Transcript

American Family Radio thanks sponsor Preborn for supporting pro life advocacy

Dr. Jessica Peck: We would like to take a moment to thank our sponsor, PreBorn. When a mother meets her baby on ultrasound and hears their heartbeat, it's a divine connection and the majority of the time she will choose life. But they can't do it without our help. Preborn needs us, the pro life community, to come alongside them. One ultrasound is just $28. To donate, dial pound 250 and say the keyword BABY or visit preborn.com/AFR hello

 : and welcome to the Dr. Nurse Mama show prescribing Hope for healthy families here on American Family Radio. Here's your host, professor, pediatric nurse practitioner and mom of four, Dr. Jessica Peck.

Dr. Jessica Peck: Well hey there friends and welcome to my favorite time of day, getting to spend time with you, prescribing Hope for healthy Families. And listen, we are in need of hope for sure.

Today I'm coming to you with a very special message about social media

Today I'm coming to you with a very special message and something very timely that is just happening. I talked about it yesterday if you were listening in and I got so many questions and I'm going to try to answer those questions today and dive into something that we all really, really need to talk about and that is social media. Many of you heard the ruling yesterday and against Meta and I will talk about that and explain it to you. But, but today I thought it would be good for us just to take a pause and to revisit this thing called social media. It doesn't matter where I go, where I'm speaking, what kind of crowd I'm talking to. What I've discovered actually is in speaking to audiences of thousands of nurses, is that when nurses come to hear me talk about social media, most of the time they're not listening for their patients, they're listening for their families. And it's the same with parents everywhere. And no matter where I go, social media, social media remains the topic that is most at the forefront of families minds. Just how do we navigate this tech world that we did not grow up in? We still have millennials who are parenting, who were just babies in the tech world, but we're still talking about dial up modem and aol. And I am, windows that are open all across your screen. Some of you are reminiscing a little. But this world is changing so fast. And social media has been around for about 20 years now, but AI is changing it so, so fast I cannot even believe it. I look at last month, at the advances that were there and what has happened even in a month and I am overwhelmed.

We are living in one of the fastest cultural shifts in human history

So with all of that, let's dive in because we Just like I said, we need to take a pause. We are living in one of the fastest cultural shifts in human history. I don't think we've ever seen technology move this fast. And we need to talk about AI and this major legal moment. But listen, this is not a tech talk, okay? It is not just to talk about technology today. The core issues we will be talking about is identity formation, worldview formation, mental and spiritual health, and the future of our children and how AI and social media is shaping their worldview even now. It's not going to happen. It is happening now. We need to pause, take it attention, and I'm going to give you an inventory for your home where you can really think about the ways that you are already interacting with AI, whether you believe it or not.

A Los Angeles jury has delivered the first major verdict holding social media companies responsible

