Tech Shock - from Parent Zone

Vicki and Geraldine talk to Callum Hood, Head of Research at the Center for Countering Digital Hate, about their recently published report on incels. Talking points: How is incel culture linked to body image and unemployment support for young men? How is the demeaning of older women is associated with child sexual abuse? How to explain the paradox that incel communities can be inventive and creati...

Vicki and Geraldine talk to the Managing Director of Revealing Reality, the organisation researching technology, media and online harms for the DCMS, Ofcom and others. They cover the sending and sharing of nude images, the possible ditching of ‘legal but harmful’ from the Online Safety Bill, and the shortcomings of age assurance. Talking points: How has sending nude images become both routine and...

Vicki and Geraldine look back on the latest Tech Shock season and talk about how its themes intersect with Parent Zone’s wider work. Talking points: Why has media literacy become the buzzword of the moment? Are we about to see the end of children freely accessing hardcore pornogoraphy? Does gaming need its own regulator? Tech Shock is a Parent Zone production. Follow Parent Zone on social media fo...

Vicki and Geraldine talk to the leading expert on media literacy about the need to make the very youngest children aware of how the digital world works. Talking points: Why start media literacy before children can even read? How do we make young children question information without making them suspicious of the world around them? Functional illiteracy has remained stubbornly high in the UK for de...

Vicki and Geraldine talk to a leading researcher about whether children are being groomed to gamble. Talking points: Why has gambling become so important to gaming? Are gambling laws inadequate for the age of the internet? Does exposing children to online gambling mean more problem gamblers in future? Tech Shock is a Parent Zone production. Follow Parent Zone on social media for all the latest on...

Vicki and Geraldine talk to a leading researcher into the effects of pornography about how some of the most sophisticated technology companies on the planet are manipulating human sexuality for profit. Talking points:  Do parents underestimate the scale and nature of the pornography children are seeing? Are boys and girls affected equally? Why is liberal vs conservative or sex-positive vs censorsh...

Vicki and Geraldine talk to John Carr, writer, campaigner and adviser to charities and governments, about whether the UK is finally about to see laws to stop children accessing online pornography. Talking points:  Why has the government been so slow about stopping children accessing pornography online? Is the Online Safety Bill going to protect children effectively? Is proposed end-to-end encrypti...

As Voice Box publishes a report on Munchausen Syndrome by Internet, Vicki and Geraldine speak to the lead author, Natalie Foos, and the world’s foremost expert on the disorder, Dr Marc Feldman. Talking points: Trolling or mental health disorder? Why are so many mental health organisations nervous of talking about Munchausen by internet? What are the warning signs that someone is faking a disorder...

We’re obsessed with our phones and we’re obsessed with relationships. Vicki and Geraldine talk to the academic who studies how one is changing the other.  Talking points:  When you’re watching TV and your partner picks up their phone, should you put the television on pause? Back-burner partners: how technology is encouraging us to keep our romantic options open. Facebook is increasingly cited in d...

This week’s guest is the lead researcher of a recent report for the Royal Society, The Online Information Environment . Frank Kelly, Professor of the Mathematics of Systems at Cambridge University, talks to Vicki and Geraldine about scientific misinformation. Talking points:  Who decides what’s scientific misinformation anyway? Why taking down disinformation can make matters worse.  How going for...

Geraldine talks to Tim Gill, expert on children’s play, about the links between physical play and playing online. Talking points: What can children learn about navigating the internet from climbing trees? Why are playgrounds a problem? How do you tell the difference between a big, dangerous risk and a good, resilience-building risk? Tech Shock is a Parent Zone production. Follow Parent Zone on soc...

Vicki and Geraldine talk to the Danish writer and think-tanker, Pernille Tranberg, about her work helping children understand why data privacy matters. Talking points: Why we're all public figures now. Is encryption the answer? Will we end up age-gating the internet? Tech Shock is a Parent Zone production. Follow Parent Zone on social media for all the latest on our work on helping families t...

Vicki and Geraldine talk to Virginia Dignum, author of Responsible Artificial Intelligence, about how not to be afraid of robots. Talking points: What is AI anyway? How to design AI for human values when humans don’t agree? Will the robots take our jobs? How like us are robots? Tech Shock is a Parent Zone production. Follow Parent Zone on social media for all the latest on our work on helping fami...

