I walk into my daughter's room and there she is with her group of friends. They aren't physically in the room together, just digital visions and silicone voices all involved in a childish conference call. It's like Peter pan mixed with The Apprentice when you take the time to watch them interact. All of them are sat alone in their rooms yet somehow they still feel part of a team.

My daughter is coming to an age where more serious bonds of friendship are beginning to form. She already has a playground boyfriend and I hear they even hold hands, but only on a Friday. A few years down the line and I would be giving the young-man the "Dad" routine but as it's all still a little Disney I won't bother reaching for my pitchfork. Because that's the perception of us dads, right? We are over-protective and authoritarian in our role as responsible parent. We will defend our little-princesses from the beast and dragons until Prince Charming comes along and asks me for her hand in marriage, which he will do in some ceremonious display of Shakespearean linguistics.
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Or maybe my worse fears will come true and my wonderful girl will abscond with an abusive lover on a flying Harley...

Go-go gadget hunter-killer-drone!

Until then I think I still have a few more years to feed my seedling enough self-esteem and integrity to see her realise her potential and grow into the wild-flower I know she can be. But in today's world there is a green-eyed surrogate in the family-home and it is trying to drive a wedge between my daughter and I.

Unfortunately, this problem isn't just my-own. I hear lots of concerned parents all repeating my complaints about how our children socialise and obsess over their mobile-phones. Many of us were brought up by parents who used physical violence as punishment and I am glad to see this horrible style of parenting disappear. Yes it certainly made me do as I was told but the emotional grief it has caused is immeasurable. So when I, and many other parents like me, try to discipline our offspring in a pacifistic way, it can end up being a complete battle of the minds.
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If you know yourself and your enemy you will be successful in all of your battles

I don't mean to refer to my daughter as an "enemy", she is definitely not to be perceived this way. My daughter is like any child her age and like I have said they tend to spend a lot of time socialising over the internet. In our heart of hearts we know this technology is a Trojan horse and I really don't think it will be long before we treat riding a bike the same as learning a musical instrument. Subsequently, there will be children who go through life without ever learning how to do the simplest of tasks.

Without trying to sound like your Granparents, moaning about how kids won't play in the mud anymore, I want to hold these phoney-fathers up to the light and expose their hidden agenda. These silicone pacifiers do not work alone and this is the key difference that should be highlighted when someone justifies our children's "digital-addiction" with the following argument:

"Parents before us had to deal with the rise of personal computers and kids of the 80's were famous for loving their time on computers, just like the kids of today."

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I was one of these children and I remember being turfed out of my darkened room and into the summer sunshine...

"It burns!!! the light, it buuuurns!!

Haha! Good-old Mum, always ready to kick us all out of the house and get us playing outside. I realise now that this saves on food, electric, hot water, washing-up and paracetamol... It also got us out on our bikes which kept our bodies healthy and the banter sharpened our impressionable minds.
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Growing up in the eighties was amazing, we had the best of both worlds and the balance seemed to be working. Being a child in the 80's meant that you had grand-parents who knew how to use their imaginations and parents who encouraged and celebrated the new technology that had sprung up, due to the invention of the silicone chip. Before my parent separated we had the latest microwave-oven, a video player with a wired-remote, electric type-writers and best of all my beloved Commadore64...

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We had it all and on top of that we had a massive back-garden and if you were a "cheeky little bastard!!", like I was, you could hedge-hop all the way to the top of the street.

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The amount of times I was caught by my neighbours, who were mostly the parents of my friends, and returned home by the scruff of my neck, tossed over to my Dad like a Roman slave being returned to his owner. It was great fun and totally harmless, just kids testing boundaries, no pun intended.

So I got a clip around the ear and sent to my room, so what?! I'm an 80's child and we never get bored. However, being confined to my room left me unable to contact my friends and that's what really made me consider behaving in a little less of an anti-social way. I mean I loved my toys and Wonderboy could keep me occupied for a long time, but it was still just me on my own, or maybe my elder brother was there too and this would inevitably descend into a brotherly scrap.

No head-shots allowed and first one to cry-out to mummy loses

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Whether I had been sent to my room or it was just a rainy-day, after more than a few hours of being detained inside my house I would be going insane.

No contact with my friends was torture and technology still had a soulless robotic voice that didn't encourage any kind of fondness or obsessive attention.

My computer never "pinged" me to remind me how many points I was missing out on and it hadn't yet learned how to hijack the telephone-lines. A computer was a computer and nothing more, it didn't pretend to be my friend and it didn't try to steal my time. I controlled the technology around me even at such a young age and it didn't pretend to be my friend, my teacher, my Mum, or my Dad. Technology was just an emotionless collection of switches usually encased in plastic and it always came with on "off" switch.

