Tech & Kids Podcast Series

The number of kids that I talk to at school, and I usually will do a survey and say, if something happens on your phone or you get sent something where you’re unsure, I said, how many of you will go let your mom and dad know out of an entire classroom? I’m lucky if I get one kid that raises their hand and then I’ll ask the rest. I said, why don’t you go? Why don’t you tell? And their answer is usually always the same, Matt. And that is why I don’t want to lose my phone.

Welcome everyone to Breaking Bread, the podcast brought to you by Apostolic Christian Counseling and Family Services. Excellent to have you along. Craig Stickling’s with me here in the studio today.

Welcome, Craig. Hi, Matt. Today we’re gonna talk about tech and kids, Craig. The intersection of technology and kids and parents, which is a growing familiar space. Yes. For any parent out there. Yes. A beautiful spot, isn’t it? We love navigating technology with our kids, don’t we, Matt? Well, I won’t tell the audience that you were grinning through your teeth, this very mischievous grin when you said that, because it sure sounded nice and I’m glad that’s your experience. You know, there is, I think, a need here to really speak into the space of technology and parenting, not because here at ACCFS we have any sort of expertise on technology. In fact, we don’t. You’re going to find far more expertise in technology in the pews of our churches. So, that’s not the position that we’re coming at this from, but you’re in the classroom setting, working with kids as well as on the clinical side of ACCFS. And certainly, we have a lot of situations that pass through the doors here that we see the impact of technology.

And so really we’re kind of speaking out of that standpoint, from that position and bringing to bear some concepts here, Craig. And, really I want this conversation to be not, it’s not going to be nearly exhaustive. We don’t have time for that, but I do want to hit on a number of things and pull out some counsel from you and perhaps to even further set up the complexity that I think parents find themselves in when it comes to technology is this when it comes to parenting kids, and if we could reduce parenting down to this very simple axiom, and that is make adults out of children, you know, make adults out of children.

We’ve kind of led the way in a lot of areas, right? Leading them in finding careers, for example, something I’ve done. Or leading them in navigating relationships, something I’ve done. Or, leading them in spiritual matters, something I’ve done. Leading them in technology, something I not necessarily have done.

You see the difficulty here? Yeah, and many times our kids are generations ahead of us in terms of acquiescing technology space. We find ourselves as parents on our heels, and so we need extra encouragement and help in this area. The language they sometimes shared about, are we natives? Are we immigrants to this digital world? Right. And, the younger generation, our kids come in being raised with that, whereas we feel like we’re kind of immigrants to the scene. We’re still trying to figure this out, and we’re always on the backside, at least in some of this context where they already know, they’ve already been aware, they’ve already been trained or taught, and they have a lot more experience that they bring to this table, Matt.

Just listen to what you just said there, Craig. Our kids have more experience. Right? Yeah. I mean, and that’s what, they haven’t had more career experience. That’s why I have something to say. They haven’t had more relationship experience. That’s why I have something to say. They haven’t had more spiritual experience. That’s why I have something to say. But when it comes to technology, very quickly, they do in some settings have that more experience and they don’t hesitate where we might hesitate. Right? Yeah. And that’s a tough place to be, isn’t it? As parents. And it’s one of the few, or at least it’s a rare air for this generation or segment of generation.

The younger generation that’s been raised in it will have a lot more insight for their kids. But there’s a window of us that are just like, wow, I don’t know how all this always works and why they’re so interested. And I think part of the reason why is it? That they might have some more experience than us who clearly are in technology.

It’s not like we are living in the dark ages or anything like that or living in a hole, but technology changes so quick. Yeah. It changes so quick that it’s difficult to stay up on it. And I think we find our level set at what we’re comfortable with and things keep moving and that’s where they gain that experience where we don’t have, yeah. And just when it seems like we figured something out as a parent, right? Oh, this is what’s out there and I’m now ready. It’s already obsolete and they’ve already moved on to the next thing. We might be an expert at Facebook, but they’re not interested in Facebook, right? Not anymore.

So, Craig here, I want four things from you. Okay. Four things. I want something instructive. I want something protective. I want something engaging. And I want something redeeming. Okay. Let me explain each of those four things. First, instructive are those things that we should be instructing our children in this technology space. This would be one instructive point to say, hey, moms and dads, remember to teach your kids this. Protective. I want you to draw our attention to a matter that’s pertinent and that we need to be thinking about as parents, to be protective about engaging. I want you to help us. What is one thing we should be doing to engage our kids? Okay. Because both instructive is kind of one sided and protective is one sided. Engaging is a two-way street. What does that look like? And then finally, please tell me there’s something redemptive here. Yes. And we know there is. Sound like something you can take on here?

