Are Christian Parents Being Given Bad Advice about Smartphones & Social Media?
Christian thought leaders, pastors, and youth leaders talk a lot about parental controls, time limits & filters for kids' & teens' internet use. Are we missing the forest for the trees?
I had dropped my sons off at school and was on my way back home when a segment on The World and Everything in It coming through my car speakers caught my attention. For the uninitiated, the podcast is part of WORLD Radio whose mission is “biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.”
The topic was internet safety for children. I turned up the volume to listen more intently and made a mental note to find the transcript later. (I encourage you to listen to the full audio version here starting around to the 13:00 minute mark.)
The host, Mary Reichard, was interviewing Tim Nester, Senior Director of Communications at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE).
Each year, the NCOSE publishes a list they call “The Dirty Dozen” of the worst “mainstream contributors to sexual exploitation.” I am thankful for the work of Mr. Nester and the NCOSE in calling out companies such as Roblox, Meta (parent company of Instagram & Facebook), Spotify and Discord. We need to be shining a light in dark places so that parents, pastors and youth leaders understand the evil that is lurking on these apps. Part of NCOSE’s work is to push for change at these companies and over the years, they have documented much success.
In the interview, Mr. Nester calls Instagram “arguably the most dangerous app for kids.” He discusses how predators can exist in anonymity and how Meta is anything but proactive when it comes to protecting kids and teens online. Yep, you read that right: within Instagram’s platform exist predators who are the online equivalent of a creepy guy in a windowless, unmarked van driving around offering your kids candy. Other reports show that almost 20% of 13-15 year olds have nudity pushed to them on a weekly basis. You ought to read the report from NCOSE which includes data like this, “As many as 100,000 children every day were sexually harassed on Meta platforms in 2021.” That’s almost an inconceivable number of white vans driving around online. If 100,000 children every single day were being sexual harassed in our physical cities and towns, we’d all be running for the woods or knocking down the doors at City Hall.
For a truly horrifying report on Roblox, read this report from Bloomberg entitled "Roblox's Pedophile Problem" documenting the dangers this platform poses to children. Or take this from the NCOSE website, “Children are also exposed to highly sexualized content and themes – children’s avatars have been raped, ‘condo’ games revolve around sex (interactive pornography), and kids can enter virtual 'strip clubs.' These are prime areas for grooming that also normalize this type of activity to children. While these incidences happen in the virtual world, the negative effects on kids are devastatingly real.”
So, you’re all with me now: these are real problems affecting an untold number of kids. Kids who aren’t mature enough to understand the evilness of sexual grooming. Like the creepy stranger in the unmarked van offering your child candy, these predators are luring kids with benefits within the online platforms. Instead of a chocolate bar, they use “likes”, attention, codes, and hints within apps that provide benefit within the game. Often predators pose as children and may even claim to be a “friend of a friend.”
This takes me to part of Mr. Nester’s interview that really stood out:
REICHARD: Tim, do you have any concrete examples of how children have experienced harm on these platforms?
NESTER: I do, and sadly, there’s too many examples across many of these platforms. But one that jumps out to me that hit really close to home for me, because I have a 17-year-old son, is the story of well, a boy we’ll call Alex. It’s not his real name. We’ve changed his name just to protect his identity, but it’s a true story.
So a 17 year old boy named Alex met a teenage girl online named Macy, at least that’s what he thought her name was, and he thought she was a teenage girl, they began chatting. And over time that conversation quickly escalated to Macy asking Alex for sexually explicit images. And she also, as far as he knew, sent him some sexually explicit images. Unbeknownst to him, Macy was a sextortionist, and was not a teenage girl. We actually don’t know the identity of this individual.
But the long and short of it is over the course of one evening, it took about five hours, Alex went from a healthy 17 year-old-boy, a member of youth group, good Christian family, healthy mental awareness of how to be careful online, to the point where he made a mistake, sent an explicit image and was immediately told, “If you don’t cooperate and send me $1,000, I’m going to send these pictures to your family, to your friends” they started listing family and friends that were on their friends list, “until it goes viral, and all you have to do is send me the money and I won’t expose you.” So Alex, being a teenager, did not have a lot of money, sent everything he had. He had about $400 total that he could send. The person said, “That’s not what I asked for, pay me more now.” He said “I don’t have any more.” The person essentially mocked him, and then posted the images. And Alex, who was of course feeling like his life was just ruined, he made the worst mistake of his life, ended up dying by suicide that night, and his family found him the next morning.
