ITCOMO

Those little fingers can cause more damage than you think. And I don't mean from boogers, peanut butter, or dropping your phone in the toilet. Lots of parents, the mom usually, load up their phones with games and puzzles to entertain restless kids when their interruptions and need for attention is particularly inopportune.

Open Line of Credit

Would you hand your credit card to your ten year old, drop them off at Toys-R-Us (well, before they went bankrupt), and tell 'em to go nuts? That's what you might be doing when you hand your phone to your kids. Most games have in-app purchases that can result in charges to your credit card if you don't take measures to prevent it such as requiring a password before any charge takes place.

Kids also like to experiment. They aren't going to just stay in the game you opened for them. They'll poke around in your email, contacts, social media accounts, and pretty much any other icon on the screen, just to see what it does. And the more the app isn't for them, the more interested they'll be.

It's really not a good idea to let your kid play with your phone. I'd recommend that next time you upgrade, keep your old phone and repurpose it for your kid. Do a factory reset to eliminate any sensitive data then set it up as a new phone with a secondary Apple or Google account and preload it with games and puzzles that you allow for your child. You could also buy a used phone pretty cheaply on Swappa or Gazelle.

​

You don't have to keep the phone on your wireless cellular account so there would be no additional monthly cost. Just use the wi-fi connection to install games and such when you're at home. This way, they'll have their own phone to play with, and can't inadvertently (or deliberately) rack up app charges, and can't vandalize the grown-up data on your phone.

Don't let them keep the phone in their possession as though it were their newest toy. Keep it from them, only letting them have it in certain situations where you'd otherwise let them have your main, real phone. This is easier if you don't let your kid know that you've designated this phone for him or her. As far as they need to know, it's just a second phone that you need -- maybe for work or something. Turn it off when not in use and be sure to keep it charged for the next time you need it for your kid(s).

The End of Innocence

When that kid reaches high-school, or even middle-school, his or her hormones are raging, and you the parental unit are at best a tolerable inconvenience, that's when the real problems start. Your teen will demand their own phone and chances are pretty good you'll cave to that demand.

I'm not going to discuss the wisdom of providing a teen or tween their own phone since doing so is usually a foregone conclusion these days, but I will discuss the shit storm of trouble they can get into with it. Teens today are as horny and stupid as we were at their age (for me, it was the 70s) but the internet allows the consequences of their stupid decisions to be realized swiftly, harshly, globally, and indefinitely.

​​

Phone sex in the 21st century

​

This is a more or less catch-all term meaning to send explicit messages, pictures, and videos to one another. Well over half of phone-owning teens have seen, sent, or received explicit content.

 

This is sometimes in the context of a romantic relationship or a flirtatious act. But it's increasingly seen in other contexts such as revenge, extortion, bullying, or even contests and secret clubs in school settings to see who can collect the most explicit pictures of the most desirable students. Girls, especially, may be assigned a score based on how "hot" they are and the boys that manage to collect the most such pictures are viewed favorably among their peers. It's a powerful motivation to participate in such contests/clubs.

​

Worse, many kids see nothing wrong with it. Sending such messages and photos is part of the teen zeitgeist for many. It's just another way of expressing oneself. Obviously, that's a problem.

 

Back in the day, a girl might give a boy a Polaroid snapshot of herself topless. It was a single print with no ready means to copy and certainly no internet to speed distribution. The boy might show his buddies the picture, but that was as far as it went. The consequences from these lapses in judgement, indeed if there were any, were comparatively brief and minor.

 

Not today, where the consequences from these same age-old adolescent lapses of judgement can be swift and epic.

​

How is this possible? Consider that the internet generates millions of gigabytes of data every day.  Storage is so cheap, plentiful, and ubiquitous that literally every bit of content created -- every picture, video, blog, social media post, etc. -- is saved in multiple places. In search engines, in archives, and on any number of the billions of privately owned computers and devices all over the world. Your teen's nude body -- out there, never to vanish. And possibly revealed later on during background checks, pre-employment screening, or vetting by a potential romantic partner.

 

How are teens doing this? Text messages, Tik Tok, Instagram, and other apps designed specifically for facilitating and hiding such activity from the curious and nosy -- that's you, dear parent.

​

From G to R in 60 seconds

​​

Thanks to AI*, today there exists "nudify" apps that do exactly what the name suggests. Feed it a G-rated picture of someone (usually female, as it turns out) and it'll generate a fully nude image with that person's face ready to download.

 

It probably won't accurately depict that person's nude body but that hardly matters because no one else will know that. And accuracy isn't the point, anyway. The ensuing harassment is the point.

​

Schoolgirls in junior and high schools are being harassed using these apps.

​

One such teen in New Jersey decided she wasn't having it anymore. After pressuring state lawmakers, they passed a law criminalizing the creation and sharing of such images. Similar laws will almost certainly be proposed and passed in other states as well.
 

Link here to article on Ars Technica about this.

​

* AI has certainly been in the news lately. Read my AI articles here.