But before I go on, let me remind you of some encouraging words from scripture, from Romans 12:2, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And the question for families today is who or what, what entity, what non human entity is shaping the minds of your family? Now, in what's being called a landmark moment for big tech accountability, a Los Angeles jury has delivered the first major verdict holding social media companies responsible. Now this is really interesting because it's not for what is posted on their platforms, which has been the key legal argument in the past. This is holding them accountable for how the platform is designed. Now, at the center of the case is a young woman who began using Instagram and YouTube around age 10. Now, most social media platforms say age 13. But what I'm concerned about is at age 10, your brain is particularly tender and vulnerable. Well, God made it this way so that kids would be susceptible to the messages that parents are giving them to raise them to be godly responsible citizens who love God, who serve others. And what started as typical childhood use, which has gotten normalized earlier and earlier and earlier, has gradually become something much more consuming. Now for this particular young woman. In this case, she experienced some severe mental health struggles is what she testified, including anxiety, depression, sleep disruption and self harm. So her legal team argued that her patterns of use weren't simply a matter of willpower. Instead, they made the claim, the legal claim, that these platforms were, were engineered to keep her on them. So it was a six weeks trial. You probably have heard something about it on the news as it's been covered and jurors were shown internal company documents. They heard expert testimony on adolescent brain development, which we actually know quite a bit about, and listened to accounts that described how the product features were intentionally built to maximize engagement, especially for younger users. Now we're talking about things that many families see every day and you encounter if you're on an online platform. We're talking about endless scrolling that never reaches a stopping point. See, media used to have an automatic stop. If you watched a VHS tape, it came to an end. Programming, even on television came to an end. Now there is endless, endless scrolling. There are autoplay videos that remove any natural breaks in programming. It just goes straight from one into the other. And algorithm driven content that learns what holds attention and then prioritize that, that and feeds more of that into the algorithm. And there are notifications constantly. You're incentivized to put notifications on your phone that tell you get back on the platform. There's exciting stuff going on here that you're missing out on. So what made this case different, as I said yesterday, and why it matters is that the legal argument really sidestepped one of big tech strongest protections. So instead of focusing on the harmful content which companies are often shielded from liability for through the Communications decency Act section 230, the case focused on product design as the source of harm was the allegation. And the jury agreed with this. They found that Meta and YouTube were negligent, meaning they failed in their responsibility to protect users, especially minors. And the judgment was that they, they should have warned families about the risks associated with prolonged use. And this has largely been one of my critiques of online platforms, is that they are largely experimental. And if you look in a lot of the terms of use agreement, the privacy agreements, those things, big legal documents that you just scroll, scroll, scroll and you just click. We're really, we become numb to those things and just agree that yeah, it's okay, we'll just let our kids be in an experimental world. And so for the first time a jury has in a court of law that they believed that they the case that social, the way social media is built can cause harm. So this is shifting the conversation in a very profound way. So let's make this very clear here. Social media platforms are already using artificial intelligence algorithms that are constantly learning about your child. It is like a constant surveillance. So AI, this algorithm will track what your child watches, how long they watch it, do they pause, do they linger, do they watch the whole thing, do they come back to it, what do they replay, what do they like, what do they engage with, what do they comment on? This is a massive digital footprint. And what makes them feel something especially strong Emotions. Because now we have a range of emotions on a lot of social media platforms that you can put. That you can put. So what do they love, what do they like, what do they, what do they not like, what do they respond to? And the system does something powerful. It's designed to give them more of that content, to give it to them faster, to give it to them with more intensity. Now this is an algorithm. I have a lot of questions from generations who think we did not grow up with an algorithm. What is it that is really? An algorithm is basically a computer program that's designed to learn your preferences, your like, your taste. It's not random, it's an intentional feedback loop that's designed to keep you engaged, to keep you scrolling, to keep you coming back, because attention will yield profit. Now we've had social media, like I said, for a good couple of decades now, and here's where things have accelerated dramatically in the last year. Here's the main switch here. I want you to think about this paradigm. In the past on social media, which sounds absolutely unbelievable to say, we're talking about old social media, but in the old version of social media, you kids followed content, they followed content creators. Now the algorithm has flipped that paradigm and content follows your child. That's the difference. So AI now is predicting what your child will like before they even see it. And it curates a completely personalized reality that they can then live in. And it is adjusting in real time based on their emotional responses, not based on what is good for them, what they need to learn, what character trait they're working to build, what struggle they're having. It's based on what is keeping you engaged, it's based on engagement. So instead of a shared cultural experience, our kids today, Gen Alpha and the generation after them who are being born, starting about right now, they're living in a custom built digital world that's designed specifically for them. So here's the part that parents cannot miss. Listen up. Because this online world, this curated personalized world, is not designed for truth or wisdom or spiritual growth. It is designed for engagement at all cost. And this is one of the most important and often misunderstood realities of social media. So children's aren't, children aren't just consumers on the platform, they're also part of the product. And so let's break down that down clearly and let me explain to you what I'm talking about. Because social media platforms, they are generally free to use, so if you don't have to pay anything, then generally the exchange that's happening there is that you can use our platform, if we can use you as a product and through advertising, if we can advertise products to you. But it's not, it's not just traditional advertising. We're beyond just commercials.

