“In physical space, Western children are almost comically sheltered. But in digital space, they’re entirely beyond our command; and increasingly, that’s where children spend most of their time.”
02 Dec 2025 — 1 min read
[Eli Stark-Elster in Unpublishable Papers]
This meaningful discussion touches on the role — and dangers — of online spaces in the lives of children, but has a lot more to say about how our lives and environments are designed overall.
“[…] Digital space is the only place left where children can grow up without us. For most of our evolutionary history, childhood wasn’t an adult affair. Independent worlds and peer cultures were the crux o…
“In physical space, Western children are almost comically sheltered. But in digital space, they’re entirely beyond our command; and increasingly, that’s where children spend most of their time.”
02 Dec 2025 — 1 min read
[Eli Stark-Elster in Unpublishable Papers]
This meaningful discussion touches on the role — and dangers — of online spaces in the lives of children, but has a lot more to say about how our lives and environments are designed overall.
“[…] Digital space is the only place left where children can grow up without us. For most of our evolutionary history, childhood wasn’t an adult affair. Independent worlds and peer cultures were the crux of development, as they still are among the BaYaka; kids spent their time together, largely beyond the prying eyes of grown-ups.
But in the West, the grown-ups have paved over the forests and creeks where children would have once hidden. They have exposed the secret places. So the children seek out a world of their own, as they have for millennia, if not longer. They find a proverbial forest to wander. They don’t know what we know: this forest has eyes and teeth.”
There are some really striking statistics here. 45% of American children aged 8-12 have not walked in a different aisle than their parents at a store; 61% have not made plans with friends without adults helping them. That’s so far away from my own childhood to be unrecognizable. It’s also wildly oppressive. Of course kids are looking for spaces where their helicopter parents aren’t constantly hovering overhead.
The biggest source of underlying fears from parents, as well as feelings of isolation from children themselves? A car-centric culture. Parents are worried about their children being hit by a car, which unfortunately isn’t unreasonable. Children, on the other hand, can’t drive, and often find themselves fully unable to visit friends or have their own lives without the participation of someone with a license.
So, yes, online spaces need to be safer for children — but our lived-in spaces also need to be more human. American infrastructure in particular is architected for control; it’s rare to live in a walkable, safe environment. Jane Jacobs would have had a lot to say about this analysis, and her own solutions still hold up. We need to stop dividing communities, break the influence of the car, and create spaces that allow humans to roam, live, eat, and play — permissionlessly.
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