Background to the guide

New technology does not come packaged with new approaches. We have to develop them while we learn how the new works. At the beginning of every technology introduction, there is always concern, a concern that is often exaggerated. Then it usually calms down and the new technology gets a place in our lives, often side by side with older technology, but sometimes the new competes with the old. It is usually not seen as a major loss after a while.

When we got calculators in school, many worried that they would compete with the slide rule and they were right, but today hardly anyone mourns that development.

I think the same applies today; digitization gives us new opportunities and we will let go of some old things without it being a problem. This transitional period of exaggerated concern is often called media panic or technology panic. When the panic has passed, something even newer will come along that is seen as dangerous. Often it even becomes a circular movement, where what was once the subject of panic is instead presented as healthy and reasonable compared to the new.

Here the book is a good example of that circle; the book was long seen as threatening if it was used by sensitive people and it was thought to threaten education by knowledge not becoming as coherent as oral transmission.

Today we see that the book is instead presented as central to learning and contextualized understanding.

Digitization is a much larger change than most other technological shifts have been. It is such a revolutionary change that we have to go back to the printing press to find something comparable.

So maybe it's not so strange that the concern regarding screens just continues, year after year. However, I become impatient when I see more and more expressions of panic. Not least because I know that the panic will pass.

We will eventually end up in a situation where digitization is seen as a natural part of our lives. We will be able to talk about pros and cons without the discussion being black-and-white and without there being camps that are for or against.

A nuanced and rational conversation, in other words. Today we are not there. Screens are presented as something evil and screen freedom is sometimes presented as the solution to many serious social problems.

The fact that the public conversation about digitization looks like this is both unnecessary and risky. Unnecessary because we can safely say that it will look different as soon as the panic has subsided.

We don't know when, but we know it will happen. Risky because many who have benefited from digitization will find it more difficult to access what has helped them.

The big risk, however, is that the panic obscures the view and means that we do not look for real causes of the problems that screens are blamed for.

I find it unlikely that anyone seriously believes that social media causes and maintains young people's mental illness, especially since there is no research support for such a claim.

For me, it seems more reasonable to look for causes in the robust research on risk factors that we have had access to for decades.

What drives me and what is behind my own recommendations is that I see this panic as an enormous waste of children and young people's upbringing.

When the panic is over, it is too late. We cannot come and apologize afterwards when they are adults.

Then their childhood has already passed. I want us to carefully think about how we handle children's and young people's screen time even now, when we have the chance. I want to contribute to nuance the conversation about screens, raise it to a rational level where emotions and guesses take a back seat.

I would like every child to have adults who dare to resist the prevailing narrative and look the child in the eye and act on what they see.

What I wrote at the beginning, about panics, is no news to any adult today; everyone can tell about the concern surrounding heavy metal lyrics, Heta Linjen, role-playing games or something else that characterized their own upbringing. Concern that is completely gone today. Not a trace remains. No one warns their children that they can become criminals by playing role-playing games. Yet the panic continues, but now with new objects.

We do not seem to have learned anything. I don't think it's okay. I think it is part of adulthood to have that overview, to make those connections to one's own upbringing or to the one who grew up with warnings about dance floor evil or reading books or looking in the mirror.

It is our responsibility not to contribute to the prevailing panic and instead approach children and young people's screen use from their own perspective. It is our responsibility not to listen to unfounded claims and instead look a child in the eye and act on what we see.