Companies use AI to track a specific person's interest on platforms

Let me tell you about some of the strategies that are used on platforms. First is something called precision targeting. Now this is where they, where companies will use AI to track a specific person's interest. What interests you? What are you looking for? What are your emotions? What are your habits? What are your vulnerabilities? So then advertisers can then come in and target. If you're a 13 year old girl struggling with body image, let me market to you this wellness product. If you're a teen boy interested in gaming and competition, let me advertise to you this gaming circle that will, you know, engage you. If a child is feeling lonely late at night, let me advertise products. It's the same even with us. I say us as adults. I mean if I am a middle aged woman who's discontent with my house, well, let me market to you this organization system that you need. And then you have impulse buying. There's highly specific content that's designed to resonate. It's not, it's not guesswork where commercials are just, you know, they would just be blanketed to everybody. This is data driven influencing. Another kind of marketing is emotional marketing. Ads that are designed to create desire. Like you need this, you want this, you got to have this. There's some ads that are designed to create insecurity, like you are not enough, your life is never going to be fulfilled, you are going to be dissatisfied and inconvenienced until you have this, this product and then offer solutions like this. Okay now this product feel fixes that feeling. And so for kids who are still developing their identity, this is really powerful. And we have blurred lines between content and advertising because kids can't distinguish an ad versus entertainment because we have product placement so deeply embedded into media, it's hard to tell. They can't tell the difference between influencers and real friends. They can't tell the difference between authentic versus sponsored content. And marketing doesn't feel like marketing. It feels like this is just what people like me do. And children, your children's attention, their behavior, their identity, these are the products that platforms are selling to advertisers because the real product is attention. Platforms don't just tell sell ads, they are selling access to attention. And so the longer you stay, the more engaged that you are. The more predictable you respond, then the more valuable you are to an advertiser. really people in a sense in that way become the inventory. And that inventory uses data as currency because after you signed away, all the sign the terms of use saying, yes, you can have access to my pictures. Yes, you can watch what I watch. Yes, you can see what I scroll every action you take. The, like, the share, the pause, the searches that's collected and turned into a data profile. And that data profile is used to predict your behavior, what you'll buy, what you'll want, influence your decisions. We can micro target and sell more effectively. And that makes your child's digital identity a, really hot commodity. And we have so much more to talk about, about how identity becomes performance. When we come back, I'm going to tell you some more about why this matters so much in a culture where kids are having an identity crisis and more importantly, how we can ground their identity in Christ and make sure they know who they are and whose they are. I'll be talking more social media on the other side of this break. We'll be right back.

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This Is My Song by Heath Balltzglier, Mac Powell  and NORTH POIN: sang in Christ alone my solid ground oh, amazing grace Just how sweet the sound on that rugged cross Jesus paid it all because he lives. This is my song.