Vicki and Geraldine talk to the Founder and CEO of the Washington Center for Technology Policy Inclusion (Washing Tech) about how to bring diverse voices into tech policy. Talking points: Mark Zuckerberg: an Alexander the Great for our times? What’s the problem with legislation to protect consumers ignoring race and gender? Will the Supreme Court block efforts to reduce online hate speech in the U...

Vicki talks to the Head of Regulation at Tech UK about the possible unintended consequences of the Online Safety Bill, and what to do about online fraud. Talking points:  What might be the unintended consequences of the Online Safety Bill?  Will regulation stifle tech innovation in the UK? Can law enforcement ever get as digitally sophisticated as the fraudsters? Tech Shock is a Parent Zone produc...

Vicki and Geraldine talk to the leading researcher into the links between gaming and gambling, Dr David Zendle, about why, increasingly, playing means paying. Talking points: Are loot boxes in some of the world’s most popular online games a gateway to gambling for children With billions of dollars washing through online gaming every year, why aren’t alarm bells ringing about money laundering? Why...

Vicki and Geraldine talk to the Children’s Commissioner for England, Dame Rachel de Souza. Talking points: - Why are young children easily able to access violent pornography? - How could PSHE do a better job at countering rape culture? - Why is the energy and enthusiasm of parents not better supported to help children? Tech Shock is a Parent Zone production. Follow Parent Zone on social media for...

To kick off our latest series, the disinformation expert Dr Charles Kriel talks to Vicki and Geraldine about how yoga mums have been drawn to Covid disinformation and QAnon.  Talking points: - Why has the far right been so good at drawing in unlikely allies, from churches to natural health practitioners? - What turns a suburban mum who does yoga into believing the world is run by a cabal of paedop...

Vicki and Geraldine review podcast highlights from 2021 Talking points: What have we learnt about the Online Safety Bill? What will we be talking about next year - and does it have to be the metaverse? Are we optimistic looking ahead to 2022? Tech Shock is a Parent Zone production. Follow Parent Zone on social media for all the latest on our work on helping families to thrive in the digital age. P...

Vicki talks to Caroline Dinenage MP for Gosport and former Minister at the DCMS about her hopes for the Online Safety Bill and the future of the internet. Talking points: Is the Online Safety Bill actually going to work or will it push children to less safe corners of the digital world? Why have parents been left out of the bill? What will success look like - what can we hope for in the future? Te...

Nejra van Zalk is a psychologist working in the Dyson School of Engineering at Imperial College, London. Vicki and Geraldine talk to her about the contribution psychologists can make to how we experience our online lives. Talking points: How much are we making our own decisions when we're online? Why are we cavalier about giving away our data online, even when we care about privacy? Could onl...

Vicki and Geraldine talk to the UK director of Reset about how to fix the online world. Talking points: When it comes to legislating for internet safety, why do parents so often get left out? Is all the talk about digital literacy fundamentally a kind of victim-blaming? How do we stop online harms without infringing freedom of speech? Tech Shock is a Parent Zone production. Follow Parent Zone on s...

Vicki and Geraldine talk to the man responsible for an enormous amount of behind-the-scenes shaping of the Online Safety Bill about whether we’re finally about to get an internet that feels a bit less like the setting for a Mad Max movie. Talking points:  Are we about to enter the public health era of the internet? What impact has the Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen had? In a Bill that’s squ...

Vicki and Geraldine talk to the futurist Tracey Follows, author of The Future of You, about the internet’s potential to undermine our sense of who we are. Talking points: How can we think clearly about the future when tech is so full of surprises? Does tech lead to authoritarian governments? Should you do a genetic test? Tech Shock is a Parent Zone production. Follow Parent Zone on social media fo...

Vicki and Geraldine talk to Olaf Kapella, who has been researching families with younger children for the EU, about why parents matter matter so much to their children’s digital lives. Talking points: The research found there were three different ways of dealing with tech and younger children - which type of family are you? Is screen time the right way to think about setting rules for online activ...