Big fines and tougher rules are closing in on tech giants. But as more of childhood moves online, what do children actually need to thrive?
In the UAE, the question of what children should be allowed to access online has moved sharply up the agenda. A ban on social media for under-16s has set a firm boundary around some of the digital spaces children inhabit, while Meta has faced a record USD 18 billion fine in the US over issues affecting young users. But limiting access is only one part of the picture.
At NYU Abu Dhabi, Associate Professor of Psychology Antje von Suchodoletz is interested in what comes next: how children learn to understand, assess, and navigate a digital world that is increasingly inseparable from everyday life.
Her work focuses on childhood development and technology, asking not simply what screens, social media, or AI might do to children, but what children need in order to flourish alongside them.
“Limits on access can be helpful,” she says. “But children still have to learn how to live with digital media, not just without it. The goal is to help them develop good habits in the spaces they will inevitably use.”
From the classroom to the lab
Von Suchodoletz trained as a psychologist at the University of Konstanz in Germany, completing her diploma and PhD before earning a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Child and Youth Psychology in Zurich, and a Habilitation in Psychology in Freiburg.
Early in her career, she worked as a school psychologist in Switzerland, and was regularly called into a classroom when problems had become difficult to manage. “We were basically the firefighters,” she says. “We tried to find a solution after the problem had already evolved.”
Her doctoral research focused on how self-regulation helps children navigate the transition into formal schooling. Over time, her interest expanded to the relationships and environments surrounding the child, and how these shape development.
“At first I focused on the child,” she says. “But I realized we should also consider the adults around the child and the quality of their relationships.”
Today, she leads NYUAD’s Teaching, Learning, and Development Lab, studying how children and caregivers shape one another’s development, including how they interact in environments filled with digital devices.
“This is the first generation to grow up with digital devices from the start,” she says. “In many families, children become the teachers.”
The lab brings parents and children together for shared tasks with books, toys, and tablets, recording heart rate, skin conductance, and breathing to examine how parent-child pairs “synchronize behaviourally and physiologically,” and what that means for development in the digital age.
Beyond the clock
That focus on relationships also shapes how von Suchodoletz thinks about screen time.
“I think we need to look beyond how much time children spend on screens and focus more on what happens during that time,” she says. “What matters is the quality of their experiences with digital media and the relationships that surround them.”
Used deliberately and together, digital media can become another way for parents and children to connect, von Suchodoletz explains.
“If screens are used like toys or books to share experiences and build relationships, digital media can also contribute to a child’s development,” she says. “A parent can use a digital device to create a story, watch a video with their child, pause, ask questions, and talk about what they see.”
While technical restrictions like usage limits are positive steps, young people are inherently adaptable and often find workarounds. Von Suchodoletz explains that teaching children how to navigate digital environments is just as important.
“Well-being depends on a complex system of individual, social, and environmental factors,” she says. “Media consumption is one piece of a much larger puzzle.”
The AI generation
Artificial intelligence adds another layer to the conversation.
In recent interviews with parents, von Suchodoletz and her colleagues identified three broad attitudes towards AI in family life: pragmatic, optimistic, and resistant.
One scenario involved a child using an AI assistant, first for a school task and then for help with a problem involving a friend. In both cases, the child ended the conversation by saying: “You are my best friend.”
Von Suchodoletz observed that while these parents were mostly comfortable when AI helped with academic content, almost none of them were comfortable when AI stepped into emotional support and best-friend territory.
The finding points to a new challenge. As AI becomes part of children's everyday lives, adults need to understand the technology well enough to help children navigate it.
“In order to teach our children AI literacy, we as parents and adults have to have AI literacy skills,” she says. “Children need to understand that it is us as humans who feed AI, and that the way we prompt AI changes the output.”
For von Suchodoletz, that conversation cannot happen without listening to children themselves.
“We need an inclusive dialogue among parents, educators, platforms, and children,” she says. “We need to address what we expect from technology, where we draw the line, and how we can help children develop the skills to navigate it.”