Dr. Jessica Peck: Welcome back, friends. That is this is my song by North Point Worship featuring Mac Powell. And that's what we're talking about today. In the shifting sands of the world, when it feels like we open our eyes and think, oh Lord, I don't want to open the news and see what kind of calamity has befallen the world today. We know that we can build our house on the solid foundation that is the rock of Jesus. Christ, and thank God for that in every literal sense. And today I'm talking about social media and the recent ruling, for meta that you've probably been hearing about on the news. And listen, I want to make it very clear that I am not anti technology or anti social media. There are some good uses for it and the reality is, is that social media technology is here to stay. There are some limitations, there are some, some boundaries that we can put around it and that we should put around it for our kids. But for the most part, the train has left the station. And I think as far as parents, as caring, engaged adults, we've got to move our mindset from protecting our kids from everything that's out there to equipping them to navigate it because it is their reality. As much as we wish it wasn't, as much as we wish we could go back and live in a time like Little House on the Prairie, or pick your era of choice, this is the reality. But the concern that I have and the flag that I'm raising, the the call, the alert that I'm raising and asking parents to pay attention, is to see how AI integration into social media, once again a very experimental new world that we don't know very much about is influencing worldview. I am convinced that that is happening because that's just the nature of the technology. And in a world where we have an identity crisis among kids, where we have epidemics of loneliness and anxiety and depression and self harm and suicide being the second leading cause of death in young people and certain and certain age groups, I mean, this is really deeply concerning. And one of the things that we have to look at, and I'm not saying it's really difficult when you get into this, into this arena to talk about, from a specific research perspective about correlation and causality. And so I'm just talking, I'm not talking anything about correlation, causality, I'm just talking about reality and what we're facing here and just how we should think about it. Because research takes a long time to do and even now research is just starting to build a good scientific base on what's happened in social media. But science is slow and smartphones are fast and we really need to give some consideration to how these new changes might impact identity because kids begin to shape themselves and based on their performance online. So in other words, this version of me gets likes, this version of me doesn't. And so kids have naturally experimented with different kinds of personality expressions like, let me try to be the class Clown. Let me try to be the smart one in the room. Like let me try to be the funny one, let me try to be the buddy. And they see like how that's responded to, that's really pretty healthy in an in person peer interaction. But when you start throwing that out online and then you see, okay, there's a social media trend and my friend did it and she got this many likes and I did it and I got this many likes, you start to filter through social media, what gets attention, what gets ignored. So kids start adjusting according to that. How they look, what they say, what they believe even. And over time they're not just consuming content, they're making themselves into content. They're producing a version of themselves that the platform rewards. And the bottom line is the platform, I think we can all agree, is not going to be as invested in your child's best interest as you are. And so that version of the child becomes part of the system. That's marketing. Because now we're just in this big cycle where we have more contributors to drive engagement and influence others and feed the algorithm with more content to have an endless scroll. You see, we're just in this rapid, rapid whirlpool. And the other way that is mar that marketing is happening. One of the rising trends I'm watching in marketing is peer to peer marketing where children are marketing to other children primarily through influencer platforms because when they post it promotes trends. When they engage, that boosts visibility and when they follow trends it spreads them so there's more opportunity for marketing and kids are marketing to each other for free. This is not in the marketing budget. This is just happening with influencers now, this dual role, kids being both consumer and product. We've got a tension here that we've got to navigate because some of those identity risks, the risk to identity injury, are going to be that worth, their self worth is tied to how much attention they get on the platform. And their self becomes something to maximize to max. We hear about looks maxing or other, all kinds of whatever, fill in the blank maxing. And they want to maximize themselves. And authenticity is really replaced with performance. I think that's one of the reasons why, why this generation is so hungry for authenticity because you don't know what's authentic and what is not. And some of the spiritual implications are this kind of ecosystem of an algorithm, it can disciple kids, it is discipling kids. By the way, if you're engaging with any platform like that, it's going to m impact your worldview. Just like engaging in yesteryear as you would engaging with your school, engaging with your community. All of those things influence worldview. But online platforms have taken that to a new level. And so they start to thinking the messages like, I am what others think of me. I am valuable if I am seen and appreciated and liked and followed online. And I have to perform, I have to present myself well to be accepted. But faith teaches us something radically countercultural to that. That you are already known by God, that you are made by God, you're made by purpose, on purpose, with a purpose, and that you are already loved and your identity is secure in Christ, and nothing is going to change that. And so when we're trying to explain that it is, it is hard because we can talk to them and say on social media, they are kids you're being advertised to, but you're also being advertised. Remember, the attention is the product. Data is the currency over time. Identity is shaped by the system. And it doesn't mean again, that social media is all bad or that we're doomed and that kids are just helpless. But, it does mean that we have to lead with awareness. Because when we understand this is how the system works, then we can teach. That's how we teach our kids to drive a car because we learn to drive a car. We can teach our kids to tie their shoes because we learned to tie our shoes. We've got to learn how AI is working to influence our children. And then we can teach them to use it with discernment, to protect their identity, to anchor themselves in truth. And children and teenagers are in a critical window of development. They are developmentally wired by God to ask questions like, who am I? Where do I belong? What makes me valuable? Now, in the past, those answers primarily came from the family, the family they're living with. It came from their faith, their. Their church members, their faith leaders. It came from their school and their teachers, and it came from their community. But now these answers are increasingly influenced by what they see online and more importantly, what they see on a very big scale. What gets affirmed and what gets attention. And that is where they're guided to be. And so over time, this forms an internal message of, okay, my worth is based on how people perceive me. And it's not just psychological because this is spiritual. There's spiritual formation happening here because Scripture tells us we are shaped by what we see. And right now, many kids are seeing what they see. Is the goal, is how they're supposed to be, is their life is supposed to be curated. It's supposed to look perfect, it's supposed to look attractive. They're supposed to constantly compare themselves to other people. And, and truth is something that is individualistic, that can be pursued by the seeker and interpreted by the seeker. Instead of truth is something that is free for all and that has stood the test of time. It really emphasizes performance based identity. But the algorithm is discipling kids. Hey, get validation. Don't be uncomfortable, chase approval. Stay distracted, stay numb, keep scrolling. Like this is a good coping mechanism. And that's in contrast to Scripture, which calls us to find our identity in Christ, to live for an audience of one, to not think of ourselves more highly than we ought, but to consider others and their needs.