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Today's technology is the evil twin of 80's tech and while we were all having cheap, shiny, tat rammed down our throats, tech's evil-twin was being enhanced in the laboratory...

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This is what makes modern technology so much more poisonous to youthful minds than its primitive predecessor and not only does it mimic life itself, it also demands attention.

Fomo's a bitch!

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I am told on a regular basis that I am "uncool" and "Embarrassing" by my wonderful daughter but I am cool enough to know what FOMO stands for.

The fear of missing out used to be confined to not getting round to my friends house before they left for a BMX ride down to the local nature reserve. We were children without mobile-phones and that meant that if you weren't at home, you could be anywhere... A parents worst nightmare, right..?
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Well, no it wasn't... and our parents were no-less concerned for our safety. By the time I was allowed to go out with my friends all day long I had been taught to know right from wrong. These lessons were quite simple and, as I mentioned earlier, could have painful consequences if I didn't learn from them. After you get caught garden-hoping for the 50th time and hauled in-front of your dad, for the 50th ear-bashing, the penny does begin to drop.

So when I did manage to get to my friends in time and lose myself in the woods, without any form of contact, my parents didn't threat. They knew we had respect for the rules and we also had enough respect leftover to know that our parents knew better(as much as we hated to admit it).

It's this mutual respect between young and old that nurtures and encourages itself, bringing out many other positive side-effects too. If we got in a scrape while we were out and about we had to deal with it ourselves and sometimes things didn't go my way. In these unfortunate instances one would go home to lick the wounds and often end up confiding in a close family member. Advice would be given and it would be from the most trusted of sources, your own flesh and blood.
After being consoled by one or more of my loving family I may decide to stay in the security of my own home, just for a couple of days while I regain some confidence. This means there will be a little more TV time and when my big-bro hogged the Commodore I was left with only 4 TV channels to choose from. There wasn't an abundance of kids TV back then but I still had some favourites.

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I now realise why TV shows are also called "Programs" and when I think back to the type of programming I was subjected to it was all just as primitive as the technology was. My TV role models were characters like Michael Knight, BA Barracus and Brutus 'The Barber' Beefcake. All completely bonkers in their own way but still encouraging a similar moral code to what I was used to at home.

• Protect the vulnerable.
• Do the right thing.
• Stick up for your mates.
• Fight with honour and dignity
• NEVER HIT A LADY
• Don't be no FOOL or no SUCKA!!

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How times have changed

So we now fast-forward to the present day and I want us to spend a little time comparing what influences I have just described from the 80's to the influences and TV "heroes" of the present day. You see the Hulk turned out to be pumping more steroids than he was iron and while BA maintains he "ain't no sucka!" we are all forced to sit idly and pretend we aren't being licked by the government every day. Nevertheless the parts these actors have played lent itself to a society struggling to acknowledge where we were heading. It was easier to look away and be swept off our feet with the glorification of both violence and technology.

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Michael knight's talking car was my first taste of autonomous vehicles and Kits soft English accent made me fall in love with motor vehicles and the possibilities of the future. As much as we don't like to admit it these TV shows had an impact and in these early days it was only the TV that had the ability to keep up a coherent, although still somewhat basic, dialog with its audience. This was programming on a very basic level and the only reason for it not lobotomizing our generation was because we weren't saturated with it. Before the UK adopted the US mode of television it was 4 hrs of TV-world per week.

Saturday afternoon was the best day for TV and I still remember the line-up. It began at around 8am with some cartoons and then at around 12 in the afternoon it was time to watch "Big Daddy" wrestling against "Giant Haystacks" and after this we were glued to our seats with the latest episode of Knight-rider, followed by the A-team!! It probably took many hours to calm me and my brother down after all the excitement but as this was once a week it still left plenty of time for family and friends.
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This is vastly different to today and I'm not just talking about the explosion in programs available at the touch of a button. Now I can watch Knight Rider all day and all night with no adverts and no week-long break in between episodes. Then when I have watched the entire box-set I can then switch over and do the same with the A-team, Airwolf, WWE, Red Dwarf, Black Adder and anything else I desire. Being that all of these shows are dated and do not possess the precise trickery of today's media, it is therefore easier to switch off and realise that there is the real world on my doorstep and real-life is much more entertaining. Only problem is that my daughter doesn't watch the programs I used to watch, in-fact she finds them very tedious and "unrealistic"...

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And this is where I come to my real concern about children today and the way they are purposely prized away from better things. Also, I would like to make comment about the content of the programs kids watch and in particular the shift in narrative. It seems to me that these modern TV shows no longer instill an unconditional respect for ones elders and they conveniently forgets to inform the viewers about the importance of the real-world.