I cannot imagine the horrors that Alex’s parents have lived through. Still, months after first coming across this story, I start crying when thinking about the tragedy that this young man and his family have experienced. The refrain “mourn with those who mourn” from Romans 12:15 continues to come to mind. I’d like to thank his parents for the bravery they have shown in sharing their story. I imagine they don’t want us to turn a blind eye to preventing online harms from befalling another 17 year old son.
Mr. Nester goes on to say that online platforms should be held accountable (I agree!) and we need better safeguards when it comes to protecting kids from sexual predation. Ms. Reichard then asks Mr. Nester to speak directly to Christians on what can be done. His response:
NESTER: Yeah, it starts with prayer, and with good conversation with our kids. I think spending that time talking through these issues honestly and openly with our kids makes a big difference.
He acknowledges, as a parent himself, that teenagers aren’t always going to do everything we tell them to do. They are going to push boundaries and limits and take risks we don’t want them to. I agree with the advice that we need to talk with our children about online (and real world) dangers. But, let’s look at this one more time:
Nester: Alex went from a healthy 17 year-old-boy, a member of youth group, good Christian family, healthy mental awareness of how to be careful online, to the point where he made a mistake, sent an explicit image…
Sadly, even open and honest conversations with good kids doesn’t provide the level of safety we desire. We have to do everything as parents, pastors and youth leaders to cut off access to these platforms for our children and teens. There are too many white vans online to continue to allowing our kids play in these online worlds. When evil, illegal activity is occurring, we should call it out and push for change like NCOSE is doing. Dear Christian Parent, we have to also stop allowing kids and teens to have access to these platforms in part by not giving them smartphones or personal iPads in the first place.
I reached out to Mr. Nester to ask if he agrees with me on that front and if there was anything else he’d add to his previous interview. He had this to share, “The more I’ve learned about the platforms on our 2024 Dirty Dozen List, the more apparent the dangers are to children on those platforms, and the more I want my children to avoid them.”
He made note of how difficult it is for parents to keep their kids away from many of these platforms due to the prevalence, in part, of screens in the classroom. (Since I reached out Mr. Nester, there has been a growing number of public school districts across the country creating policies that would prohibit or limit the use of student phones during the school day. Supporting these measures is one way that Christians can love our neighbors.)
“It is crucial to have age-appropriate conversations with your children about technology and the potential impacts on them.” says Mr. Nester.
Dear Christian Parent, if you aren’t ready to talk to your child about sexual predation, they aren’t ready to play Roblox. If you aren’t ready for your children to see pornography and for them to run the risk of falling victim to sextortion, they aren’t ready for Instagram. If you aren’t educated, deeply, on these topics, you can’t protect your sons and daughters. When I speak with teenagers about filters and parental controls, they admit to knowing how to get around them. “How?” I recently asked one Christian teenage girl. “I don’t know. I just figured it out.”, came her reply. There is no scenario where we would allow this type of abuse to happen in the physical world. We have to stop allowing it to happen in the online world.
When I asked Mr. Nester if he supports the alternative of non-internet connected phones for teenagers, he shared, “I highly recommend pushing against the tide of children owning smartphones and having social media access. The reality is much harder for parents to navigate due to current social norms… If your child ‘needs’ a phone, flip phones are a good way to go!”
I agree, Mr. Nester, I agree. I’d like to hear you and others like you making the non-smartphone option a key part of your message to begin with. Changing the “current social norm” is hard but I will happily link arms with you and try. We cannot continue to talk to parents about smartphones and social media without saying that NOT using these platforms and devices is a prudent option. The downstream affect I consistently see among my peers is that parents believe giving a smartphone is the only option. This belief is truly harming kids in very real ways.
NCOSE is committed to fighting these companies, but parents, we cannot wait for Meta and others to get their act together. Our children, our teenagers, need us to be the parents and say “No!” now. Will you consider sharing this post with a few friends and your clergy? We need more Christian thought leaders, activists, pastors, parents, youth leaders and teachers advocating for a new social norm.
About National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE)
Founded in 1962, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) is the leading national non-partisan organization exposing the links between all forms of sexual exploitation such as child sexual abuse, prostitution, sex trafficking and the public health harms of pornography. https://endsexualexploitation.org/