Ethicsfor ChildThriving inaDigitalAge Ethicsfor ChildThriving inaDigitalAge

The pervasiveness of digital technology marks a major generational shift in the lives of children and youth. Depending on your age, you might recall hearing admonitions that the television would melt your brain or feeling the thrill of a cordless phone that could be used behind the privacy of your bedroom door. Those were significant changes—exposure to a variety of cultural representations on television and more privacy in communications. For today’s children and youth, these changes and more are in the palm of their hands, available 24/7.

As adults, we often do not know how to respond to rapid technological change in our own lives, let alone for children and youth. I share Felicia Wu Song's sentiments from her new book Restless Devices when she writes: "While we are so grateful and even love so much of what we get from our digital technologies, we often feel frustrated, harassed, and exhausted by them. And we don't know what to do about it." Unfortunately, extreme reactions can dominate, even though, we do not need to choose between awe or demise, acquiesce or abstinence. Instead, communities can put the needs of children at the center of our concerns, critically engage technological shifts, and develop a vision grounded in Christian values for the kind of tech life we want.

I have the privilege of annually working with congregations across North America. Over a decade ago, I noticed adults and youth increasingly questioning how digital technology changed where they got information, how they met people, and what they shared publicly about themselves. At the time, none of us could predict the rise of social media or the ubiquity of artificial intelligence. It feels like I am always playing catch-up; I’ve learned focusing on the next popular tech is a losing battle. Instead, we need to develop a communal, ethical approach that is flexible, creative, and sustainable no matter the next design or user concern that arises.

By Dr. Kate Ott

Jerre and Mary Joy Stead Professor of Christian Social Ethics

As a parent, youth minister, and researcher, I know that kids develop healthier relationships, grounded in their faith values, when they are given access to accurate information, practice putting their values into action in everyday situations, and have supportive, trustworthy adults to discern and reflect with them. These factors are not magic; they are carefully cultivated, researchbacked, and consistency dependent. Raising morally grounded kids is a spiritual practice of accompaniment. Fear causes adults to restrict information, especially related to sexuality and technology. It can also lead to restricting the opportunities kids have to practice putting their values into action. Whether it is fear of failure or a desire for safety, many adults put children into theological categories of little devils to be controlled or innocent angels to be protected.

A theology of child thriving related to digital technology and healthy relationships requires we shift our theological vision of children, commit to raising levels of relational and digital literacy, and cultivate communities of care and moral discernment to support this work.

For decades, womanist, feminist, queer, and postcolonial theologians have struggled to shift the primary subject in theology to individuals and communities who look like them or who experience the on-going, systematic precarity of social oppression. Similarly, there is a dismissal of children’s full personhood because of age, cognition, or physical ability. A movement called “childist studies” (modeled on intersectional, advocacy terms like feminist and anti-racist) locates children not on the margins or as an afterthought, but as central to rigorous scholarly, policy, and everyday change. This is a shift GarrettEvangelical has committed to in its work with CDF Freedom Schools® and through its relationship with the Children’s Defense Fund.

A theology of child thriving requires a shift away from a Euro American, philosophical ideal of an independent, experienced, rationally calculating, adult male as the “best” decision maker and representative of the divine. Childist theology values interdependence, affirms diverse and affective ways of knowing, and seeks wisdom from across age spans. Jesus advocates a childist model in Mark 10 and Matthew 19. Doing theology with and from the point of view of children can be messy as Joyce Mercer reminds us in her text Welcoming Children. Thankfully, children’s creative, relational, and interdependent ways of being in the world align well with the networked, diverse, and responsive nature of digital technology, as noted in an “Ecclesiology of ‘Do not stop them.’” This means we can take a cue from childist ethics as we approach moral responses to digital technology.

Ethics is less a calculation and more an act of creativity and relational response, a practice engaged over a lifetime whether one is a student, pastor, business leader, technologist, nurse, or professor. For Christians committed to a more just and inclusive world, imaginative and serious ethical response to the growth of technology requires we increase our digital literacy. Lists of digital dos and don’ts quickly become outdated. For example, rules about screen time are blunt instruments (and a losing battle) if we don’t consider the purpose or content being engaged. Has your faith community had conversations about informational literacy, the way algorithms work, or how designers use behavioral psychology to keep us online? No worries, my congregation hasn’t either, and I’m the author of Christian Ethics in a Digital Society that explores these issues. We can’t accompany children in ethical responses to technology if we don’t know the basics of how it works.

A great starting point for considering technology and theology might be a teen and adult reading group of John Dyer’s book From the Garden to the City or a viewing party of the Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma. Both increase digital literacy and model how to ask critical questions about the effects of technological design and use. We need to commit to collectively exploring how digital technology directly impacts who we are and what we do, ushering in abundant possibilities and indelibly altering how we form relationships and community.

No matter the resource, the approach is what matters most. Start by believing in children’s ethical abilities and invite their inquisitiveness. Engage in mutual discernment to build digital literacy muscles. Talk openly and honestly about the positives, negatives, and unknowns of how digital technology has changed relationships and include discussions of sexual relationships (don’t leave kids to figure this out on their own; use the youth study guide in Sex, Tech, and Faith).

Most importantly, bring your values to the discussion! What does love of neighbor look like online? How do we recognize the imago dei in ourselves and others as we post photos and add comments?

Where is Christ present in VR when two or more are gathered? How do my interactions with robots and AI morally shape me?

In 2023, the Stead Center launches a childist ethics campaign: the Arts of Ethics! We invite children and youth to submit creative works that depict how they describe ethics in the form of drawings, videos, stories, poetry, music, and so on. This is one way to leverage technological engagement for communal conversations between children and adults about ethics. Find out more at SteadCenter.com.