It’s a beautiful four steps to start with, Matt. All right, let’s start with instructive. What do you have? I heard someone speaking and I liked the perspective that she was taking in this topic of our kids and especially social media and how they interacted with social media. And, I really like the idea that she was trying to help her children have some discernment in social media and most of the stuff out there is really just trying to use you.

You are a user, you are a product and they are trying to just either get you to buy something, get you to like something, get you to populate a space in some way. And she was really trying to say, you know what? As kids, we don’t like being manipulated, but you know what, every time you link on, most of the time there’s already an entity out there that’s really trying to just use you in a sense, right?

Okay. So, Craig, I think that’s really important. And really what you’re speaking about is the under workings or the inner workings or the economics of, you mentioned social media, these free platforms that don’t cost anything, but provide a ton of power, Instagram, Tik Tok, right?

Snapchat, for example, hugely popular and Craig, they’re free. Yeah. Isn’t that incredible? Isn’t it though? For a reason. Yeah. So, because they’re free, that places them. Nothing is free, right? So, something is paying for it. So, yeah, fill out that space then. The materialistic side, right? Here’s ads.

We notice you like searching this. So, I’m going to start giving you things to buy. Or give you ideas of things that you might want because you just searched and looked at something on baseball stuff. So guess what? Now you’re going to start getting ads. So, there’s a straight just commercial materialistic side, here’s a thing to buy that piece woven into the social media platforms.

But then there’s also other interesting dialogues of that. This might be either friends that you might want, or you might consider, these might be speakers or influencers. These might be other things socially that can connect to what we’re seeing you share, what we’re seeing you talk about. I’m going to start now suggesting those things for you and bringing that to you because there’s an end goal in all of that.

I don’t know if they’re just, if the idea of the social media giants is to be like, we really want to enhance the user. Our user’s end goal here, because we care about them, there’s usually something more connected. But the end goal is attention, isn’t it? And I think that’s so powerful, Craig, and so important to remember that their end goal is attention.

It is time spent on the app. And that will award them advertisement space and thereby translates to money. Yeah. And to your point, the user’s wellbeing and flourishing might not be their highest aim, whatever their industry vision statement is. Why is this important for parents to communicate this to kids?

We want them always to be able to be seeing the bigger picture of things, right? We can sometimes get a narrow focus and we don’t. We’re looking at a tree and yet there’s really a forest and to be able to help our kids see a bigger picture, a bigger narrative of who they are, who they were created to be and what God has designed for them and how to be used, how to serve him, how to bring glory to him and to be able to step back and see a bigger picture of that.

I really like that. I really like the bigger picture. Because my experience on social media is sometimes rabbit holes. It’s actually a narrowing rather than this larger narrative. And we miss so much forest for the trees when we do that, don’t we? Yeah. Excellent instructive.

Let’s go to protective. Craig, there’s a thousand things to be protective about and we don’t have time for them all. Let’s just do one. Well, yeah, what is one thing on your heart right now to be protective about something that’s now become even a very large concern is sex torsion. And that’s kind of a combination of some words.

Yes. Unpack term. That’s probably new to some of our listeners. So, it’s moving this mindset, Matt, of still revolved around something sexual, visual, picture, video, some type of images that are related to sexual pieces. I’m using this now as a way to extort money from you, money from the person I tricked online into thinking I was somebody that I wasn’t.

So set this up a little bit. What does sextortion look like in the life of a young person who stumbles into this? We’re online, we’ve got our different apps that are up, we’re looking at different things, we have different people that we’re connecting with, and we get a like from this person and/or someone requesting to be a friend or to follow, and that person is a very attractive young person who says that they’re a high schooler or whatever and I’m like, oh, okay. And I will go and I will accept or I will engage back with that person and that person will say some things nice and act like they might even know me and know my area and ask me if I, oh, do you go to, you know, you’re in Peoria, Illinois.

Oh, do you go to one of the local high schools? And so acting like they know my area. But I detect that this is a predator. Predator. Yeah. With a capital P. So, what might this predator then do? They’re starting to dialogue now with us building a relationship, they’re connecting, they’re talking about, you know, oh, what’s your favorite class?

And oh, I really enjoy my school. And what do you want to do? And then all of a sudden it gets into, you know, hey, you’re kind of attractive. And are there any pictures of you? Would you share some pictures? And that leads into, I’ll share some pictures with you. And then the end goal is that they are then going to try to get it.

