WHAT with all the exam results and high school transitions going on in our household this month, career choice has been a hot topic around the dinner table.
Nothing has been set in stone, of course, but architecture has been mentioned, and medical research, while the much more vague ‘something involving music’ also figures highly.
(Not much has changed. When the younger one was much tinier, he wanted to travel the world, busking with his guitar and being a marine biologist at the weekend. I blame Octonauts and RastaMouse. CBeebies has a lot to answer for.)
So far, neither boy has expressed an interest in becoming a YouTuber, which means they do not fall into the 34 per cent of six to 17-year-olds who claim to have this “career” aspiration.
The recent survey, by travel firm First Choice, also discovered almost a fifth (18%) wanted to be a blogger or vlogger when they grow up.
Read more: Teenagers rock - so let's celebrate them
You can argue until you are blue in the face about ‘proper’ jobs and young people spending too much time on the internet, but when it comes to social media, the kids are not really the problem.
There have been many long and heated discussions about social media access (or lack of) in our house, and I think we have a healthy compromise in place. (I’ll never understand the fascination for watching other people play video games, but whatever.)
Mostly, it is harmless fun (the correct privacy settings in place, of course) but some parents are actively encouraging their children to become “influencers”, attracting thousands of followers and freebies.
There’s a little boy in Essex who regularly pops up wearing branded clothes, fronting posts sponsored by the likes of McDonald’s. He has 20,000 followers on Instagram and, presumably, a fair bit of cash in his parents’ bank. And he is not yet three. There are many more hideous examples of preening tweens and show-off six-year-olds, all with their own mini-media empires and lucrative sponsorship deals.
Unlike child stars, who were pretending to be other people on screen, these children’s own lives and personalities are being opened up to others - and at what cost?
Read more: The power of music should be available to every child
Even putting fears about grooming and identity theft aside, this is a strange thing to do to your children. Using them as some kind of digital advertising billboard and parading their every move is not just making them ‘famous’.
It is opening up young children to breathtaking levels of scrutiny – with all the nastiness and criticism that can come with it.
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