My son, like most of his contemporaries, has an unbridled addition to the screens. Like any addict it has led him to confuse, manipulate, trick and try everything in his power to get his fix. It’s a uniquely strange generational phenomena because my generation were the first to engage with the internet and social media in a lasting way, we shaped and founded and transformed it, and his are the first generation withYouTube established to what it is, with DoorDash and Uber and Grubhub, and with the existence of the kind of Artificial Intelligence that is accessible to most everyone’s fingertips.

In my truest nightmare this addiction has been so seductively weaponized that it is actually a living party in our relationship.

As a single mom I often used screens as an active participant in our mother son relationship and now I can’t get them to respect my boundaries – those screens, that is.

One of my biggest concerns about his YouTube fixation (which makes total and complete linear and logical sense) is that there is a lack of … basic education needed.

In my generation if a parent or guardian stuck is in front of a tv for literally 10 hours a day still the programming had to go through certain levels of processing before production. It’s a fair assessment to say that many if not all people involved in that era of television had some kind of broadcasting degree, which required schooling, which required years of being connected with other people – actual human beings – in person. A kind of basic human togetherness that I can’t believe we maybe took for granted.

The problem here is that while systems of inequality are in existence you can bet that they will continue to flow effortlessly, and broadcasting, film and especially tv have been extremely male dominated fields. This left the editing and story telling with a certain kind of bias for a very long time.

As a millennial and woman my relationship with all internet technology has been that exuberant joy of a young woman in the throes of a first real relationship.

Always a little naive and excited and totally smitten.

Undoubtedly what the internet has given us as it is technically still in its early evolution is something I can scarcely find the words to put down or that could be the fact that I haven’t had my morning coffee yet. Either way, the internet is a blessing and I have always stood up for it to wary and hesitant family and community members frightened of a new and changing world. The egalitarian internet, the equalizing social media, the self publishing accessibility, the new FIELDS of economy, the balance in work life relationship for chronically ill and disabled people. Everything. The way we can change the beauty standards and those same normalized and male centered broadcasting standards, and did.

I love the internet.

I love internet technologies.

But alas, the very same reason I love it is part of what makes it so very dangerous. My generation has seen the worst of human kind unfold with these technologies from so called revenge porn and how it has impacted rising stars on their journeys to success, to stalking, cyber bullying, luring the young and or gullible into trafficking or cult situations, major new ways to scam.

The beautiful simplicity of self publishing is why I can write this to you here and now but is also why anyone with a camera and internet access can become YouTube famous (hopefully I’m next lol) and weave their way right into my son’s pleasure centers of his brain without too much psychological understanding at all and root down.

I was watching something one of my teachers, Mami Onami said, about one of the reasons why these things impact kids the way they do and I’ll try to remember and paraphrase to the best of my memory – I really. do need that coffee! Let me try to push through before the mombilities *get it like momma responsibilities? or rather, expectations of constant availability, get on my ass like those YouTubers get in my sons limbic system*.

She was reading the work of another parent – researcher who said something like there are three things that affect kids to … play? Fear of fuck I really have to find and share the video for it to make sense. But these videos play on all these things kids should believe are daring – moving, fear of falling? maybe? and just… big transitions? And these videos have all of that stuff which sort of simulates their nervous system into thinking it’s doing something without actually doing something like, for instance, going on a hike with their mom.

And I am not writing this for parenting advice, please understand that as a single mom the amount of unwarranted advice I have received since my pregnancy became public is so exhausting it is surely one of the reasons I am writing this from the relative cave of my bedroom. I Don’t Want Your Advice. Just clarifying, thank you.

but again – as a child even if I watched PBS kids until it turned to PBS broadcasting in general I may have seen Zoom, Arthur, Zaboomafoo – shows that had a story arc, shows that may have been overseen by child educators or psychologists, shows that were essentially moving stories. And then adult programming which had even more stories, plots, characters – actors, actual people who had training to be on the screen and who were always interacting with other people.

This new streaming era which I once again am a big investor in, and believer of, which is why I can critique it so sadly and truthfully – lacks that in a big way.

Somehow in the last two years while my son and I were moving we slid out of the safe and familiar hands of PBS kids and into this new and dangerous territory. My son found a video that popped up of someone playing a Roblox game that we had played together and was instantly drawn in and enchanted. Before this time of moving, of long car rides and uncertain home hours – with all the repairs happening in the house before we moved I couldn’t always make dinner at home at the same place at the same time and this instability proved the perfect space for a tiny little YouTuber to sneak in and nest.

Some of the channels are just animations of people screaming all the time over their gameplay. I understand the hypnotic familiarity of it as I am someone who loves to binge watch a show from time to time. Who doesn’t love a moment of that kind of artistic entertainment and loosening up of responsibility? But I will say again – these shows at even the most basic level go through a kind of vetting and production consistency check that some of these YouTube videos do not have.

Not because of a lack of talent at all – but it’s kind of like the police policing the police.

If anyone at home sees what an incredible market this is – my son’s generation – they can just record themselves and keep a young one’s attention and once they have it I promise you it’s really hard to get back.

Offensive

I’ve treated this addiction as any addiction and come at it from the perspective of harm reduction, knowing that withdrawal is the hardest part of getting clean from any substance. That withdrawal fever will have you lashing out in ways you didn’t even know were possible and that is what millions of kids are going through every day when they step into the classroom.

Oh yes, I’ve done the reading and seen the studies. These videos create such big and constant dopamine hits that when kids get to school without their phones in the morning they are literally experiencing withdrawal symptoms and in some cases depression.

