Cyber Safety in the News
So your tween wants a smartphone? Read this first
Your tween wants a smartphone very badly. And they’re giving you many reasons why. Before you hand one over to your child, make sure they are ready, as we find it is much harder to take the device away after the child has experienced it. Many industry experts agree: delay, delay, delay.
Threads Becomes Most Rapidly Downloaded App, Raising Twitter’s Ire
Instagram’s new app was downloaded more than 30 million times in 16 hours. Twitter threatened legal action against its rival. Time will tell whether Threads will become one of the social media apps that teens and tweens continue to use daily.
Evidence of social media’s harm is abundant
Social media screen time contributes to ongoing feelings of anxiety, depression, irritability, and an increase in impulsive behavior. Students who use their screens too much are often sadder and lonelier. The average time spent on a smartphone is more than seven hours a day. When we speak with parents, teachers, principals, and teens, we often hear about social media’s particular harm within the schools.
Personalized chatbot tutors will likely revolutionize traditional education and benefit students
The future is bright as AI revolutionizes education. Berkeley professor and leading AI expert Stuart Russell speculates that as technology evolves, it could revolutionize traditional education with ChatGPT-style personalized tutors. “Education is the biggest benefit that we can look for in the next few years,” Russell told the Guardian of AI’s potential impact on education. “It ought to be possible within a few years to be delivering a pretty high quality of education to every child in the world. That’s potentially transformative.”
Child predators are using Discord, a popular app among teens, for sextortion and abductions
The popular app Discord has a dark side. In hidden communities and chat rooms, adults have used the platform to groom children before abducting them, to trade child sexual exploitation material (CSAM) and to extort minors whom they trick into sending nude images. Experts have suggested that Discord’s young user base, decentralized structure, and multimedia communication tools, along with its recent growth in popularity, have made it a particularly attractive location for people looking to exploit children.
Experts often agree that smartphones in the classroom impede learning, stunt relationships, and lessen belonging. Many educators say they should be banned from schools. We are noticing an increase in schools making policies to ban phones during classroom use throughout the school day.
More than 2,000 families suing social media companies over kids’ mental health
More than 350 lawsuits are expected to move forward this year against TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, Roblox and Meta – the parent company to Instagram and Facebook. Experts often debate whether this is a technology issue, or a parenting issue and it will be interesting to see if a precedent is set once these lawsuits are decided.