The person, you know, maybe one of our children that are in their room late at night to say, hey, take some pictures of yourself or take some video of you. And then they’ll ask him, really, can you do something in a sexual way? And they’ll take a video of that. And so, once that exchange has happened. And they will send pictures, so it seems like, hey, I’m interacting and they might even do a video chat of this young person that this is the person that was on the picture.

So, it all seems so innocent of, oh, there’s just this other high school girl from state X. And then all of a sudden it turns dark really, really quickly. The minute the video comes, then all of a sudden there’s a response that comes back and says. We have now captured you doing something that we are now going to send out to everyone on your friend list or your like list or your social media platforms.

We have the capacity to send out that video to everyone in your high school. And so now, the ante is raised. Yes. For some sort of payment. Yes. Some sort of, which puts this young person in a terrible bind. Terrible bind. And so now they’re trying to figure out how to get access or how to go maybe get a credit card or some kids have their own accounts and, you know, they’ll give some bank statements, or they’ll give some avenues to try to hush this person.

That only works because once they know that you pay then they’re going to ask you for more and so they’re got caught in that loop and they’re so sophisticated, Matt, that they’re actually able to replicate them sending out the video to people on your friend list or your contact list and they can actually show them a screen see now this video now is and it shows it popping up on their friends the sophistication of technology in that capacity to deceive and to create false pictures is just astounding.

And you think of a young person late at night and all of a sudden, they are completely caught and the panic that happens. There’s already been cases where young people have taken their lives over this because of the fear of that. I mean, you can imagine that just unravels a person’s life. And so, the distress that it puts a young person on is huge.

Now I will say, I have encountered individuals that this has happened to. Neither did it really play out as was purported, but the distress that they went through and the humiliation and bringing that forward, it was quite a bind. And it really, I think this is important for our listeners to understand.

This is one area where it’s important for parents to be protective, to be teaching in the right direction here, is we help our kids navigate this online world. I saw a plea go across one of my children’s Facebook, okay? It was a request for a direct message. And I was able to see that, and I talked that through with him.

Do you know who this person is? He said, no. I said, this person is a fraud. And I can just tell you right now, do not respond to this person. All that to say, not uncommon. It’s not impossible. Yeah. And you can imagine. In fact, I just read an article that young teenage boys tend to be preyed on more than their counterpart girls.

Yeah. And we can see where situations would present themselves that could be, that could be likely. Right. Yeah, absolutely. And that fear just grips them. And like you said, what a very terrible place to be. What else should be done now that it’s been revealed? Yeah. For most of us, at least for most parents, there’s going to be a natural tendency to want to just go online and just take on this person, engage in them and, and share with them or try to get them to stop or make them know what they’ve done. And that’s usually a first response and one that’s very emotional, but that’s not really going to be helpful or wise to engage in them. But to step back and remember that if our child is under 18 and pictures have been exchanged or videos have been exchanged, that is child pornography and child pornography is something that our laws of the land do

address very seriously. And so, first steps to take that is to take some of the screenshots if you can to get information that way and then connect with your local FBI or even our local police and authorities. I think we can be thankful that the laws of the land are very strong against this type of behavior.

And yes, that predator has acquired child yeah. If our children are under the age of 18 and that is a punishable offense and law enforcement is probably the way to go. I also will have a link in our show notes to an FBI hotline for that type of thing. This is really dark and really heavy stuff and it’s so, so sad to see young people preyed on like this.

So, let’s move now to the engagement piece. Speak to engaging, all right? Instructive is one way. We’ve instructed them. And protective, you’ve given us something to protect against. But now, what is this dialogue look like, how do we engage our kids and in a beautiful way as it concerns technology?

Yeah. We are building, we’re always building that relationship road with our kids and their hearts and their heads, and we’re helping them learn to think and how to feel and what to do with those. But we’re also learning that they can trust us and that we want to build that relationship with our kids, that it’s not about being perfect.

It’s about the relationship of where do I go when I’m hurting or I’m uncertain or I’m not sure of what to do. So, making that dialogue safe is good foundation, good groundwork to always be working on. What should I do tonight? What can I do right now to better steward or parent this technology space?

What I’m hearing you say is begin to provide a good environment, a protective, safe place to dialogue with your kids and allow them to come forward with certain things. And I think a great way to step into that, Matt, is sometimes I come with graciousness and say, I don’t want you to think that if you say something, that’s the wrong answer that what I’m looking for, boom, I’m going to take your phone and we’re going to lock up everything that you have technologies, but you really build in that sense of I want to know what you see I want to know where you’re at and why is as mom and dad do we want to know that? With our child and we get to build in that connection piece with them Okay, Craig, so roleplay this for me, okay?