Without going too much into my personal life I will also say that every time I have tricked my son into not being on one of these screens, in some cases actually carried him crying into a car to simply talk, read, listen to audiobooks or podcasts while he comes down, or prepared for that most beautiful respite – a hike with mom – my own mom has slipped in with a new screen in hand!

It’s a different situation from me than you, maybe, being that I live with my mom and my son and the differences in our generation naturally cause friction, but this issue has driven such a wedge it could almost be considered war.

I sneak away my own phone and say the battery is dead for an hour here comes grandma with the Nintendo switch. I turn off the computer for Roblox to make space for that glorious sunlight, here she is smiling with her tablet all charged up for him to use.

I finally give up and shut everything off and he starts sobbing and weeping, in rushes grandma saying and scolding, “no child should cry like that what are you doing you kids never cried like that!” thus undermining possibly hours of work. And anyone knows that with addiction, every time that withdrawal is interrupted it gets harder, and every time an addict goes back to their addiction they run a higher risk of unintentional overdose.

For me, I think we’ve passed that OD mark a couple of times. There are certain channels that my son will ask for that I don’t even fight him on right now anymore because I know that in order for us to get through the day (living with my mom) I can’t even turn it off, he’ll cry so deep and so loud that her response is actually more damaging to the process than allowing him to watch it.

When I think of how we got to this point I know that it’s not about pointing fingers. I myself have a very obvious screen addiction and it makes matters more complicated because I run several online businesses. I know that.

I finally deleted twitter (or X, I suppose) a few months ago, and in that first week I found myself relentlessly refreshing Threads to try not to feel like I was missing out. The truth is that I AM missing out but a little bit of that missing out has given my own brain chemistry a much needed break. Our human brains are literally not meant for this.

I worry about crash out and burn out for these kids at the gentle age of 10. Who will they be, then?

To me, the saddest part of these videos is that it has impacted my son’s speech.

Recently I was moving too slowly for him (human paced, that is) and he said, “oh my godddd mummy, what is wrong with you, are you an idiot?”

Ugh. Gutted, bro.

It hurt my feelings so deeply, not even simply because of the language used but because of the casual nature with which he used this phrase I now understand that after an hour of watching this gaming video it is a normal and maybe slightly cool and exciting phrase to use for him. Not unlike how I used phrases and words in my youth that if they were uttered today would… well… just not be accepted in modern society.

And it made me sad again not only because I was hurt that this word was in his vocabulary but because if he continues to use such a phrase he will be necessarily less empathetic and more desensitized to other people’s feelings. After all, these gaming videos exist off of shock value to hold your attention – duh, it’s gaming – and those old dialogue tv shows I was telling you about exist as art. To share or showcase a story or a vision.

I’m unfailingly optimistic, as a general rule, so I’m not worried about my son at 10 years old really it was more of a broad sadness because I know who I am as a human being and as a mother and I know I can successfully wean him off of these screens again just not by myself.

In my case, ironically, this means safe spaces where my son can scream and wail as though he is being personally hurt when he is going through withdrawal where understanding people don’t judge those tears as abuse or neglect but as an impending breakthrough.

Spaces where my son can say, “Mummy, you’re such an idiot, you don’t care about me, what is wrong with you?” and people won’t rush in, clutching their pearls to correct him about etiquette and feelings, but just ask maybe if we need a glass of water while we wait for the storm to pass.

It saddens me to know and understand deeply that the reason moms like me allow this kind of YouTubing into our family relationships in the first place is exactly because we don’t have that time. Capitalism is literally eating into our time and energy and we do need engaging support for our children so we can, I don’t know, poop, do laundry, make dinner, and plan for those beautiful outings into the great outdoors?

On the positive side that same YouTube has brought us into contact with family channels we love, adore, and I endorse, such as Vooks, Cosmic Kids Yoga, Fat Cat Reading, Adley & G is for Gaming.

I’ll say it again in case your altered and shortened attention span (like mine) let you forget already – I really love the internet. Those channels I mentioned are so cool and even Adley, a family gaming channel, has inspired my son so much. We do in fact, have our own gaming channel. My goal isn’t restriction, censorship, or puritan banning. I do think it’s good that we have YouTube in my family and in our house.

My goal is just to reflect and lament out loud.

Last week PBS’s funding was cut and it feels too sad to be true.

In my son’s era we have Alma’s Way and Molly of Denali and Eleanor Wonders Why and Carl the Collector! We have so many brilliant shows crafted by educators, child psychologists, etc, that DO teach empathy, cultural sensitivity, that do show representation and that have made me as a mom of this generation proud to see what people can come up with together for the kids.

I also give so much thanks for the podcast era that I found myself in – missing out on the sort of Joe Rogan of it all and coming straight here from radio to find shows like Circle Round which I have been playing for my son for 3 years.

It’s just sort of intense as to have these battles – mom versus machine, as it were, and it is exhausting.

I’ve taken the time as a SAHM with online businesses to cajole and gently remove those screens, sometimes taking hours to let my son cry and talk with me, but now as we move into bigger communities it makes me sad to know that we don’t always have the time to do that anymore and empathetic to realize that so many kids in his era have this same addiction.

Like any addiction stigmatization helps no one.

I just remain hopefully steadfast in the knowing that one day very soon my son’s offscreen habits will offset his onscreen habits and I wish that when that time comes he and so many others like him will be able to have a healthier and more secure relationship with this ever evolving and beautiful technology.

I will be posting our YouTube channel soon because my son happily tells me that he is a professional gamer and already has a job and has in fact been saying that since 5 years old and who am I to stop a young entrepreneur from having fun and making money, but for now, if you can be vulnerable too, and your family is working through a YouTube addiction, I would absolutely love to hear it and talk about it with you.

see you next time
xoxo