Experts often tell parents they must manage screen time, protect privacy, and safeguard mental health — all while navigating platforms that teams of behavioural scientists and engineers have designed. This is what parents have to solve problems tech companies created.
This is a nearly impossible expectation because parents are not experts on the technologies used by their children. They are users of the new technologies like smartphones and social media, just like their children.
Modern digital platforms are not neutral playgrounds. They are commercial environments optimised for growth. When parents struggle to regulate technology use at home, it is not because they lack commitment. That’s because the design incentives are stacked against them.
Mobile games are designed using daily rewards, social competition and psychological triggers. You earn rewards for daily participation, and you lose out on those rewards when you don’t play the game. Friends and group quests, along with leaderboards in mobile games, reinforce social competition. The psychological triggers are primarily events that trigger a short burst of dopamine in the brain, like points for each round completed.
Duolingo, a language learning app, is an excellent example of these techniques.
This creates guilt and confusion. Parents feel responsible for outcomes they did not create and cannot fully control.
The solution is not fear, nor is it total restriction. It is understanding. When parents understand how technology works — psychologically and economically — they can make decisions grounded in clarity rather than panic.
Protecting children online begins with adult awareness. It’s not mastery of tools, but understanding of systems.
3 Ways Parents Have to Solve Problems Tech Companies Created
- Managing screen time: This is perhaps the first step in addressing this problem. It starts with parents by example. Parents must control their own behaviour and use of smartphones, social media and mobile apps to demonstrate how to be smart and safe online.
- Protecting privacy: This is a critical lesson that parents must teach their children before they are given a mobile phone, video games and so on. A discussion around what privacy is, why it’s important, how it can be exploited, and the consequences of identity theft. As more and more social media apps force users to use their real names, the value of being anonymous and using nicknames or a pen name can be a good starting point.
- Safeguarding mental health: One reason parents believe children go to school is for socialisation. In this respect, heavy use of smartphones often leads to feelings of isolation. Yes, of course, children use smartphones to keep in touch with their friends. However, it’s become so common for children playing together to all be playing on their phones instead of engaging with each other.
These are just the most basic ways in which parents have to solve problems that tech companies created. Parents must monitor the behaviour of their children when they are using their smartphones or playing video games, and when they are not. There are sure signs that can be noticed when observing closely.
The challenge often comes in that parents themselves are distracted by their constant smartphone use, constant scrolling and watching short videos all the time. It’s a disaster waiting to happen, and families become disconnected. It’s especially sad when children ignore their grandparents and extended family members, preferring the company of their smartphones and social media use. Tech companies are in the business of making a profit. Yes, it’s possible to benefit from the use of new technologies, but it’s also clear that parents must be the guardians of their children.
This has never been more important than now, and we will forever live with the consequences of our actions or inaction.