In this text, we will explore our collective biases of excluding children and future generations, our short-term mindset, our social blindness, and introduce some guidance.
Children as stakeholders — when the future is always present by default.
The interest in ethical considerations has gained more attention in society, parenting, politics, business and design contexts during the last decade. We have come to acknowledge that our decisions and actions can make a long lasting impact on the world and take the responsibility to make a change.
However, our perspective for considering impacts is often too narrow and the time scale too short.
When designing for humans, the decisions should be informed by studies and insights about the needs, pains, behaviours, emotions and experiences. On top of this, responsible business and great design acknowledges the social, cultural and environmental aspects as well. Only then the products, services, systems and policies can provide better experiences and increase the collective well-being rather than the opposite, right?
Usually our decisions are not aimed to harm. However, we humans are faulty — we have mental heuristics that are prone to multiple cognitive biases such as naive realism, status quo bias, confirmation bias, following the herd bias, and a tendency to loss aversion.
Often harm is what emerges when the decisions are coloured with biased thinking and data, or when the incentives and metrics are guiding the behaviour to a wrong direction. Or when we have just ignored the ethics and values embodied in our work and actions.
Excluding children from our thinking is a systemic and collective bias.
Children are constantly excluded from the political, business and design decisions, stakeholder lists, target user groups, studies, design, and development. Especially in business and politics children are seen as a marginal group, but I claim that the child perspective is excluded also in many services even when children are a target group or key users.
For example, Finland has repeatedly been celebrated as the happiest country in the World Happiness Report. However, children under 15 have not been included in the survey. In 2023, in the Children’s World survey Finland was ranked 16th among 12 year olds and in the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children survey Finland was 26th among 11 year olds.
In reality, there is very little link between children’s and adults’ life satisfaction.”
— UNICEF Innocenti
Children are overlooked, even though they are a major part of the world’s population. Over 25% of the global population are children. It is an estimation, because about 25% of the children are not even officially registered anywhere.*
The world is not designed for children.
If we think about city planning, buildings, traffic, daily routines, digital devices, social media, environmental policies, sustainability, education system, or many products or services from a child’s point of view we quickly see that they are excluded from the core of decision-making.
When we do not consider children, we cannot know what kind of experiences we expose children to, nor can we learn about the direct or indirect impacts we create.
For example, digital and online services can provide wonderful opportunities, but none of the main internet browsers or social media channels have been developed for children’s best. And yet, UNICEF estimates that every one in three internet users is a child.
Recent research by 5rights Foundation showed that online accounts registered to children are being targeted with age specific advertising, sexual, self-harm, eating disorder and suicide content, as well as direct messages from adult users, asking to connect and offering pornography.
Many children blame social media for negative and challenging experiences they had faced growing up surrounding body image and relationships.”
— 5rights Foundation
We need to understand that children will be affected directly when they are using our products and services or indirectly through other users, customers and employees.
We are excluding the social perspective.
I claim that we have a collective social blindness. In our individualistic culture, we think that we are individuals. We are educated to focus on the individual, the citizen, the user and the customer. In the business mindset, the stereotypical user is perceived as a healthy adult (and often also male). But the user can be anyone — and most often they are not alone.
When we exclude children, we often exclude also the social perspectives, the families, groups of children, friends, parents and grandparents.
Our decisions have an impact on the end user, but also on the social group of the user. For example, what kind of narrowed physical and spatial experiences and social architectures are formed around a person who uses online services excessively? How does a physically present but mentally unavailable caretaker affect children or the whole family?
Most likely none of the companies who provide the products or services in the digital context did aim to decrease the rate of children’s language development. As an example, the number of 3 year old children who cannot yet speak well has been growing in the last decade in Finland. And a new cohort study has found a negative association between screen time and measures of parent-child talk across those early years.
For every additional minute of screen time, children heard fewer adult words, spoke fewer vocalisations, and engaged in fewer back-and-forth interactions.”
We can question the quality of the interaction that an individual can maintain when their attention is on the next swipe. Adult relationships, attention and behaviour have been impacted as well. We must find sustainable solutions for this social connectedness crisis.
Maybe we have to start to focus more on the deep and caring connections in our social structures and build our solutions to support those interactions.
We are excluding the future.
When we exclude children, we also exclude the future that will come after us.
In our political debates and business operations, we adults are often incentivised to focus our attention on short term goals. When 12 months is broken into two to four reporting periods, five or ten years is already seen as an extensive time frame. However, long-term thinking brings the future generations, ethics, responsibility and sustainability into the discussion and raises questions of true meaning, value and impacts.
When we include generations in our equations, even 25 years becomes a short time frame. Children born in 2024 will be the employees, parents and decision-makers in about 35 years — in 2059. And their grandchildren will be 35 in the next century, in 2120’s.
The environment, society and culture we provide will deeply influence them.
We are making the future by making constant changes in our socio-cultural, economical and technological systems — and creating impacts on natural ecosystems.
Our responsibility is to start to think of ourselves as ancestors who are taking care of the world for others. This includes redefining good life, good governance and good business and making sustainability the new status quo.
Because the planetary crisis is also a child rights crisis.
