The strange restrictive world of the impending digital prison is sparing no area of technological society. The new target and current media driven agenda is social media bans for under-16’s. To help control what they digest and have access to, apparently, and to steer them away from everything someone has deemed ‘undesirable’. I have already written in Social, But Not Really about how weird social media is from my perspective, about how it is a strange grouping of people and ideas you would not normally ‘meet’ in real life or have such opportunity to be involved in, listen to or being able engage with if you did stumble upon something inappropriate for your age.

And lots of that happened when you were a child, but you were excluded because you weren’t old enough, grown up enough or mature enough to be part of it. I’m sure many remember times like that, where you felt it was unfair that someone else got to exclude you, decide for you and ultimately get to have an influence in shaping what experiences you were allowed to take part in. Parties you couldn’t go to, rides you couldn’t go on, things that were deemed ‘not for you’. It didn’t change the want to be involved, of course, just the reality of age and time holding you back, and the rules.

And now we have had an entire generation brought up on the internet and social media, but now the cat is out of the bag, they want to control it. And really, children have been allowed to do all sorts of things until someone decided otherwise. Usually having to convince the masses of it being a good idea. And on some things, I can see that was true. As discussed in Compensating, But For What Precisely?, when they ‘abolished’ slavery, it only counted if you were under the age of 6, you were old enough to work for an apprenticeship then it is said. The age of consent has changed somewhat recently in the UK from being 12 for hundreds of years. Spending decades turning children into mini adults, with Social Status, responsibilities, standards and expectations of conformity. Now, they seem to be hell-bent on infantilising adults, as discussed in Holding Us Back. Treating the entire population as if they have guardianship over your very personhood, while ironically, acting like Spoilt Brats themselves.

But wanting to restrict all children up to the age of 16 from social media is a strange one, which does indeed appear to be a trojan horse to get some kind of digital ID going for younger generations. I wondered if social media was in fact waning for people anyway, and the interest and engagement isn’t quite what they say it is, or want it to be. Maybe trying to make it appear more attractive to youngsters by restricting it, or at least hoping for that. But no fear, they have decided to go for registering all children at birth with a digital ID, because of course, babies will need bank access, or to be able to login to some kind of services. The obsession with Monitoring and influencing everyone, and what they think and do, definitely seems quite out of control now, and appears ultimately sinister and devious whichever way you try to approach it. And in the meantime, we all get dragged through the technological insanity of net- zero, land grabs for data centres, economic suicide, crippled infrastructure, wars and whatever else they can think of to distract and distress people with. I don’t think we’ll be getting off this rollercoaster just yet…

(c) MKW Publishing