Recently, I watched the latest season of Netflix’s hit show Stranger Things. While I was watching, something struck me. The upside down in Stranger Things reminded me of online spaces: there are alternate dimensions, full of toxic monsters, that mirror our world.

Those monsters appear in various forms. Let me list a few that students regularly report:

• Porn and pornbots

• Sexual predators

• Perverts who hang out where youth chat with strangers

• Streamers and influencers who think of themselves, their pockets, and their views first, and are not qualified to be educating our youth

• Questionable websites promoting self-harm

• Social media platforms and games that shamelessly encourage us to spend more time online 

• Toxic people 

• Fake news

• Political radicalization

• Racism and sexism

…And the list goes on. 

These so-called monsters call our youth in, and sometimes they get lost in very dark online spaces. In a few cases, when I am asked to help pull them out, they are too far gone. 

The scariest part? It’s not just a problem with our youth. It is a human problem, and we are facing the consequences right now. As mentioned in a previous blog post of mine Malcolm Gladwell suggests in his podcast that our common narrative is non-existent, and it’s creating polarization. I agree–and further, this common narrative is a problem even within the nuclear family. Most parents don't watch the shows their children watch, don't play the same games, or hang out on the same platforms their children do. The newest place some of our teen boys are hanging out is Rumble, which is quickly gaining popularity. Why? Because it is a free speech version of YouTube where no one gets banned. Andrew Tate, who I have written about, is active on Rumble, and the boys are flocking there. We, the adults in their lives, often don’t even know the platform exists. 

I know times are changing, and that some of the progress is positive. I am not expecting the world to return to the pre-internet era, but I would like to see families sitting together and finding common narratives. I would also like to see fewer families losing people into individualized, isolated, online worlds. The highest loss is of course, life. Last month I had a parent's evening at a school where a young girl had taken her life two months prior. It was my first ever parent meeting where no one argued with me about privacy when I said we must keep tabs on what our children are doing online. The high suicide rate is starting to rattle parents and educators, and rightly so. 

I too have lost someone to the upside-down, but I am lucky. My brother was dragged into online echo chambers by Alex Jones, but I still have a shot of pulling him out, due to the shared common narratives we built in childhood.

It used to be that our cities could easily study and analyze scary places and make changes in lighting, buildings and policies. Just because a space is online, doesn’t mean we don’t need to do the same to make them positive spaces to find common ground, not places where an individual gets attacked and lost. When another child is hurt and I am struggling to understand why we don't stop this madness, I remember that a few people control these online spaces–and we are talking about billions of dollars. It isn’t as easy as changing the lighting in a neighborhood anymore, and as more members of society continue to polarize themselves online, the challenge only becomes bigger.

Right now, the best I can offer while we wait for protections and regulation is to continue my work, trying to inspire others to understand their online world and based on this knowledge make healthy choices. Furthermore, I feel it my duty to continue to inform others of what I see at work. I have many blog posts addressing issues I see, and share what I am finding in my newsletter. I wish parents and educators would understand how quickly our children get dragged into this scary upside-down situation, all while sitting right next to us. We need to not just look at where they are physically, but digitally too. Enacting some lifestyle changes and digital wellness for everyone in our homes and classrooms can help combat inactive governments and greedy companies.

–Allison Ochs, social pedagogue/worker, author, mother of three, wife

Photo by Unsplash

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