Because I think all that makes sense in our head. But if our child came forward to us, Craig, came to you and said, Dad, this is what I did. This is who it was and they said to do this and I don’t know, I lost my head and I did this and we’re crying and we’re sobbing. What’s your first, how do you respond to that because a lot of emotion hits the ceiling in this one.

Yeah. Right? Yeah. And a lot of things can be said and should be said. What’s first? Yeah. Well, first we have to remember that unless we have done some prework, the likelihood of that happening is very, very unlikely. Unless we have built in this connection piece with them. But to answer your question, okay, my child comes, what do I do?

First of all, I think you just embrace them with gratefulness. I cannot imagine the courage or what you were feeling to be able to even come and share this with us. Thank you. Thank you for that. Did you know that we love you and we care about you and we care about every part of you, even the technology piece and what happens, but we care about you.

So I think the first thing we do is, Oh, we just embrace them with a gratefulness of their willingness to be open with us. So, there’s so much going through our heads and the what and the why and how. But before those questions, a reception is had. Yeah. Yeah. The dad that runs across the field, right to a son, ah, I’m just going to run and meet you there.

Right. Then we’ll sort out the other things. You know, I think the first thing that you do is that you engage them in gratefulness, right? And then you step back and then you affirm to them that they are going to be loved by you. No matter what, there’s nothing that they can do to make us love them more, and there will be nothing that they can do to make us love them less, right?

So, then you support in that unconditional connection with them about their at your affirmation for them as your son or as your daughter, right? So, you secure that position and then they, and we would like to think they know that, but at that moment they may be questioning that. And so, you affirm into them that element in that piece.

I like that. And so, I hear relationship, this engagement piece, your answer to my question of engagement was it really boils down to relationship. Yeah. Have a relationship with your kids. Let’s move on now to the redeeming part. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. What do you, can you offer in terms of redemption here in this?

This overlap of parenting and technology, the elements of social media the elements of kids having a cell phone, the element of those things really reflects our heart and how we were created to be connected, we were created for connection and you look at those elements that are out there. There’s a reason why kids gravitate toward those things because it connects them and it draws us into connection.

And so, there’s a beautiful principle there for us to be able to, to redeem out of this place in time that we’re at in life, but to redeem the piece that we’re created for connection. And it’s interesting how some of the elements of technology today really do enhance that connection piece. And that’s been a beautiful thing to speak into, isn’t it?

To point out and help our children see that they do have a compass in their heart that’s pointing towards connection, yearning for connection. And we live that connection pursuit out in many ways. And we see it very vividly with technology, don’t we? Yeah. But finds its ultimate end in Christ.

And to be reminded, right? It’s, you know, Jesus talked about seeking those things, right? Seek ye first the kingdom of God. He’s not saying those other things aren’t out there and they’re not necessarily going to be without, uh, without merit, but he’s like, oh, but keep the first thing first, right?Seek me first. That becomes that relation connection piece. Who am I seeking and who do I want to seek first in my life?

I really like that. Craig, this has been. Thank you. This has been very helpful. And, again, we didn’t intend to be exhaustive. We cannot be, but we hope, and I hope that this podcast, this conversation could be helpful to our listeners as we engage this very challenging sphere of parenting our kids with technology and through technology, and we’re presented with challenges that morph and change and what we’re talking about now is going to be different than what we talked about in just a few short years, right? Or months even. But to hear you speak that there is something instructive always, there is something protective and will be, there’s a way to engage and there’s redeeming elements, I think is a beautiful way to set up the space in our lives.

So, thank you for that. Yes. Thank you, Matt. And I trust that this has been a blessing to each of you who are listening. I did have a thought as we talked about relationships and how this deep need for protection really calls for a relationship, a deep relationship. And I wonder sometimes if that’s one of God’s redemptive narratives ever since the fall and the deeper the fall, the more the need for relationship with him. He really binds us up to him and with him with ever progressing darkness that comes and we have that to experience with our children. Yeah. And with each other. Within fellowship and with God ultimately. Right. Yeah. And the beauty of the depth of that relationship allows me to trust my Protector more. Doesn’t it? Yeah. And so those two pieces tie together so well. Yeah. I love it. All right. Hey, thanks. Appreciate it. Thanks each one for being with us.

Goodbye.

And there’s certain parts of the city that are beautiful and safe. And then there’s other parts of cities that aren’t so safe. The internet has beautiful parts to it. There are beautiful parts to social media here and there. And then there are really bad parts. So, I think as parents, we just got to be really thoughtful to understand where these places are and have dialogue with your kids.  

Greetings, everyone, and welcome to Breaking Bread, the podcast brought to you by Apostolic Christian Counseling and Family Services. It’s always good to have you along, and I’m very happy to have Brother Jon Moser with me here today. 

