The Attention Economy

I am a millennial, so I grew up with computers and easy access to the Internet. I chatted on AOL Instant Messenger. I used a “Hotmail” e-mail address. I’m old enough to remember “Tom” from MySpace and when you needed a school email to register for a Facebook account. But obviously, things are a bit different nowadays. We had a desktop computer in the living room; kids today have smartphones in their bedrooms. We were told we couldn’t use Wikipedia as a primary source; kids today are relying on AI to do their homework. Twenty-five years ago, the challenge of protecting kids online was completely different than it is today. Thus, policymakers, advocates, and parents would be foolish to think that the legislative and regulatory solutions of the past are sufficient to overcome the problem of online child safety today.