Is an algorithm raising your kid? Dr. Ray explains how the algorithms on phones and computers feed kids more of whatever they look up, and why he says the only way to stop it is to delay access.
“Is an algorithm raising your kid?”
I heard a great line the other day: “Is an algorithm raising your kid?” I just became familiar with algorithms in the last couple of years. They are a piece of, if you want to use the word brilliant, maybe seductive is a better word, technology that says in so many words, “I’m going to see what you’re interested in.” The algorithm finds out whatever you look up on your phone or your computer, and says, “Oh, they’d like to see more of that.”
So if your 13-year-old, who shouldn’t have a smartphone but does, looks up something regarding gender confusion or same-sex attraction, the algorithm says, “That’s what they’re interested in. We want to keep them interested, because we can sell more things and make more money.” And it starts sending many more things about gender confusion and same-sex attraction their way. It isn’t stuff that says, “Let’s measure this and see what it’s all about and think why you’re thinking this way.” No, no, no. It says, “This is what you should be heading toward.” Or if you’re a curious 14-year-old boy and you go into a site that has inappropriate material, what do you know? You can have some more of that. We’ll feed you a steady diet of it.
“Most parents don’t know that”
The interesting thing about technology is that most people can’t keep up with it. It moves ahead so fast that the average parent is unaware of what the algorithm does. It says, “If you show an interest in this, we will send you much more of this. It’ll pop up on your feed, on your phone, on your computer.” So in essence, the algorithm has a very potent hand in raising your kid. Most parents don’t know that. Over 50 percent of parents have absolutely no safety mechanisms on that phone or computer.
So the algorithm says, “Let me have your kid. I’ll tell you how your kids are going to think. You, mom, you, dad, you think you’re doing a fine job of this.” And then one day they’re 19 years old and you wonder how they got to the point where they think so differently than the way we tried to raise them. Ask the algorithm. If you type in something that has to do with some sort of antagonism toward religion, what do you know? You get all kinds of stuff. They’ll slam religion. Why? Because I want to keep you watching. I want to keep you attached. I want to keep you addicted. I hate to use that word, but let me use it for now. And before you know it, I’ll have you shaped into thinking the way I want, “I” meaning the algorithm.
“The only way to stop it”
So the only way to stop the algorithm is not to let it have access to your kid. And the only way to do that is to have the strength to say, “This isn’t good.” The only way to stop it is to delay the access to it. Even if I’m only one in a hundred parents that does it now, realize the strength that takes. It should make you mad, actually, that they’re doing this to your kid.
I remember reading a book about this, and they were quoting a lot of the guys who developed the technology to keep kids hooked. They said, “There’s no way I would let my kid get on this stuff, because I know what it can do. I designed it.” They were pretty upfront about it. So once more, the question: is the algorithm raising your kid?
Dr. Ray gives parents more on holding the line in Raising Upright Kids in an Upside-Down World.
Transcript of Dr. Ray’s audio blog, lightly edited for reading.