Jon, welcome. Thank you, Matt. It’s great to be with you today. Thanks for the opportunity. Jon lives on the East Coast, goes to Rockville church and Jon, I’m just really delighted and honored that you’ve carved out some time and space for me and for this podcast. And our topic here is tech and kids. 

This is a topic that I’ve introduced some time back and promised more episodes because we knew one episode wasn’t enough to help us parents in this space with technology and kids. So, our listeners are somewhat familiar with that if they’ve listened to that previous podcast. But. I am so delighted for you to be on, Jon. 

I would like to introduce you in a little bit and then I want you to take that introduction and fill in some spaces and color in the lines if you would. But to our listeners, Jon is a very credible voice in this space of tech and kids. Probably first and foremost, he’s a father. 

So, Jon, you’ve been wading through these waters with kiddos and we are too. And that’s challenging, but also in a matter of profession, Jon is CEO and founder of Finalsite and Jon, you can say a little bit more about Finalsite, but from my understanding, it’s a suite of software services that helps schools manage their websites, marketing, communications and enrollment. And so, technology is the air that you breathe. So, thanks for being on. Do say a little bit more about maybe your family and where your intersection here is with technology.  

So, Matt, again, thanks for having me on. So, a little about the family. I have five children. Ethan, Elle, and Anna that are twins, they’re 19. I have a six-year-old boy, Abram, and a 13-year-old girl, Lena. So, I have five kids in the mix of this technology growing up in this world. All intersecting, all using technology at different ages. A 13-year-old to the older one, a 21-year-old. There’s a lot of technology fronts you’ve just described there in the family. Absolutely. And two or three of my kids work in the technology field. They’re building websites for businesses, so they’re there. And then the younger two probably use technology more as entertainment, partly as communication. 

And as you look at the whole picture, there are a lot of moving parts here. And I would also like to say, I’ve raised my kids on a farm in Ellington, Connecticut. So, if you’re from Kansas, Illinois. Minnesota, just to let you know that our farms out in Connecticut, chicken farms, but I was actually purposeful about this. 

I wanted to raise my kids. They’d be in somewhat of a technology environment, but also getting enough outdoor activities and jobs and stuff that have a good mix of both. It’s so healthy. I think in this tech age, isn’t it? We can lose sight of the real very quickly. Tell us a little bit about Finalsite. 

Yeah, absolutely. So, the company was started about 25 years ago to date, and we focused on independent schools, international schools, districts, charter schools. And what we do is we help them with communications. We help them with marketing, enrollment management, athletics, scheduling, mobile apps, all this technology. 

We even take social media that’s shared at the school, and we aggregate it for the parents, the students and all of that. So, a lot of school to home communication and I’ve been in the tech field now for almost 25 years and really have started when the internet started bubbling up back in 2000 and really worked with students and kids all the way through. They’re better experts in this than I am, but I’ve definitely touched lots of areas for sure. 

I really appreciate that, Jon, and I know that you are going to be modest with your own introduction, but I do want our listeners to have a sense of the wealth of understanding and experience that you have in this space. Parents are wanting help as they think about technology and kids. 

And so, I’m going to set the same conversation up as I’ve done in the previous episode. And that is, I want one thing instructive. What should we be teaching our kids? I want one thing protective. What is one thing we should be protecting our kids from? I want one thing engaging. That is conversations we should be having with our kids. And then I want one thing redeeming. And that is some of the joys that technology brings some of the advantages. Okay. And so let’s launch right into that. And let’s start with redeeming because as these things go, sometimes we can lose ourselves in the warnings and in the fright and in the protection and all of these things. And we can lose the forest for the trees. And I know at heart, you see technology very optimistically or usefully, and I’d love you to touch on that. What is one thing redeeming as it concerns technology, Jon, as you see it in our world, especially.  

So, Matt, thanks for this. So, I think about the tractor. When the tractor came in, farmers are like, what are we going to do? When the internet started, parents were questioning, Christians, all of us were like, how do we use this in a way that’s healthy? The iPhone came or smartphones came. And then social media and then AI now we’re staring at it. But if I look at things that are redeeming our time, how can we redeem our time? 

And how do we look at this in a positive way? I think all of these are opportunities for all of us. So how can we use this to be more efficient, more thoughtful? How can we reach out to grandparents where they are? My wife’s from Remington, Indiana. And we can FaceTime, we can talk. My kids can be at college for the day, and they can FaceTime me. 

There’s so much opportunity to collaborate. I travel overseas a lot to different places. You click a button and you’re talking almost in real time back and forth. So, the collaboration, the quickness of communicating, there are so many benefits of using the internet with devices in really healthy ways. 

