| I agree with you that consumerism is at least one of the important issues, which is why generic "tech is bad and scary" articles are still a form of Luddism. It's not addressing the actual issue, as you said. You're sort of making this either/or case rather than a connected whole. Your kid is eventually going to have a communication device. You have to embrace the dangers of that and teach them about the issues they'll face and the compromises they'll have to make when using it. That doesn't mean you disable Netflix, but that does mean you can teach them about how the internet works, how companies make money off advertising and data, and that there are still ways to protect themselves to reduce risks. Your 2nd paragraph is all things I cover with my kids. "No, convenience trumps all" No, this is not what we should teach our kids. Compromises may be acceptable, but that doesn't mean convenience trumps all. One other avenue to explore is how our government can and should do more to make it harder for companies to abuse people in the name of convenience. That's not something that they do a good job of now, but hey, better education for people is part of the point we're discussing. Luddites don't even know the right questions to ask. "There is no responsible way to "teach" consumer technology" I disagree, but also don't think we have a choice. Either you learn better ways to teach your kids about tech, or you'll continue to have a system that abuses tech. "This is just common sense, it applies to everything." Tech risks are not common sense though outside Silicon Valley. I agree some of the tech problems are more about consumerism, in general, but there are plenty of issues that aren't just that. Avoiding tech won't stop those particular issues. "And as you write, the former is inevitable, but then so is a lack of privacy, and so are the bad habits that are inherent to consumer technology." There will always be risks and compromises with interacting with tech. Going back to my sex-ed analogy, there are also risks with sex, but we learn to wear condoms and practice safe sex to minimize those risks. This idea that we can't teach safer risk mitigation strategies for tech also is silly: ad blockers, privacy blockers, better password and identity management, how and when to share personal information, government and legal interventions. All of these are things that affect tech use and should be taught. |