context of technology, the march of time and the trends that shape all our lives. He is the chief technology officer of Scalefocus: an engineer, architect and programmer with wide-ranging interests and deep knowledge, which he often shows off in his tech blog. In his current role, one of his direct duties is… to peer into the future, trying thoughtfully, sensibly and from every angle to predict where technology is taking us. We will peer into the future with him, for a sober and very different look at AI and the other big themes of the new age. Join us for a stroll through what lies ahead!
23“Kids Today Are Still Curious!”
If anyone can compare how the knowledge of Bulgarian language and literature is developing, both in high school graduates and in AI, it is today’s guest. For the second year running, Mr. Svetoslav Stoychev took part in the Digital Stories experiment that tested how the newest AI models handle the national school-leaving exam, and this time he helped bring in two real graduates. Now we talk about the results, about students’ love of books, and about what keeps a young teacher burning for the profession in the age of artificial intelligence.
24“I Don't See Programmers Disappearing”
Minko Gechev holds a black belt in karate… and, as a seasoned senior developer at Google, in programming too. Last time we followed his fascinating path from the small Bulgarian town of Troyan to one of the software giants of our time; now we turn to some of the most exciting questions of the day: what the future of software engineering looks like from its Mecca, Silicon Valley, whether the programmer's profession will survive at all, what is worth learning today and whether we can prepare for an exciting but challenging future. And how does our guest rediscover the wisdom of the East at the very heart of Western technology?
25“AI Is Everyone’s Big Chance to Climb Their Own Everest”
“The world stands at the Rubicon. We will live alongside smart machines, a new and different world awaits us, but are we ready for it?” That question, the very reason Digital Stories exists, is posed on the cover of her new book by today’s guest, Petya Minkova. In The Transition from the Digital Age to the Hybrid Civilization, she traces the long road from the first computers to a future of superpowerful artificial intelligence. And while the answer to whether we are ready is clear, there are so many other important questions we will discuss in the lines below! Do we have any future other than as a hybrid civilization of humans and technology? What does our survival depend on, and what will our daily lives look like once this transition hits with full force? Why is AI far more than a danger—why is it also a chance for each of us to climb our own personal Everest?
26Isn't the Ordinary Person the Most Extraordinary of All?!
Nikolay Terziyski, a writer and journalist born in Smolyan in 1983, returns to Digital Stories with Rodinia, a novel of 16 stories written over ten years. It is a book of journeys and homecomings, about coming together, drifting apart and the bonds that memory and words keep alive between us. A conversation about islands and continents, imagination and imperfection, and what AI may take from us.
27“Let’s Stop Underestimating Ourselves!”
Two programmers sit down to talk about our broken public conversation, about division and about the road to success. It sounds like the start of a joke, but it became a serious, thought-provoking interview with Vesko Kolev, head of the startup Icanpreneur, on the DEV.BG podcast. We talk about why we need to start listening and talking to each other again, why it is worth being glad when your child gets a bad grade, and what we need as a society to move forward together in the age of advanced artificial intelligence.
28“Today We Can Be Anything, Yet We Choose to Be the Same”
Why does it matter so much whether we can tell children's drawings from AI-generated images? What does the future of creativity, of art, of the human being look like at a time when algorithms turn out to be indistinguishable from us as authors, and even better ones? What is worth teaching our children today? Can you tell 15 children's drawings from 15 images generated by artificial intelligence? In just a few days, the Digital Stories challenge for children and parents has prompted more than 2,500 people to test their intuition! The results of the test are shaping up to be extremely interesting, and we will talk about them once it closes on July 1. The experiment was created together with today's guest, Elitsa Staneva-Britton. A psychologist, journalist and teacher, she is currently working on her doctoral dissertation at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, and her subject is creativity in the age of artificial intelligence. The time has come to talk about each of these topics.
29“A Truly Free Person Wouldn't Think of Their Phone as Anything Special”
Today's guest needs no introduction—his first name alone is enough to turn heads. Kitodar Todorov is a popular actor and television host, but also a meme hero and a seasoned gamer who invites guests to play online while they talk about life. Will this be a fun conversation, or will it give us reasons to stop and think about our place in the world of technology, gaming as a way of life, the difficult balance and the big questions? “Our entire modern civilization is built on little machines we depend on, and that's really dumb.” An unexpected conversation awaits!
30“We’ve Forgotten That the Baby Knows How to Be Born”
How has technology changed pregnancy and childbirth? What has it made easier, and how, paradoxically, has it created problems elsewhere in the way we come into the world? Evgenia Markova got in touch with me because of the Digital Children series and suggested we talk about this side of the relationship between technology and parenthood. She lives in Germany, and although she spent many years working in marketing and software development, today she works mainly as a doula. Especially popular in the West, this is the calling of women who are not medical professionals but who help expectant mothers with information, advice, and practical and emotional support. When can overtrusting technology become a problem in pregnancy and childbirth? Why is it worth returning to tradition in some respects and listening more to our bodies, not only to medical readings or other people’s advice? It is time for an important conversation, one that I believe can offer many useful ideas to people who are just preparing to become parents.