     All about AI

     Deep Fakes

​

The Justice System

​​

As if the embarrassment and shame from the eventual discovery isn't bad enough, the law has its own punishment in mind. Sexting runs headlong into laws intended to prevent distribution of child porn. Most states have no specific statutes for sexting and prosecutors just consider such activity as child porn. A terrible legal quagmire for your kid to find themselves in.

 

Imagine that an underage kid can be charged with creating and distributing child porn just for photographing and sending an explicit image of his or her own body to their romantic counterpart -- a conviction that could mean jail time and, worst of all, land the teen on a sex-offender registry for life. That has happened many times. A ruinous, life-altering event for a moment's mostly-innocent bad judgement.

 

This is an example of how the law fails to keep up with technology or recognize the difference between "innocent"* 1st party teen behavior (like the Polaroid snapshot example above) and the deliberate, exploitive 3rd party behavior, like the nude-sharing clubs and nudify apps.

​

Most kids have no idea of the epic amounts of trouble they can get into. Parents must educate themselves on the applicable laws and teach their kids!

​

* I scare-quoted that because different people have different ideas of what innocent should mean here. But regardless of someone's individual thoughts and feelings on this matter, there nonetheless is a big difference between consensual (in the personal sense) and exploitive activity. The law should recognize that difference even it doesn't give a total pass to consensual activity.

​

But the law often doesn't recognize this difference which makes understanding the consequences of consensual activity even more important.

​

Psychological concerns

​​

Cyber bullying

​

Teen angst today is just as real as when we were kids back before the internet was a thing. Teenage brains simply aren't fully developed in the ways that allow higher order reasoning and critical analysis to operate. Heck, neither are a lot of adult brains, but that's another story. 

 

The prefrontal cortex is where critical analysis, among other functions, lives and is one of the last areas of the brain to fully develop, usually by the mid to late 20s. Simply put, it helps you to not do, say, or believe stupid things.

​

Teens typically are heavily invested in what their peers think of them. For many teens, their sense of value, personhood, and self-worth are shaped by outside forces -- what we call having an external locus of identity. Teens are especially vulnerable.

​

Other manipulations

​

Even more prevalent and insidious than direct cyber bullying is social media influence and the effect it can have. Teen girls and boys are both affected but in different ways, having different consequences.

​

Girls generally spend more time on social media where appearance* and social validation** are emphasized.

​

* Unrealistic beauty standards, fashion trends, bodily features

** Where the teen fits in their circle's hierarchy

​

Girls are more susceptible in general to socio-relational pressures: "cancel culture", exclusion, shaming. This can lead to depression, body dissatisfaction, self-loathing, eating disorders, cutting, and even suicidal ideation.

​

Boys tend to be more direct, less passive-aggressive: Sending and receiving more direct threats and insults. While boys are generally less engaged with everyday social media, they are more likely to belong to fringe subcultures and be influenced by unhealthy ideas of (toxic) masculinity, conspiracies, and extreme content.

 

Boys are less likely to confide in their parents, but girls aren't particularly good on this point, either. But your younger kids might be more open to confiding with an older sibling. If you have an older kid, late teens, employ them to help the younger ones to have a safer experience.

​

Many books have been written on this subject so there's no need for me to explore that here. You can Google all that.

​

Boundaries

​

It's critical that parents today learn how their kids use their devices, especially regarding social media. Here's some suggestions on how to get involved.

​

Teach your kid(s) to...

​​

• Never share with anyone their full name, address, email (if they have one), phone number, or school name

• Tell you about bullying and to show you any messages, pics, or videos that feel icky

• Never chat with or accept friend requests from strangers.

• Never reply to text/SMS or social media messages from strangers, no matter how innocent they seem. "Wrong number" texts are often the first step to developing a rapport with a child, or an adult for that matter, to earn their trust. This is never a good thing.

​​​

Help your kid(s) to...

​

• Recognize scams and phishing

• Develop critical thinking, don’t believe everything they read or see

• Understand that everything they post will live forever even if they think they deleted it. On the internet, "delete" does not exist.

​

Set boundaries

​​

• Have your kids show you what apps they have on their devices and how they use them. Don't be judgemental. Help them understand what's OK from not OK.

• Use the device’s parental control features to enforce various limits and restrictions.

• Set and enforce screen time limits

• Consider having no phones or computers in kids bedrooms after lights-out, devices are charged in family room or parent’s bedroom

• Periodically review device use

• Don't spy on your kids. Be aboveboard and honest about your rules, concerns, etc.

​

For younger kids without their own device (yet)

​

• Don’t let kids play on your main phone. For real. This is pretty important. When upgrading, keep the previous phone for kid(s) to use on certain occasions.

• Delay introducing screens as long as reasonably possible. Yeah, I know...

• Disable app install and in-app purchase (without password​​).

​​

The connected life that kids lead today is absolutely foreign to anything their parents understand. It's critical that parents educate themselves on all the ways kids today use the internet with their mobile devices or laptops and what they get up to.

 

Google is your friend here.  Use it.​​