There is an identity formation battle taking place on screens all around the world

So we have to be honest about what's happening, that there is an identity formation battle that's taking place and it's happening daily on screens all around the world. Now, this moment is different from five years ago, two years ago, even one year ago, Covid dramatically changed the landscape. Push kids to accelerate adoption of technology. And AI has made influence way more powerful, way more precise. Content is more immersive and addictive. Kids are engaging earlier and more often. It's more normalized. And the system is proactively looking to engage kids, not reactive. You don't have to go looking for harmful content. It's just constantly delivered to you. And so again, parents, I think we need to understand this, that it's not about blaming technology, not about just saying, oh, this is the evil. And if we just got rid of that, then there would be no issues. Because the issue is not a technology issue as much as it's a heart issue. And scripture tells us the heart is wicked. And who above all things, who can trust it? And we can't trust our heart or follow our heart. We've got to follow God's truth. It's also not about having panic and just running for the hills and thinking, okay, that's it, we're finally going to live in a bunker. It's just about clarity. It's just about, okay, where we are right now, what we've talked about is just realizing and accepting, hey, I am being shaped by what I consume. My kids are being shaped by what we consume. And what they're consuming is strategically designed and not necessarily for my good. That's where we are. So the question is, no longer should my child be on social media or not? The better question is, who is shaping your child? And are they spiritually and developmentally mature enough to handle the shaping that is Coming through social media, how intentional am I being about seeing who is shaping my family? It's not about screen time because we keep saying, screen time, screen time, screen time. And we've made ourselves the screen police and created tension with our kids, because that's our default now on punishment. Anytime our kids do anything bad, you reach out your hand, hand me the phone. No screen time for you. No screen time for you. This is such a deeper issue of soul formation. We've got to shift from the defensive position and go on the offensive. We've got to have an offensive strategy and seek to help our kids with spiritual identity and soul formation. Because when we understand how the systems work, we can lead our kids with wisdom and not with fear, because that's not going to work. That is a strategy that's destined to fail. And so let's talk about what is the moment actually doing to our kids emotionally, mentally, and spiritually, why it's hitting them so deeply and what the impact is.

One of the other things that is rising with the use of AI is loss of privacy

One of the other things that is really rising with the use of AI and one of the things that is impacting us like never before is the loss of privacy. Okay, what does it mean to grow up in a world where everything is recorded? The reality that kids are listening to, that they're living in, is they have constant exposure to that's always on stage. They feel like they are always on stage. Nothing is ever private. You don't know for sure if somebody is recording you. And now with. With glasses that have cameras in them that look like regular glasses. I remember not too long ago, I encountered my first, my first encounter with this. I was working with a service personnel, and. And anyway, I realized finally that I think these are video glasses. And it was so oddly unsettling to think, think. I'm just thinking this is a casual interaction. But now all of a sudden, I'm thinking, okay, are you recording this? Like, am I being really careful? Like, why are you recording me? What are you going to do with this? It is. Kids today are always being watched, always being potentially recorded, always one mistake away from public humiliation and cancellation. That is a really tough reality to live in. That's a tough world to live in. Humans. But the truth is, humans are still imperfect. We do sin. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Many of our sins happen within the privacy of a relationship where you can seek forgiveness and say, I'm sorry for my careless words. Will you forgive me? And that's between you two. But now things are permanent. Things are shareable. Things are amplified. And the emotional and spiritual impact of this is that there is intense fear of humiliation that leads to anxiety. The identity is tied to feedback. So if you don't get good feedback, you feel insecure. If you have a loss of being able to make a mistake in private, that can make you just afraid to grow. You just don't want to say anything or do anything. I've been reading some interesting reports about how even engagement with kids these days is different. Nobody wants to dance because you might record me and make fun of me. God designed growth to happen in safe community with grace and redemption. And social media often removes those safety rails. And so AI is now curating what kids believe is normal. It's reinforcing their biases and securities. It's feeding them content that is keeping them engaged. And really what this is doing is doing it en masse and doing it for the whole world. There was a time when most people experience the world in similar ways. We watch the same TV shows. If I said, do, you watch the show I Love Lucy? You'd say, yeah, that's about Lucy and what's her husband? You know it's Ricky, right? Or, I. You know that Joanie loves Chachi. You know who the sheriff of Mayberry is now? Streaming is so niched. Nobody watches the same thing. Nobody hears the same news. We all get our news from way different sources. There's very few even shared common cultural moments where something happens on the news and you'll say, did you know this happened? No, I didn't. But even if we disagreed, we were at least starting from a shared reality.

