Crisps, Clicks and Paying Attention: The true costs of ‘free’ in the digital era

 

Spring 1985. My Mum really wasn’t keen on me getting a free t-shirt from Skips crisps. it was emblazoned with their logo and Mum didn’t want me to turn into a walking advert for their product. 

I was determined. Skips were my favourite crisps and I had no problem with everyone knowing it. I pestered and pestered and inevitably won. I loved that T-shirt and wore it constantly, until my brother ripped it off my back, but that’s another story.   

Fast forward to 2024 (and of course Mum, was kind of, right). Most sports teams no longer include sponsor logos on kids’ replica kits.  A mixture of consumer pressure, regulation and the desire for sports teams to protect their brand has stopped gambling, booze or fatty snacks being advertised on children’s clothing. 

Though, as we all know, a replica shirt is far from free. When money is involved, the customer has a voice that’s listened to.

“If the service is free, you are not the customer, you are the product being sold”

 

The earliest example of this quote is Richard Serra and Carlota Fay Schoolman, two artists commenting about television in 1973. A 50-year-old quote, yes, but incredibly relevant today. Especially, if you are concerned about your children’s (and your own) phone use. 

In 2022, the five most downloaded smartphone apps globally were social media and messaging services; TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and Telegram. All of these applications are free.

 

How can these applications used by hundreds of millions of people around the world afford to provide their technology and services for free? 

Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, gaming apps and even educational tools like Duolingo all make the majority of their income by selling your attention and personal data to advertisers. In exchange for the free use of their services, you and your children become the product that makes Mark Zuckerberg a multi billionaire.

Arguably, this is a well understood and widely considered “fair” exchange for the benefits of communication services, information and entertainment social media provides to its users.

However, take a moment to think about the sheer amount of competition there is between social media platforms to keep your attention and ensure your eyeballs keep coming back for advertisers. Without your loyalty and attention to the platform they have little to sell advertisers.

Baked into every app and user experience (no matter how safe its content or how many parental controls it has) are the personalised notifications, updates, reminders, emails, prompts, tokens, coins and countless other rewards to keep you and your children coming back minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day. 

 

Welcome to a global mass recipe for distraction, isolation, anxiety and lack of productivity. 

 

As parents who have grown up and spent two or three decades of adult life in the age of the internet, social media and smartphones we actually all know more about this commercial exchange than we think we do. 

You can use this knowledge to make informed choices for yourself about the time and attention you give to your phone and the content you choose to consume. That doesn’t mean as adults we are perfect at managing the distractions of our phones, far from it, it’s a struggle! But if it is difficult for you, think how much harder is it for children?

Recently my daughter who is soon to be 12 and has had a phone since Year 6 told me she kept responding to Duolingo’s regular reminders because she didn’t want it to be upset with her. 

I have a Duolingo account which I hadn’t used for 30 days and I received an email with a subject line saying “You Made Duolingo Sad! (with a crying emoji)”. As an adult I can understand that Duolingo doesn’t have emotions and that the algorithm it uses doesn’t miss me, so it is perhaps easier to ignore. However, how easy is this for a child who is made to feel special by the constant rewards in exchange for their attention?

 

One conversation you could have with your child is to ask them – how do you feel if you ignore prompts from social media and apps? 

 

You could then explore with them what would happen and how would they feel if they were to ignore all prompts for two weeks?

I’m sure their answers will be revealing. 

Quite rightly, there is a huge amount of increasing support for parents from schools, government, mobile phone providers and (reluctantly) the social media networks themselves to keep children safe from harmful content and people online. 

Perhaps though, the most empowering thing you and your children can do, is switch off those notifications and practice ignoring your phone? It would be interesting to see whether this has a discernible effect.  

 

This blog was inspired following conversations with teacher, educational consultant and school leader Benjamin White following the posting of smartphone research undertaken with students at his school: 

Children, Smart-phones, Social media and Well-being: Students’ advice on how to keep children safe online