Parenting in the Age of the Intelligent Machine

I am currently a Marie Sklodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellow, serving as Principal Investigator for a project titled “Digital Technology Use and Teen Wellbeing in Context: An Ethnographic Investigation” or TecWell, at the Anthropology Department of the Universidad Rovira I Virgili (URV) in Catalonia, Spain. The project’s objectives are framed in the contexts of what the World Economic Forum called “the fourth industrial revolution,” referring to the rapid spread of cyberphysical systems relying on artificial intelligence and the growing ubiquity of algorithms in managing and shaping social life, along with the increased automation this entails. The project identifies childhood and childrearing, and subsequently parenting, as focal points where much anxiety over these changes is focused. Children’s wellbeing becomes a particular locus of preoccupation considering the ever-growing enmeshment of children in digital mediums, but also the fact that the rapid technological changes we are observing now leave the social and economic future - children’s futures - particularly opaque to many. Tracing parents’ perceptions and understandings of technological advancement, the study investigates how their reactions to them are shaping socialization practices across different contexts. Going beyond existing quantitative research on the topic, the project offers an ethnographic, phenomenological study of children and parents’ interaction with and around digital technology, including in such spaces as FabLabs, Hacker Spaces and as part of the broader Maker Movement. It attends in particular to the experience of play, creativity and mind wandering on the one hand, and to those of capture an addiction on the other. 

Thinking Like An Anthropologist is a project undertaken in collaboration with the Anthropology For Kids (A4K) platform, and CitiLab Cornellà, one of Barcelona’s leading technology hubs. The project was conceived of and partially funded through an H2020 Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Action TecWell, hosted at the Department of Anthropology, Philosophy, and Social Work at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili. 

The project aims at making anthropological thinking accessible to children at the elementary and early secondary school level (ages 7 to 13), through a series of workshops open to the public. The project covers a variety of topics, but focuses in particular on applying anthropological thinking to issues related to technology and digital media, including questions about human-robot interaction, ethics, and the growing place of algorithms and artificial intelligence in our lives. 

The project is conceived as collaborative with its own end-users, seeking not only to introduce to children anthropological ways of thinking, but also to benefit from children’s own unique intelligence and insights in considering some of the challenges that children and parents are facing in today’s digital age. 

If you’re interested in collaborating, contact me.