The extent and magnitude of the planetary crisis, comprising the climate emergency, the collapse of biodiversity and pervasive pollution, is an urgent and systemic threat to children’s rights globally.”
— U.N. General Comment №26)
Children have the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, but climate emergency, collapse of biodiversity and pervasive pollution and waste are threatening children’s lives. Already over 1/3 of all children are exposed to severe heat waves, drought and water scarcity, as well as severe pollution. In addition, 90% of children are already exposed to air pollution that affects their health.
Moreover, children are demanding immediate action.
We have excluded ethics, values and environmental impacts from governance, politics and business metrics for too long, but now we can start to see how future oriented and value based companies are thriving above others. Already today, many purpose driven business leaders are saying that one of their key motivators for sustainability transition are their children or grandchildren — the future generations.
Studies show that collaboratively working for a better future makes life more meaningful, increases intrinsic motivation and the feeling of belonging. All things that make us happier in life.
There are already forerunner governments and companies who have brought children’s view into their strategies, and I predict that the child perspective will be adopted even more widely in leadership practices in the future, together with sustainability.
Luckily, guidance already exists.
In a nutshell, the Convention of the Rights of the Child gives children 4 types of rights:
- Survival rights ensure most basic needs such as adequate standards of living, shelter, nutrition, primary health care etc.
- Development rights ensure children to reach their fullest potential, for instance education, play and leisure.
- Protection rights that are necessary for safeguarding children against all forms of abuse, violence, neglect and exploitation.
- Participation rights that allow children to take an active role in their communities, for instance freedom to express opinions; to have a say in matters affecting their own lives; and to join associations.
Here are five steps everyone can take to respect child rights and include children in their work context.
1. Form your ethical guidelines to include children
One recommended source is D4CR Design Guide that has been created together with UNICEF and groups of multidisciplinary experts. As an evolving document, it embodies U.N. rights of the child articles into business, policy, and design decisions.
A quick checklist for inspiration:
1) Do we consider children or their future in our decisions?
2) Do we gather and respect children’s views and perspectives?
3) Do we provide unsafe or safe content and contacts?
4) Do we provide misinformation or trusted information?
5) Do we enable balanced or excessive use of our products/ services?
6) Do we encourage to playing together or alone?
7) Do we provide information children can understand?
8) Do we secure data or misuse data?
9) Do we ensure long-term sustainability and life within planetary boundaries?
10) Do we support children’s voices to be heard?
2. Map the stakeholders — Including children
Acknowledge that children are your stakeholders, and that children are part of social groups that are affected by your decisions. The stakeholder mapping helps to understand the potential direct and indirect impacts, also when the main target group is adults.
3. Understand children
Children are not just one group, nor do they live the same life as today’s adults did as children. Children are individuals and childhood changes in time. It is critical to understand both the developmental phases as well as the experiences and environments the children live in today.
Children have several developmental phases in motor, cognitive, emotional and social development. And the development can be divided roughly into five groups based on age: 0–3, 4–6, 7–11, 12–15, and 16–18. In addition to the developmental differences there are a variety of skills, interests, health issues, social issues, and disabilities which should be taken into account.
To make sure you will answer children’s needs it would be critical to give children a participative role in the process. Usually it is necessary to change the methods based on the developmental stages and other specific needs.
4. Choose the level of participation
The type and level of children’s participation can vary depending on the context and the stage of the project. Children can be involved as informants or partners in explorative research, innovation or development, or they can join the process later as users and testers.
The ethical and social considerations should influence the session and methods, and an adult’s responsibility is to ensure ethical participation that is mutually beneficial and respectful.
5. Respect children’s views
Most importantly, children have the right to have an active role in their communities, freedom to express opinions and to have a say in matters affecting their own lives. Adult’s responsibility is to hear and respect their views.
Including children should not be an afterthought, instead children should be considered as one of the stakeholders — by default.
Further reading:
Association of Habitual Checking Behaviors on Social Media With Brain Development
Child accounts directly targeted with graphic content
Cognitive bias codex
d4cr.org
D4CR Design Duide
Digital nutrition table
Exploring Issues Early Childhood Technology
General Comment No 26 Child Friendly Version
Screen Time and Parent-Child Talk When Children Are Aged 12-36 Months
11 key readings on childrens data and privacy online
UNICEF PLAYBOOK Promoting diversity and inclusion
https://www.digital-futures-for-children.net/best-interests
UNICEF: Worlds richest countries grappling childrens reading and math skills mental well
https://chatlicense.com/en/
World economic forum: Climate change crisis child rights crisis
www.anxiousgeneration.com/
In Finnish:
Sitra: Onko teknologian tulevaisuus vain aikuisten asia
OPH: Median-pauloissa
leikkileikkina.com/lapset-sosiaalisessa-mediassa
www.mediataitokoulu.fi/lapsetjamedia.pdf
MLL: lapsi-sosiaalisessa-mediassa
Pelastakaa lapset: digitaalinen lapsuus
STAT: Väestörakenne
MLL: sopiva ruutuaika
*The number is lower in EU, where 15,2% of the population is under 18 years old.