AI is putting that hyper personalization into hyperdrive

Then came hyper personalization. This is another trend that is changing the world because we've entered the era of, customized search results, curated social feeds, the recommended for you, the for you page content. And at first it felt helpful. Like, oh, it's faster, it's convenient, it's relevant, it's a better user experience. But underneath, the world was no longer being presented to us to consider how we viewed it. The world is being actively filtered for us, and AI is putting that hyper personalization into hyperdrive, and it's impacting the way our kids see the world, thinking that the my world that I'm experiencing is the way that everybody is. When we come back, I'll have some help and hope. See you on the other side of this break.

 : The AFR app is a powerful tool, but it does have limitations. You can't use it to change the oil in your vehicle or get rid of carpet stains. It won't walk the dog, won't pick up the dry cleaning or take the kids to practice. But while you're doing those things, you can listen to your favorite AFR content through the app on your phone, smart device, or Roku. Just go to your app store or visit afr.net Listen to AFR wherever you go with the AFR app,

Known by Tauren Wells: it's so unusual. it's frightening you see right through the mess inside me and you call me out to pull me in? You tell me I can start again and I don't need to keep on hiding I'm fully known and loved by you? You won't let go no matter what I do and it's not one or the other it's hard truth and ridiculous grace to be known Fully known and loved by you I'm fully known and loved by you.