And I always think about if you run a business, you look for efficiency. If you’re raising a family, you only have so much time. But if you could be more efficient, maybe shopping, maybe doing some of those other things, we actually can use more time to spend with our kids. We can go on walks; we can go outside more. I know I’m a tech guy and I’m like, hey, technology’s good, but I’m actually encouraging to get outside, go for walks, make that part of your routine. 

A lot of people look at their phone when they wake up. Maybe there’s better things to do right when you wake up and create good behavioral patterns and good habits. But there are tons of benefits around how we use that and what we do.  

I love that. I love optimism. And really to redeem it does require that other thought that says, now, what am I going to do with the time that I’ve just saved? That will probably be the mark of just how redeeming the technology was in the first place, which I think is a really good thing to think about. Jon, let’s move now to this instruction place. What is one thing instructive as you think about parents instructing their kids, helping them understand some things in this technological world? What would be top of mind, one of those things be?  

I’m going to really encourage parents to be engaged and understand, at least on a level, how technology works, and how social media works, and then how specific programs work a little bit. You don’t send your kids out in your car at 16 and say, here are the keys, you’re 16, go drive. 

All things powerful. require education, don’t they? Technology is powerful. Absolutely. I’m just going to give one really quick example. So, Google just popped up something here. It says New York state’s attorney general James’ office explains how Meta, this is Facebook and Instagram, exploits the youth. 

This is what it says, really quick. Algorithms that are designed to recommend content to keep users on the platform longer and encourage compulsive use. It’s known to harm young users. Visual filter features, so the filters that they put on cameras, are known to promote younger users body dysphoria. So, we’re like, this is a legal case that’s being pushed against Facebook from the attorney general of the state of New York. 

Wow. So, we’re basically saying here, though, if I can just summarize the whole thing, Facebook makes money off of making your kids addicted to social media so they can sell the data. And then you have body dysphoria or you don’t get enough likes in the morning so you don’t feel good about yourself for the day. 

But like we talked about it, you hear experts and psychologists talk about it. But the fact of the matter is the companies who actually build this are being sued now that they’re actually doing it. As parents, I think it’s just crucially important to know this is how the company makes money. They’re using your kid, so you probably should manage and make sure your kid understands how social media works and be really balanced if you let your children use it. 

All right. So, you used a word twice there, and that was algorithm. And it sounds to me, in my understanding of the algorithm, it is the code. It is the rhyme and the reason for how they get this done. I would love for you to be able to unpack the algorithms. What should we do to help our young people, our children understand about the algorithms on these various platforms? TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, even BeReal that a lot of people are jumping on now.  

They all make money off of you scrolling things. And then create a profile of you, what you actually click on and what you do, and they actually sell your information. That’s how they make money. So as parents, we should be connected to what’s going on there. So, let’s talk about TikTok. I’m just going to give an example. Yeah, please do. If you’re in China and you type in something and you search, TikTok’s owned by a Chinese company that’s tied to the government, but they’ll show like education and sports. 

For example, if you search for specific topics in the U. S., it might show challenges or more sexually explicit content. In China, they’re not doing it. They control when you do a search, what actually comes up. So, the algorithm is different in China and in America. Absolutely. It is. And you have a country who’s trying to move their population forward in China, really pushing. 

If you’re in Singapore, the children are very focused on what they need to get for an education. They’re pushing forward. It feels like in the U. S., the companies are sharing stuff. That’s probably not helping them move forward in life as much as like, let’s focus on education or on growth in some way in China. In the U. S., we’re not, so TikTok, Snapchat was actually put in place to work against parents so kids could have pictures. Timeout, they don’t even store data, so if the police had to go and check out something in Snapchat, it’s not stored. So, you don’t know what happened there. So, Snapchat’s been made to be sneaky behind the scenes.  

And I think if I was a parent talking to kids, I’d be like, hey, remember, if you are using Snapchat, which I recommend not starting your kid on Snapchat if you can help that, but if they are, I understand at a certain level, you want your kids to make choices, but if they are, you got to remember that they can share location. 

So, if they don’t connect the real world to the virtual world, if there’s someone stalking them, or they have someone in their contacts that is not someone they know. Like a friend or maybe a boy or a girl, they can see where you’re at. So, we think about as a father, like protecting my daughters, yeah, please don’t share where you’re at. 

You might be out somewhere and someone that’s shared in your contacts can see where you’re at. So, let’s be really thoughtful on sharing location in who you let into your contacts. I always like to compare if you’re on the street and someone walked up to you, you have never met before. And they said, can I have your phone number? You’d be like, no, I’m not really comfortable giving you that. I think we need to think the same way when we’re on the internet, just because someone wants to connect that we don’t just connect and share.  

