I am a technologist. I enjoy the things that computers and digital devices can do–they often seem magical and amazing! As a technologist, I have a particular vantage point to see and be very uncomfortable with what companies are doing with that technology. There are catchphrases for these patterns: AdTech, Surveillance Capitalism, Rage Bait, Engagement-Optimized Feeds, Harvesting Eyeballs. I am also a parent. As a parent, I am scared about the prospect of letting my kids loose in a digital world so aggressively dominated by these companies and patterns. But at the same time, technology was an enriching part of my childhood and continues to be an enriching part of my life and I want to share that with them. In this post, I don’t want to spend much time discussing the ways that bad tech patterns are bad , instead I want to share some of the ways I have held on to the enriching parts of technology to share them with my kids.…