–
Want To Listen To The Article Instead?
–
Featured Article And Glossary Of Key Terms
Explore how childhood definitions are evolving and discover age-appropriate ways to support children’s digital lives and rights in today’s world.
Article Citation: Livingstone, S., & Sylwander, K. R. (2025). There is no right age! The search for age-appropriate ways to support children’s digital lives and rights. Journal of Children and Media, 19(1), 6–12. https://doi.org/10.1080/17482798.2024.2435015
Glossary of Key Terms:
Age Assurance: Mechanisms used to verify a user’s age to restrict access to age-restricted content or services.
Age-Appropriate Design Codes: Regulations that require digital services to consider children’s privacy, safety, and best interests when designing their platforms.
COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act): A US law that requires parental consent for companies to collect and use data from children under 13.
Child Rights Impact Assessment: A process used by digital companies to evaluate the potential effects of their products and services on children’s rights.
Digital Consent: The age at which children can legally consent to the processing of their personal data online.
Evolving Capacities: The principle that children’s ability to exercise their rights develops with age and maturity, requiring adults and states to provide support that aligns with their developmental stage.
GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation): A European Union regulation on data protection and privacy, which includes provisions for the protection of children’s data.
UNCRC (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child): An international human rights treaty that sets out the civil, political, economic, social, health, and cultural rights of children.
– 0 –
FREE Parent Workshops
Future STRONG is a global initiative for personal growth. While you’re guiding your children on a path to resilience, independence and happiness, parents, have you thought about “investing in you?” Come join us.
Check Out Our Latest In Mindful Parenting!
AI Slop, Brainrot & Shitposting: Who’s Moderating the Internet Anymore? – Part I
What Is Brain Rot, Anyway? If you want to learn more about brain rot, you're at the right place. If you don't know what it is, even then, you're at the right place. When I visited Rome a few years ago, I realized Italians had given the world fabulous looking...
When AI Becomes Your Therapist: The Hidden Risk of Chatbots Replacing Reality – Part II
When Validation Becomes Distortion In the first article, we talked about what AI psychosis is. Here, we continue the conversation by exploring how AI chatbots may contribute to distorted thinking or delusions, especially in vulnerable users. We’re going to look...
The Dangerous Rise of AI Yes-Men: When ChatGPT Agrees Too Much and Fuels AI Psychosis – Part I
Cats vs. Chatbots Earlier in March 2026, Garry Tan, the President & CEO of Y Combinator, posted something on X: “I am so late to this trend but I finally asked my ChatGPT to make an image of our relationship and this is what it did. What does yours look...
The Attachment Economy Is Here: What AI Companions Mean for All of Us – Part I
Parents, Get Ready To Welcome Your AI In-Laws There will be a time in the not so distant future, when your child will introduce you to his girlfriend. And there's a possibility, you will end up locking eyes, if that's even possible, with his AI companion. The...
Inside Social Media Lawsuits: How Meta, YouTube & AI Are Harming Teens
Life As a Chaos Machine I was on a beach, when I couldn't move, listening to The Chaos Machine by Max Fisher. The book makes painfully clear that Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook leadership knew their platforms were harming young minds. Internal research linked...
Tech Billionaires Don’t Trust Their Own Tech: The Screen-Time Secrets They’re Hiding From Parents
Toying With Our Futures At the Aspen Ideas Festival in June 2024, Peter Thiel was interviewed by Andrew Ross Sorkin. He volunteered information in response to a question, “If you ask executives of social media companies how much screen time they let their kids...
When Dreams Abroad Turn Heavy: The Tragic Story and the Silent Mental Health Crisis of International Students
A Promise And Brilliance Lost “I'm a Master’s student in the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering department at University of California, Berkeley, with an undergraduate degree from IIT Madras. I'm passionate about deep-tech innovations in soft and active...
The Evolution of Love: Marriage, Survival, and Personal Reinvention in a Changing World
A Society Experiences Growing Pains I took this picture of a wall hanging in the lobby of a hotel we were staying at in Granada, Spain. Somehow, the couples whose heads are disintegrating felt like a fitting image for the essay on marriage I was writing. I’ve...
Is Roblox Safe for Kids? What Every Parent Must Know About Grooming, Explicit Content & Online Dangers
From Fun to Risk: The Reality of Roblox for Children In 2023, as parents of my students would ask me about the safety of Roblox, I began researching about it. I was even beginning to teach it in my own classrooms, because it was a creative game that was both...
When AI Mirrors Our Pain: The Uncomfortable Truth About Human Suffering in Training Data
The loneliness. God, Andy. The loneliness. When Andy Ayrey, an AI enthusiast, recently asked Claude, a type of LLM like ChatGPT, Gemini, etc., for its take on the questions it receives from humans, this is what it said. The loneliness. God, Andy. The loneliness. In...
Carl Sagan Didn’t Just Explain the Universe — He Explained What It Means to Be Human
Every time I come across Carl Sagan’s quotes on my social media feeds, I pause. I take time to reflect on what he was trying to say. When I moved to the US 24 years ago, I spent a lot of time in libraries, reading books and articles that might give me insight into the...
14 Mind-Blowing Quotes That Reveal How Social Media Is Hijacking Your Life
Thoughts on Social Media, Technology, and Our Attention Our lives are increasingly lived online, where every scroll, click, and share shapes not just our behavior but our reality. Leading thinkers warn us that while technology can amplify our voices and connect...