Book:

Our Children On The WEB

Our Children On the Web:

Our role ensuring they are safe when using the Web, Social Media & AI

People are at risk when using the Web, Social Media, and AI, particularly young people who are still in the stage of brain, body, and personality development. How we tackle these problems is not simple; it requires parents, educators and legislators to have access to as much information as possible to act accordingly. In addition, everything seems to be changing very quickly, jumping from one product to another at a very high pace.

In today's world, more than 65% of the population has a computer; most have a pocket computer, also known as a smartphone, which is more like a Swiss Army knife in terms of functionality and ease of use. The industry promotes products for children to use, despite clear recommendations from the United Nations' experts that children under 2 years of age should not have access to them.

In the avalanche of news we experience, all these warnings pass unnoticed, and, competing with the industry's ads in terms of volume and production quality, they have little chance of registering in parents' minds. The effects on young minds of technologies created to be addictive are observable and not positive.

This book aims to put all the cards on the table, so parents can make educated decisions about whether and when to give their children a smart device.

Availability: any amazon store, search for Our Children on the web in the books section

Amazon Spain (Spanish edition) ,

Amazon Sweden ,

Amazon USA

Phrases / ideas from the book:

"Parents are the first line of defence to protect Children"

"Childhood and adolescence are irreplaceable; if we get them wrong, we can't say 'Ooops, that was not right, try again'"

"The capacity to learn new things is much higher in a young child than in a teenager or an adult; they just don't have experience"

"Children's bedrooms are not protected spaces if they have access to devices connected to Internet"

"Children develop skills in well defined time windows, when the use of technology interferes with these windows, acquiring these skills is affected"

"Using a digital device is so simple today that even very young children learn how to give them a basic use"

"No legislation, no protection" Society needs to legislate so that children can be given access to adequate material when online, but there is no silver bullet solution; a combination of laws and rules on the industry will work much better.

Table of contents:

Is the Web safe for kids?
Is the Web good or bad?
- Risks present in the new technologies
- Positive technical aspects
- Worrying aspects of Web-related tech.
- The Web's shining content
- The dark side of the Web content
How our children develop
- In utero
- The first year of life
- The first years
- The first school years
- Synaptic pruning
- Pre-adolescence and the life bubble
- Adolescence, including the teenage years
- Early exposure effects
Habits, addictions and advertising
- The roles of psychology
- Habits & Addictions
- Advertisment techniques
- Children oriented publicity
- Children as consumers
Screen usage & exposure
- Screens as nannies
- Social networks usage
- Cyber harassment & Cyber Bullying
- Paedophilia: hunting our children
- Effects of pornography at a young age
- Exposure to violence and its normalisation
- Illicit associations
The impact on education
- Technologies in the classroom
- Contributions to the classroom
- Negative impact on classrooms
- Results in education, so far
- The education industry/market
- Alternative learning channels
- Education in the post COVID-19 era
In the hands of parents
- Devices with Internet access
- Managing places and time in Internet
- Parental controls
Effects on our psyches
- Overwhelmed with `information'
- Exposed to the wide world
- The comparison bug
- Seeking validation
- Reality? Which reality? Whose reality?
- Scrutinise what we see, read, & listen to
- Sleeping
- Watched and intoxicated
AI: the new kid in town?
- A brief history of AI
- Generative AI and Chatbots
- AI classifiers
- AI in early childhood
- AI in adolescence
- AI in education
What can we do?
- As responsible adults
- No legislation, no protection
- Promoting positive changes
Conclusion
Glossary

About the authors:

Dr Patricio F. Ortiz

Astronomer & Research Software Engineer. Works at the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Sheffield, UK.

Patricio started using the Internet when he began his PhD in Toronto, Canada, when access to the Internet was limited to universities, financial institutions, and government departments in developed countries.

Children had no access to the services, which would've been boring for them and required dedicated knowledge to do "something useful" with a computer. The Web came a few years later, but people were interacting online, and the behaviour was not that different from what we observe today. Patricio migrated to France, then Italy, and later the UK to work on scientific projects that used the Web, including a space mission and the analysis of climate change data from satellites and ground-based sources.

The social effects of the Internet and related technologies got Patricio interested in learning more about their effects on children, as he recognised the effects they've had on himself first.

Sebastian E. Ortiz

Sebastian is Patricio's son, a physicist, lecturer at Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Valparaíso, Chile, and Universidad de Viña del Mar, Chile, and he is now pursuing a degree in economics.

Sebastian experienced firsthand the use of these technologies by his friends, classmates, and then his students and his daughter. has been able to infuse the book with a millennial perspective. In the first edition of this book, in Spanish, Sebastian brought the language to what younger people are used to, in terms of expressions and idiosyncrasies

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