In-fact these new talking heads aren't even classed as TV stars, they are now called "YouTube" sensations and the TV shows that the kids seem to be interested in are supposed to be aimed at adults. I assume the producers of "love Island" feel that nobody should miss out on their thought-provoking show and therefore make sure that they air a edited version of events that is deemed suitable for the younger audience. I mean the show doesn't change and it is still about who is going to sleep with who and why some guy has already slept with 75% of the cast, but still manages to appeal to the brainless actresses on-screen. As much as people like to think that this is all about "girl-power" and that the boyish behaviour represents some form of empowerment it simply is not so.

But let's not just take my word on this, lets see what you all think this is supposed to promote...

I get that this show isn't exactly aimed at people as young as my daughter and maybe it deserves to go on "the list", but please consider that these actors and actresses appear on many other programs and many of which will be aimed at children and therefore a younger fan base has to come along or deal with the FOMO. And on top of this we must consider that adverts for merchandise and the show itself will be marketed on apps such as Musically and Instagram, both of which have a massive younger audience. Be it by product placement on one of the sets produced by these "YouTube sensations" or simply by the star of the show giving props to a certain TV show or a scantily clad, and more often than not, talentless, celebrity. And while my daughter sees someone she thinks is "just like her" I see an imposter with only business in mind. My daughter and the other half-million subscribers(Which is more likely 200 real people and 499,800 bot-accounts) conclude that the incredible amount of views and likes are proof that this talking head has something worth listening too. I do not share their faith and I try to inform my daughter and her friends of things called "phone-banks" and how they can be hired to purchase 1000's, if not millions, of "likes" and/or "followers".

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But do they listen to me? Are they taking any of it in? I think they are, in their own way. I know that my daughter is beginning to wake up as she mentioned a profile to me, just the other day. When she told me the purpose of this profile it surprised even me. I thought I had heard all the dirty tricks but this one seems to be very sinister indeed. I am also of the opinion that this "idea" has not come from a child's mind, it is far too calculated and quite twisted when you think about its effects. I will be paraphrasing what my daughter told me but this is the crux of what she told me;

"Dad, there's a profile on one of my apps and they(Random profile) post messages that are really mean."

"Oh, well that sounds a bit pointless, you should pay no notice, they obviously just want attention"

"Yeah! That's why they do it, Dad. They post comments, like "My best friend bought me this handbag for my birthday and it is horrible, I think I might just give it away". Why would you post that, it is so rude. I think they just do it to get more comment because they always get lots of replies"

"So when they get replies what does that mean?"

"It means that they get placed on the trending list and then everyone sees it. But it's so fake!"

It seems that my daughter is taking in more than I was aware of, and I mean that in both a positive way and a negative way. She is obviously listening to my rants and has learned to spot some of the fraudsters, but I worry that this is just the tip of the iceberg. This won't be the only account sending out daily bitch-slaps and I imagine that they come in various forms to suit each and every member. My worst fear is that these divisive and antagonistic profiles use algorithms to spot potential victims. Maybe there is a child who posts innocent videos every day, but out of her group of friends only receives a small portion of the public-vote. Would this impressionable child who has fallen, hook, line and sinker, for all the vote-bots and fake subscribers decide to mimic what she/he had seen, in the hope of getting a ratings boost?

I would like to think children are smarter than this and under normal circumstances they usually are. Only now we flood them with dangerous vaccines and pump them full of fluoride from the day they are born. Then we send them off to schools that will do anything but encourage critical thinking. I mean who wants children that question authority, right? Much easier to get them used to being spoon-fed the answer without questioning the source.

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I despair at the internet content aimed at children and lack of morals therein. I dread to think about the content any future suitor will be seeking guidance from, romance is nearly dead and courting is unheard of. God knows what TV shows will be influencing the minds of young lovers today. But the day some squeaky, teenage, pimple shows up at my door and mentions anything positive about 'Love Island' I would seriously consider adding to the foundations of the house. Or even worse still, the soon to be limping fool decides to break out with his repertoire of Fernando's quotes...

" Hi Mr D! I'm here to take Chloe out. So how about you let the Eggs see the Bacon?"

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Now had the boy come with his hair permed and had he the foresight to go get himself a talking car, with rocket boosters, then everything would have been fine. Maybe the next one will appreciate how precious girls are and show some form of common sense when it comes to the subject of love.

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Then for the boys it is up to our sports stars to lead by example and from the way folk act I would say they are leading them down a very lonely road. In the UK football is what makes most males tic(present company excluded) and now the game has been swallowed up by selfish millionaires it seems we may be taking examples from a proxy...

I find football to be a very good example of how society acts in general to one another.

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The flag waving, the snarling, the thoughtless cheering, the extortionate prices paid by "fans".... The diving, the cheating, the misplaced aggression, the hidden racism, the over-rated and obscenely paid superstars and worse of all, the unappreciative way in which these privileged few behave. To say that these "superstars" can get away with murder isn't far from the truth and as for the way these role-models treat the opposite sex... well, here we do have a major problem and the justice celebrities receive, on the rare occasion they are exposed, is just astonishing to behold. I could go into a massive list of celebrities that have all avoided jail for crimes that would certainly see you or I behind bars, but I won't bother. I have gone on too long now and this last section was only to ask you to consider the children's TV shows of today and the adult characters who are cast in parental roles.