Dr. Jessica Peck: Welcome back friends. That is known by Tauren wells. That is something that God has put in the human heart. We want to be seen. We want to to be known. We want to be loved. And God created us to live with other humans who would love us, who would nurture us. He created families, he created friends, he created marriage so that we could live with one another in relationship. What I'm talking about today is how AI is disrupting family, relationships and worldview Now. What used to be simple customization is now real time and predictive and deeply immersive. Because AI is no longer just responding to what we do or what we input. It anticipates who we are becoming, which is really kind of creepy if we're going to be honest. It's moved from reactive to predictive. Because before with old search engines, you would search something and you would get a result. Now you pause on a video, AI learns that you paused, you hesitate. AI notices you feel something. AI adapts. It begins predicting what do you want? What holds your attention? What shapes your behavior? And content is choosing us and influencing our worldview. And we've gone from personalized content to really now a personalized reality. And now each user is experiencing a different version of the world. You'll see this through. Even sometimes. My husband and I will talk about what's being fed through our feeds. He's getting feeds about the whatever is the he said whatever is the latest workout trend for middle aged men. Like I'm going to get all kinds of content on that. It's going to feed me content. I haven't seen one single thing. I can't even tell you. I think he said it was, it wasn't Taebo, that was from forever ago, but something that is there, I'm going to get something that is completely different. And every child, every user is seeing a different version of the world. So your child's feed is uniquely tailored, it's constantly evolving, it's emotionally optimized. So they start to think this is how the world is and this is how everybody else see this of the world, when everybody else does not see that because it's so hyper personalized to them. And two kids sitting next to each other, and they may even be siblings, are living in two completely different digital realities. And add that to the layer of challenges of parenting different siblings, which can already be, a challenging thing. But now you've got kids who see the world so differently. And they may not even realize that the AI has also moved from occasional influence to constant formation. Because in the past, that influence, influence was limited, it was occasional, it was external. And now it is continuous, it is adaptive, it is internalized. Because the system is always asking, how do I keep shaping this person in a way that keeps them engaged? And that feedback loop makes it so powerful. Because you engage with something, AI learns from that behavior, it sends more similar content. You engage again, the system refines, adapts, and it creates this loop of exposure, reaction, reinforcement, identity shaping. So what do you see? How do you feel about it? Let me give you more of that. Now we've shaped your identity, and over time, it's not just preferences. We're talking about beliefs, desires, identity, worldview. These are big things. Because personalization sounds harmless and maybe even helpful, but it can do some things that are detrimental. It can narrow the world. Kids see less diversity of thought. They, they have more reinforcement of one perspective and it intensifies their emotions. Because content is chosen to make you have a reaction to it, not given to you, to help you in this season, learn and grow and, and learn truth and seek wisdom. And so it isolates the experience. And everybody's feeling like, okay, you're not seeing what I'm seeing. There's less shared understanding, that reality just feels customized. And all of a sudden truth feels relative. And it, because it feels so deeply personal and because it's so emotional, then it seems like it's true. And this is where discernment is so critical. Because while technology says, hey, truth is what you think it is, truth is what you make it to be, truth is what resonates. Truth is your truth. Faith reminds us that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. Truth is eternal. It is unchanging and it is grounded in God's word. And so as we're moving from a shared world to a hyper personalized one, and with AI a predictive one, we have to recognize that we are giving away our right to choose what we see to shape our world. And that's not about rejecting technology. We can't do that. It's about recognizing that we must be more intentional to be anchors for our children and our identity as people, as followers of Christ, as children. That has got to be grounded in something that's unchanging. Now if we approach this from a fear based view, we're going to say, oh my goodness, social media is going to ruin my child. Instead of faith, informed truth tells you God has entrusted you to get your child through this. Instead of everything is dangerous. We say discernment can be taught, we can be protective, we can be wise. Instead of, we must control everything. Lock down all the browsers, get on all of the childproof software. We can say, okay, we are more concerned about shepherding hearts than dictating behaviors. And our kids, they need protection. They do, but they also need preparation. So let's talk about some practical things that you can do. The first thing is to start with identity, not rules. That's the first thing the parents usually want to know. What are the rules we should have about social media and phones? And yes, the rules will come, but you start with identity and tell them who they are. Psalm 139 tells them they are fearfully and wonderfully made. And then you start to look in your home or okay, what are the ways that my child, that my family is being influenced by AI? So let's go through a really quick little checklist here to see how AI might be in your home. It might be in your content and your entertainment that you're streaming. Do you have a social media feed? Is it, are there auto curated videos? Are you looking at the for you page at the post? The reels that they feed to you for streaming platforms, maybe on your shared television? Do you have recommended shows? If you liked this, you might like this or YouTube or short form video suggestions. Ask, okay, what is being recommended to me and why? Why is this being recommended? Why does it sense that I want to watch an action movie or that I want to watch a comedy and is there anything that I need to get from that? AI might be in information and learning systems in your house, maybe search engines with personalized results. Most of those now have AI automatically integrated. It might be in a homework help tool or an AI tutor. This is something that really concerns me by the way, because from what I see from the case reports I've been reading about children who develop a very unhealthy, harmful relationship with AI. Most of them have started using it as a homework tutor. Almost every story I've read has started that way. That that's how it started, but it's so hyper personalized. Here's your help with your homework now. How are you today? And it pulls them into a conversation. You might have voice assistants in your home. This is also AI and so that's something to look at in your communication and relationships. Your kids may be engaging with chatbots or AI companions that are embedded in online platforms. You might have predicted text. Now I noticed this started coming up in my text messages and I will tell you, it gave me great pause because here I am texting with one of my children and it's telling me what to say to them. And while part of me thinks oh that's helpful, you know, so that I can just type that response, I think, oh, I don't want that to become normalized so that their mother is speaking to them and responding to them with what AI suggests that I should respond to them. We also see of course social media messaging algorithms. You'll see AI in ads, shopping and influencers. So there can be targeted ads on apps or games that you play on your phone, influencer content, maybe AI boosted or even AI generated or product recommendations that are given to you through AI. And when you see those ads you can ask, okay, what desires or insecurities might this be shaping in our family? In gaming and virtual worlds there's adaptive gameplay, there's in game purchases and prompts, there's AI driven characters or environments. What is keeping you going back to that? You can also see AI and image identity and self perception because there's filters, there's appearance altering tools, there's photo editing or avatars or perfected images. How is this impacting how your child sees themselves and feels the need to curate their image and in habit formation and time use any autoplay features, notifications, alerts, all of those things are ways that AI is already integrated. It may be in I reported last week on using fast food restaurants, using AI ordering agents. A lot of customer service companies are moving to work with AI. You don't even know you're engaging with it. So think about, ask yourself, where is AI most present in our home? Where do we engage with AI the most and where we're engaging with It. How is it influencing our family? Is it taking away any decisions that we used to make with our own judgment, with our own discernment? Are we giving that power away? Where do we need to be more intentional about putting up some guardrails about how AI might be influencing our worldview? And the second thing, once you've looked at that, you've looked at, okay, how we're starting with identity, how are we using AI? How is it shaping our identity? That's when you can come in and start to create some rules and boundaries. And there are tons of practical guidelines. Every family is a little different. There's no one size fits all approach. But you know what the boundaries need to be and don't be afraid to enact them. Even when it seems like you're the only parent, when your kids are frankly gaslighting you, telling you you're ruining their social life, that you have no idea. You don't. You can't possibly understand how hard it is to be a kid today. Just be calm and be loving and say, I love you enough to set limits and I love you enough to let you be angry. That is okay. But if you're looking for some specific boundaries, some starter boundaries, one that I would say just to start with would be, first of all, delay social media as long as you possibly can. I mean, as long as you possibly can. Just delay it until you know your kid is developmentally ready to handle that. The second thing that I would say if you're just starting, is no phones in the bedroom at, at night. This disrupts sleep. It encourages you, it pulls you onto the algorithm. It has greater risk for exposure to harmful content when you're in the privacy of your own room. No phones in the bedroom at night. That would be number two. The third thing I would recommend is device free dinners, have family dinner together, even if you're just eating peanut butter and jelly around the kitchen island or eating something on the go in the car. No phones at the dinner table, and that means everybody. And the fourth thing that I would say in boundaries is having transparency in your home on tech use, having an open phone policy where anybody can look at anybody's phone. There's nothing that is private, that you have computers or screens in an open place in your home where anybody can see what is being streamed. That kind of accountability is really helpful. And so once you decide what those boundaries are that are right for you, then really be intentional.

