In the Middle Ages, we feared that the Pied Piper would steal children. Today, we fear that the Internet will turn them into zombies. Popular media is full of worries about the effects of “screen time”—on attention spans, on mental health, on family life, on the ability of children to read and feel emotions. How valid are our fears about kids’ Internet use? Is there something different about how children are shaped by staring at computers, or are we simply seeing a repeat of the panic that has accompanied previous transitions in media and technology? Yalda Uhls, senior researcher at UCLA’s Children’s Digital Media Center, Marsha Rybin, principal at High Tech Los Angeles, and RAND education policy researcher Lindsay Daugherty visit Zócalo to examine the promise and peril the Internet holds for our children.

 
 
*Photo courtesy of Hernán Piñera.