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For an example I would use the Disney show names "Victorious" and bring your attention to the main adult character. His name is Sycowitz and he plays the fool, which coincidentally seems to be the narrative flowing beneath the stream of every other kids TV show...

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Now besides all of the "sensations", the talking heads, click-bait profiles, on-line grooming and subliminal advertising the internet is as safe as it ever was. And while those claiming to take responsibility for safeguarding its customers, have more interest in harvesting and selling our personal data, then we do have a major problem to address. But besides all of this there is one more issue I would like to approach and because this post has already ran on far too long I am going to pose my final point as a question to you all...

I have spoken of celebrity role-models and how in the 80's the narrative was still quite honourable on the surface. Today it seems that the "bad-guy" is more in favour with the audience and violence in every form is glorified. Women are paraded around after being convinced that the skimpy outfits are their-own idea and just a fortunate consequence to the venue.

So who were your heroes and if you have your own children, or even grandchildren, what do they watch on TV? Who are their role-models and how do you think modern media influences them? Who do the girls have to look up to in your country? And how about the boys, what makes your next generation of men tic? I suppose this will depend heavily on your countries governments and the agenda they support. Maybe your local community has a tighter grip or maybe they have already tackled this issue, I would be very interested in hearing how that went.

So I was going to finish this post here but as it has already become bigger than I wanted it to be I may as well carry on, you've probably switched off by now, anyway.

I will leave this post with one last observation I have made through a recent argument I had with my daughter. After becoming annoyed at her constant apathy towards anything other than her phone I snapped and turned off the wifi. This resulted in a giant sulk and threats of running off to Mum's house. While the threats may be hollow, they still hit the mark and I guess many parents hear this kind of back-chat. I don't loose much sleep over it and I know my daughter will see sense soon enough. As the Incredible-Sulk returned to her cave I was left to contemplate the punishment I had just dished out. Some parents would think I am overthinking the issue but if a punishment doesn't fit the crime then it isn't fit for purpose. I have no problem with my daughters phone and I would be happy for her to use it more, if she was in control. But I'm afraid to say that isn't the case and for now it seems that technology and the careless folk who wield it are dictating the plays.

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These phones now include every outlet to facilitate a virtual existence and for children this is quite harmful. But while the UK reports on how parents should be wary and suspicious of the affect of social media, because it does actually strip them of imagination and seriously effects their moods, the same society allows the promotion of such tech. We have allowed it to be woven into our future and permitted our children to become reliant on it for all of their social activities.

So we have a situation were are children are being encouraged to use more and more computer software, which undoubtedly will be most conveniently found on a mobile-phone or tablet. The content available has maximum appeal for children and uses years of study into human behaviour, to trap it audience into a never ending cycle of gormless attention. With a constant narrative that parents are foolishly old fashioned and kids know better, we get to a situation that leads to children having an ingrained disrespect for adults, especially when it came to understanding the new-world. Now when I have no choice but to turn off the internet, it not only means that I will be cutting my daughter off from the bad content, but it also means she will be cut-off from all of her friends and the positive, creative, harmless web-sites that are out there. For me this means the punishment does not fit the crime and my daughter will resent me for the collateral damage. God forbid she misses out on an important kiddy-conference or a call from her boyfriend while on time-out. I don't really have a choice and the guy on the news has just told me I am right to react.

But while the parent are being told one thing the children are told another, and with Mum and Dad going all Robocop on the situation, we come to an "Us" vs "Them" scenario. The parents are now cast as the foolish oppressors and the virtual world offers it all at the click of a button.

I find it more than a suspicious coincidence that while our children are corrupted and set against their parents, via the oldest trick in the book(pun intended), the recommendations coming out of the latest think-tank is that the "Ministry of Education" should take over the young-offenders institutes and their operations. Now while this is a good step away from the military control that our detained-children are subject to, presently, it also opens the door for a brand new arm of the government. This shift in protocol and responsibility will bring new rules and new expectations for what constitutes a "rehabilitated young-offender". The IICSA think-tank has already revealed that many children who have never committed a crime, end up in these "secure units". This is due to the foster care industry stockpiling their assets anywhere they can.

My fear is that we now approach the child-army of George Orwell's 1984 and with the UK government on the cusp of rewriting the rules and rearranging the education system to accommodate youth detention and correction facilities, I think we need to pay closer attention to our roles as parents and re-evaluate what is going around us.

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Thank you all for reading and hope it has given you something to think about.

PTYAY

Written by Rebel-Dan.