Yeah, I think, I think there’s something really profound there, too, Jon, and that is the social graces that we have physically. We know when something’s off. We know when a request, as you mentioned, hey, can I have your phone number? Is just not appropriate. It’s hard to ask. Because we know it’s inappropriate and it’s hard to give it because it seems off, but it seems like those lines really get blurred on social media to the point where it’s too easy to ask and too easy to give, isn’t it? 

Yes, absolutely. It’s just a click of a button, like, oh, accept or this person works well. As parents, we’ve just got to understand how the Internet works and let’s just talk to our kids about it. In the real world if you met someone in person and if you meet someone on the internet, like how do you go about that introduction and what you share, what you don’t share, and those types of things I think are really important. 

Well, so, we’ve really gone into this engagement part. How do we instruct our kids in terms of the algorithm, help them understand even maybe who owns the algorithm and what their motives might be with the algorithm. How the platform was designed to be built. So, you have that educational piece. 

Now you really get into this engaging piece. What does that conversation look like as you engage your girls in proper ways to use social media? But I always tell younger people that if the device controls you, it’s wrong. You need to control the device. So, if you wake up in the morning and you’re like, I need my phone, that means the device controls you. 

You want to control the device. You know what I like about that is we know the answer to that question. So, I control or is it some of the smartest people in the world working for Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, BeReal? And their job is to get you to stay engaged in their platform as much as possible. So, just know that’s their objective. So, all right, let’s be thoughtful there. So, if we talk about contact lists and who we let in there. So, you can say, all right, I’m going to be private. So, I’m only going to let certain people into my Instagram or into my contact list. Do all of those platforms have a private setting? 

Most of them do have a private setting, but we have two parts here. We have one who’s my contact who do I share with, right? Then you have the algorithms that track what you’re looking at. And it keeps you in a spiral. It keeps talking to you about things that you’re interested in. Because the more they get you to click, the longer you stay on and the better it is for the company. So, when you stop and you’re scrolling and you slow down or you click onto something, it knows that. So, it’s building this algorithm personally just for you. I’m picking on you, Matt. Just for you, Matt. 

So, here’s my point. You want to take precautionary measures and remember anything you’re putting on the internet could be vulnerable at some point. Secondly, if you’re on free programs, they’re building a profile view of the data which they’re selling to people. So, you will end up buying something from them someday. 

We talked about education a little bit. What are a couple of things you could do just to be a little more careful about your privacy? You could have one email address you use for buying and shopping and doing that stuff as parents. And then you could have your own personal one you use to connect with your friends. As a kid, you could have two email addresses. You use one for if your parents let you game online or you’re attached to social media, you use that account. And then you have one that you connect with family and friends. So, you have two accounts.  

Be clear again, Jon, as to why two accounts. So, one email account you use for social media or buying stuff online because they sell that data. They shop it out. They build profiles around it. And then you have another email address that you use for everything else that you do. All the collaboration with people one on one directly. It’s your cell phone number and it’s your email address that you use for most of your collaborations with friends, family, whatever it would be. 

I think that’s helpful. The next area I would really consider is a VPN. So, I don’t want to get too technical here. Like this is not supposed to be tech shop, but I use a VPN on my phone and on my computer all the time. And it can block malware and it can block all the tracking that’s going on through all the ads and all the gaming stuff and all that. 

And you can buy one and put it on your computer. And just when you’re connected to the internet, it helps encrypt the data getting out and they’re not tracking you everywhere. Because you go shop on Amazon, all of a sudden you’re seeing an ad in the gaming program you’re using, where you go here and all of a sudden you see ads here. 

This will block all of that on there. And it actually keeps your kids and the parents a lot safer. Like there’s something called proton VPN. It’s in Switzerland. Well, it’s just one of many, but I’ve done a lot of research and I think that’s a good one that you could buy, and you can put it on 10 different devices f you want to. I’m not trying to make people sneaky or overly private. Yeah, that’s not the point. The point is to realize if you’re using free programs or whatever it is your data is being shared and tracked. This will help.  

That’s really helpful. And this really addresses my objective for protection and in what ways we should be protecting. And you’ve provided some very tangible things here in this, Jon, but I’m going to press you a little bit further with this protecting against privacy. Really what I’m hearing is you protecting your privacy. We’ve talked about location on Snapchat. We’ve talked about profiles on free Gmail accounts or source platforms we’re using. 

