“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.
02How Do We Peek into the “Thoughts” of Artificial Intelligence?
“Work, professional life, the drive to achieve corporate success and positions—this has become the mass culture of our society worldwide. To this day, many people find the meaning of their lives this way. From now on, we will have to change that. We will have to search for meaning.” We find ourselves in a time when the chatbot is not just an assistant but also a “therapist.” Before we even know it well enough, before we have laid down the ethical frameworks. We are already seeing the first challenges this brings, and the real problems are still on their way. Donika Borimechkova is a psychologist and psychotherapist with more than 15 years of experience. This time we decided to invite artificial intelligence itself to a therapy session. Because, as Donika says, many of her clients already get advice from it before they meet her. We never found a method or an approach that would let us run such an experiment, so we decided to discuss the subject, lay the foundations and then invite each of you to give us ideas on how to continue. Here is how this conversation begins.
03Warning: Child in Front of a Screen
Should we “rescue” children from the hours they spend at the computer and on the phone, and when does the same apply to adults? How much screen time is reasonable at what age, and how do we set limits once we have lost the balance? We look for answers with Donika Borimechkova, a psychologist and psychotherapist with more than 12 years of experience working with children of all ages, who pays particular attention to the influence of modern technology on kids.
