Children of Screens

There are children of screens now

Who came out of the womb with face ID registered on their phone,

Who post selfies with their little baby friends on their first birthday.

There are millions of kids who have an iPad babysitter  

Who look for Angry Birds catapulting through the sky on the way to school,

Who think Candy Crush is a religion,

And who only want to invite Fortnite characters to play together on weekends.

Less and less are spending their time playing imaginary games as kids, and unfortunately one gets to an age when you can no longer do that without people thinking you’ve gone a bit a schizo.

To the four year-old whose mother posted the video of him saying  

“it’s a qwer owld day for concrete”

and explaining his plans to strim the hedges – I’m sorry.

I’m sorry you couldn’t have that sweet conversation with your mum and enjoy the interaction together, without the video being shared all over Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

- I’m sorry that the internet stole your privacy before you even know ‘privacy’ is.  

Please don’t let your child be eight and a half before learning what a storybook is.

Make sure to dance your socks off with your kid just for the sake of it and not just TikTok.

Let Santa bring them colouring pencils and jigsaws instead of in-game coins on FIFA.

Teach them to ride a bike and play an instrument, before they cap their musicality at Guitar Hero.  

 Or don’t.

After all, what do I know?  

Although I grew up as the internet did,

I wasn’t raised by it.

By Sinéad Mears

From: Ireland