All right. So, I’m going to confess to you. I don’t know how many privacy statements I accept that I’ve scrolled to the bottom of and haven’t read. I accept, right? Oh, here it is. Here I’ve got it. Let me scroll through here. I have not read one from top to finish. Jon, am I a terrible person? So, I feel like we are inundated with these privacy statements that we don’t even know what I’ve just agreed to. 

That is true. You don’t know what you agreed to. And I’m going to be honest with you too. There’s no way I’m going to take the time to read through a privacy statement either, but just know if it’s for free, they’re selling your data. Okay, that’s almost a given, whether it’s social media, Gmail, Google. 

Google makes all their money building profiles and selling data and marketing, right? Like that’s how they make their money. So, you know what they’re doing and how they make money. Give us some tips on websites that are suspicious, websites that could perhaps contain malware or otherwise. 

So, one good thing about search engines like Google or Bing or Yahoo, a lot of these sites that show up on the first 34 pages are sites that get a lot of hits. It’s tied into algorithms. So, a lot of time the content is pretty safe on those websites. And now if you’re searching for topics that are pretty foreign, not mainstream words, of course, you’re going to find sites that are less hit or going to sites that have a lot of graphics or foreign sites. If you’re in the U. S. and you’re browsing sites that are in other countries, you got to be thoughtful of where you go because the algorithms that are built around the search engine in the U.S. are going to be sites that we look at and people around there, but there’s going to be less people that look at specific sites, depending on where you are in the world. 

So, I think you just got to be really thoughtful. If it’s a common brand that you see on the street, a lot of times it’s pretty safe. You don’t have to worry about it, but if you’re going to sites that you can almost go on a site and intuitively know, this is a little strange. It doesn’t look right. Maybe you shouldn’t be on that site and you should leave. 

And even I know we’re not getting into pornography and some of that today, but pornography sites are really known for dropping malware on your machines. Because there’s rogue places all over the world that are doing this stuff. So, I’m not trying to scare people, but I also want people to be thoughtful. 

The sites we shouldn’t be on are the sites we actually shouldn’t be on anyway. How about browsers? Do you have favorite browsers? Dangerous browsers? What’s your sense on that? Some good lessons, Matt, on how to use your browsers on your computer is pick two different browsers to do different things. 

So, an example, you could use Safari if you’re on a Mac and use that as your primary browser for all your personal stuff. And then use Chrome for all your business-related stuff. So you might run an online store, you might do something on the internet, use Chrome as your primary browser for doing all business related stuff, maybe your gaming, if you’re a kid, but then use like the other browser, Chrome, that’s tied to the OS to save all your stuff, to use that more as your personal, like if you’re doing shopping or something like that. I’ve seen people use that and be very successful.  

Nice. I think that’s helpful. So, Matt, in the end here, we’re talking about all this technology and there’s a lot of good to it. And there’s some dangers like everything else. You can go to a city and there’s certain parts of the city that are beautiful and safe. 

And then there’s other parts of cities that aren’t so safe. The Internet has beautiful parts to it. There are beautiful parts, the social media here and there. Yeah. And then there’s really bad parts. So, I think as parents, we just got to be really thoughtful to understand where these places are and have dialogue with your kids and the kids actually understand the difference between a virtual world and a real world that we live in. 

And I’m going to encourage parents, make sure you have some chickens outside your house. Make sure you have like a dog is great and cats are great, but chickens lay eggs, put a little farm stand outside, do something to go outside and do activities and make it part of the routine. 

And I always say, don’t let the device control you. You control the device. And if you say that to yourself and like, shoot, that device controls me, I’m impulsive. You have to retrain it. It takes three weeks to retrain something in our human bodies. So, let’s use that time and figure out how to retrain and be thoughtful and get outside. 

I love it. I love it. One thing. Instructive. We talked about algorithms and the platforms and how they work. One thing. Protective. We’ve talked about data security here, and you’ve really made us face the music on how our data is being shared and what we’re really signing up for when we get a free account anywhere. You’ve invited us to engage ourselves, but also our kids on this element of control, who’s in control, do you feel it’s control over us and then redeeming using technology as we connect? 

It’s a beautiful place and a beautiful landscape when healthy, and it does have the dark side, but speaking to this engagement, I think is really, really exciting. Jon, it’s been a privilege. For our listeners, I’m going to include some of the notes that Jon has shared with me in the show notes, so you’ll be able to maybe find some of those resources there. 

And hopefully that will be helpful to you. To each one who came, who listened in, thank you. We know this is a lot. This is the world that we live in, and we trust that this could support and bless you as you steward your families through the waters of technology. Thanks for being on, Jon. Thank you so much. 

Thank you, Matt, and thank you everyone for taking the time.