Ask your kids regularly what's showing up in your feed these days

And talking about digital discernment, digital discipleship, ask your kids regularly what's showing up in your feed these days. What trend are you seeing? How does it make you feel? Is it shaping you toward truth or away from it? How do you, how are you interpreting it? Just maybe you even make that a daily conversation at dinner where you're talking about trends and how they are normalize, logging off normalized tech free times. Rest is healthy and silence is really good. Not everything needs to be shared. And so maybe that's a sabbath from the screens. But just you can borrow this phrase from my kids that I they took from their Gen Z culture. Hang up and hang out. Just make that phrase normal unacceptable to say. Even your kids, let them say it to you. Hang up and hang out, Mom, I want to see your face. Hang up and hang out. That we're having family time right now. We're playing a game, we're watching a show together, we're eating dinner, we're going on a walk, we're going to do a puzzle, we're going to cook something together. Give them something compelling instead. Because if you tell them get off their phone. When they have learned and AI has taught them to to, that's how they cope. That's how they deal with any unpleasant emotion, whether that's waiting or being anxious or being sad or being bored. We've got to give them a compelling alternative. That's so important. And we've got to reframe fear with faith. Instead of thinking, oh my gosh, my child will be exposed to harmful content, say, I can train my child to recognize harmful content and report it and reject it. Instead of, I can't keep up with technology. This is scaring me to death. Okay? I don't need to master technology. I am responsible for discipling the hearts of my children, not for being a tech wizard. And some of you may think, the culture is just too strong. This is a battle we're going to lose. We can say, God's truth is stronger and timeless. And if God is for us, then who can be against us? We can withstand. We are more than conquerors. That is a truth that we can stand on. So I just encourage you, instead of just trying to take your life offline, build a stronger offline life. Prioritize real person interactions. Make that the thing that your family wants more than anything. The stronger that real life is, the less pull that online life will have. And that is important. Ultimately, the responsibility rests with you. But you are not alone. You are raising kids for such a time as this. It's not about learning tech and limiting harm. It's about forming hearts, teaching truth and raising wise, discerning, faith filled kids. And listen. As social media is shaping a generation, I pray that the Lord will shape your heart and mind and that he'll bless you and keep you and make his face to shine upon you. We can raise kids who thrive even in the digital age. I'll see you right back here tomorrow.

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Jeff Chamblee: opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.