31Fear of Technology = A Nation Left Behind
Elitsa Stoilova says digital literacy should become a national goal if we want to move forward. “Its absence leads to fear of technology = conservatism in adopting and using it = our nation falling behind in many directions. What is the future of illiterate nations?” she wrote to me. Our guest has traveled a colorful road: 11 years in journalism, then tourism, where she became… a hotel manager in the Mariana Islands in the Pacific, before finally dropping anchor in the IT world. She realized that much of the work in tourism is repetitive and can be done by algorithms, so she created the chatbot platform UMNI, long before another chatbot made the world notice how far artificial intelligence has come. But how is it that she is so optimistic about the road ahead? Our guest believes that if we play our cards right, AI is leading us to a wonderful future. What does playing our cards right depend on? And why is it sometimes worth leaving one of the most heavenly corners of the planet to chase your dreams? We look for important and unexpected answers in the lines that follow.
32“We Sacrificed Two Generations Because We Didn’t Know How Technology Works”
“We adults sacrificed two generations because we created something without knowing what it was or how it worked.” Psychologist, father and children’s author Slavi Stoev explains what excessive screen time does to children’s emotional and intellectual development, and why it changes them irreversibly. Is there a middle path for parents, and how do we find it before our civilization drifts into decline?
33Whatever Happened to the Father?
“BG Mama” has long been a household name in Bulgaria. But whatever happened to… BG Dad? Mihail Stefanov, a father and an organizational anthropologist, on what fatherhood really means in the age of technology and why we talk about it so little.
34“As a Parent, Listen to Yourself. Not Your Relatives, Not Some Influencer!”
Have a child and never come across these unmistakable illustrations that make you smile and calm you down? Hardly. For 13 years Neda Malcheva has been chronicling the joys and woes of motherhood in her cartoons, and we love them not only for their talent, originality, style and humor, but because they feel close to home. We talk about art, parenting online, the mad race and the calm of village life, and the false picture painted by influencers.
35“I Want to Tell Today’s Mothers to Ease Up”
“Nobody teaches you how to be a parent anymore; you don’t absorb experience from those around you. Life is insanely stressful. We get up at 6 and go to bed at midnight, we’re forever running, everyone has classes and practice, there’s homework to do, Excel spreadsheets for work, the dog needs walking, you spend 40 minutes parking the car because there are no spaces, you’re supposed to stay calm but also get everything done, and cook, and have time for yourself, and do things together with the kids—so how do you survive when we’ve never lived this way before? Parenting isn’t taught in shop class, and everyone finds their own way. Sometimes it feels like you’re literally surviving on the edge.” How has technology changed the job of parents? Why has motherhood become such a big topic online? How do we turn the internet into a real helper for dads and moms? When and why does the creator of Maiko Mila say to herself… “Maiko mila!”? Krasimira Hadzhiivanova is a journalist, blogger, and founder of the parenting platform Maiko Mila and the Ole Male foundation. She is the editor and a contributor of the three-volume book series Da otseleesh kato roditel (Surviving as a Parent). She also takes part in large stand-up projects as one of the Three Women at the Mic.
36“Reading Is the Glue Between Parents and Children”
“A great love story!” says a teenage girl… about Under the Yoke?! How can that be, when Vazov’s classic is supposedly incomprehensible to today’s young people and we have to “translate” it for them… Val Stoeva is the ideal guest for a conversation about children and books and the love of reading. She is the creator of the invaluable platform Detski Knigi.com (Children’s Books.com) and the foundation of the same name. Why is reading more important than ever for children in the technological world we live in? How do we choose reading for them from a sea of titles and light the spark? Which books will a child like, given their age and interests?
37“We Were Made to Live in Relationships, in Communities, in Unions”
Nishka (Thread) is the third novel by the guest I am meeting today, and not by chance. I wholeheartedly recommend this book to everyone: it tells seven stories in a remarkable way and reminds us that the thread does not begin with us, and must not end with us, as Bulgarians, as people, or as humanity. Viktoria Beshliyska impressed me no less with the courage and skill with which she lectured nearly 2,000 IT specialists at DEV.BG All in One, the biggest tech event in Bulgaria, on why it matters so much to keep writing by hand in the digital age. Now we look at human relationships rethought and reshaped by technology: love in the digital age, what makes us human, and the necessary meeting of the humanities and technology on which all our futures depend.
38“Stagnation in Our Education System Is Ruinous”
How can we be sure we are giving our children an education that will still be useful tomorrow? Evgenia Peeva, founder of Teach For Bulgaria and head of the SoftUni Buditel high school, on the skills that matter today, why we should stop obsessing over exam scores, and how to choose a school that prepares a child for life in a hyper-dynamic technological world.
39“The Digital Can Wait. Childhood Can’t”
How do we lead children who are already too absorbed by the internet back out of it? That is the great cause of Alexandrina Georgieva, a programmer with serious experience who now heads the Offline Kids foundation, which helps parents find the balance. A fascinating personal story and countless valuable tips for every digital parent who believes children should, from time to time, find themselves offline.
40“An Era Is Coming in Which We Will Have to Reinvent Ourselves”
What will tomorrow look like? Why is “the era in which we will have to reinvent ourselves” approaching? What is worth teaching today’s children so they are ready for the future? Which professions will survive? And how do we find those ever scarcer skills that are worth helping them develop? Assoc. Prof. Mariana Todorova is a pioneer of Bulgarian futurology in its modern form. It has become a tradition for her to be my guest at the start of every year with forecasts that unmistakably come true. “We are returning to that most primal human quality of critical thinking, reasoning and debate.” “It is only a matter of time before most of the tasks we perform are taken over by artificial intelligence. We will live in permanent change, and at some point we won’t be able to catch up. As humanity, we could respond only through a global political consensus in which we decide that, even though the technology can do almost everything, people stay. But such a philosophy is deeply anti-capitalist, and imposing it would take either some boundless humanism or a dictatorship.” Can we be ready for the future?
