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 day of the week. It's Friday. Yay. And we're just getting through May and really getting into the heart of the summer. Welcome to this healthy Habit series. We started back in January with four core spiritual disciplines. Praying, going to church, reading your bible and listening to Christian music. If you missed any of these, you can go back and listen to any Friday show. You can listen to the Dr. Nurse Mama coaching minutes. It's a one minute version of that. Then we moved into six weeks of rhythms, eight weeks of communication, and now we're in a 12 week. We're in week three of 12 on tech. I've talked about reading with your family, I've talked about watching movies with your family and we're talking about providing a compelling alternative. See, before we get to being the screen police, which I will talk about because there should be some limits. Hang on, we will get there. We've got to talk about the healthy behaviors that we need to replace these with. We can't take the screen time away if we don't have good ideas for replacement. So I have already encouraged you to replace that, the screen time with reading actual physical books, reading out loud to them. And screen time is fine. If you're watching a movie together, a movie with your family, you're all watching it together. Have fun. Get all the popcorn, get all the pajamas, get all of the blankets. Like make it themed. Make it fun. Make everybody come in costume. If you want to have themed snacks, go all out you Pinterest people like, this is your time. You can step up.
Something that we need to do is be in pictures
And today we're talking about another thing that we need to do and stop doing. And this is pretty convicting. So I want you to hang with me. This week's tech habit. Something that we need to do is be in pictures. Now what do I mean by that? Hang on and I will tell you because we'll start with a, verse from Proverbs 31:25. Now, this is the virtuous woman, but it applies to any of us. She is clothed with strength and dignity. She can laugh at the days to come. Now, here's a quick question for you. Let's dive in. And let me explain to you what I mean by be in pictures. A quick question is when somebody says, hey, let's take a picture. Which kind of person are you? Are you the person who jumps in is like, yes. Are you the person that, okay, how can I figure out to get in the back and not be seen? Or are you the person that kind of tries to slink away? You know who you are. You know who you are. Maybe you volunteer. Oh, I'll hold the camera. I'll take the picture. Maybe you crop yourself out later. Maybe you edit yourself and then you get trolled by your teenagers. Oh, wait, was that just me? Maybe you smile, but you secretly criticize every feature the moment that you see the image. Today we're talking about something that is surprisingly spiritual and deeply personal. The healthy habit of being in, pictures. Now listen, let's look back because I always think it's important to look at the, at history because it teaches us lessons about the future when we look at the turn of the century. When I look at my great grandparents pictures, those pictures were rare. They were very treasured. Families got all dressed up and children sat stiffly in their church clothes. And photos were expensive and film was limited and every click mattered. Then came the Kodak era, right? This is the era that I grew up in where you would, I mean, you get that 24 roll of film, you only had 24 pictures, so you better use them wisely. You would take them and have no idea what it looked like. You, you would wait for the development and it didn't matter. Red eyes, overexposed, underexposed. Nobody was looking. Somebody had their eyes closed. That baby still wasn't a frame, right? Or a shoebox. Maybe it was a cherished snapshot of just ordinary life. It's what it looked like. When you look at this social media trend that's taken over. What were you like in the 90s? I see a lot of really bad quality pictures because that's how they came. But pictures became a stewardship of memory. But here's the thing. Thing. We did not take 600 pictures to get the perfect one. You just captured life as it was, and that was okay. Now photography is constant, immediate, edited, filtered, performative, public pictures are no longer Simply memories. It's branding, comparison, validation. Pictures are social currency. The better pictures you have, the more esteemed you are and the social echelon. We live in the first era in human history where people constantly view curated images of themselves and other people all day long. And this is deeply changing us. We have the pressure to look perfect. There is a hidden emotional cost of image culture because children now grow up seeing it's very normal for them to see airbrushed skin, altered body proportions, filtered faces, edited waistlines, artificial beauty standards. Many adults don't even know what unedited skin looks like anymore. It's not perfect. We used to compare ourselves to celebrities constantly and you would look at one glossy image in a magazine. Now we have comparison constantly. Friends, influencers, co workers, classmates, AI enhanced images and hey, listen, this is not just a female issue, this is not a woman's issue. This is men and boys are increasingly facing pressure around their physique, their height. We have a trend where men are going to other countries to have the bones in their legs broken, to then be extended so that they can gain a couple of inches. We see things like looks maxing and mewing for jaw, shaping for men, or even contouring of makeup to make your jaw look more chiseled. We have products around aging and hair loss and muscularity. This is appearance driven identity and beauty and attractiveness standards have never been fixed. It's constantly shifting across generations and cultures and economies for both women and men. And in different eras, attractiveness has meant wildly different things. Whether that's for your skin to be pale or to be tanned or to your body to be fuller or to be thinner or to be curvy or athletic or masculine or polished refinement or be lean, be have a beard, have a clean shaven face. I mean, all of these things are so different. We know hairstyles change, change for sure because we like to laugh at our previous hairstyles. Those of you the mullet was in, now the mullet is back. I mean all of these things like that is not attractive. That is attractive. It is constantly changing. We go back in history all the way to the Renaissance where fuller figures said, hey, you're wealthy because you have enough to eat. So that's attractive. And in the Victorian area though, they said, oh, hey, let's just surgically remove women, women's ribs so that they can wear a tiny corset and make a tiny waist. That's pretty. And the, the 1920s flapper era, we saw this, you know, more youthful female silhouette in the 1950s said, oh, no, guys have got to wear the. The T shirt. You know, the whole grease thing with the rolled up, like, you know, all of that. And then we had the 90s with heroin chic, which is now so tragically back, just being overly thin. But regardless, we see culture that is constantly changing, the goalpost for what is beautiful. And basically that is because we want to market a product. That's what we want to buy. Something to, you need this. Let me make you perpetually discontent with how you look so that you will continue to buy products. And history shows us that cultural standards of attractiveness are very subjective. They're very unstable, and they're often contradictory. And culture is constantly rewriting that.
We saw this rise of body positivity happen in the last 20 years
The I. The ideal image. Scripture teaches us this is such a hopeful thing. We were made in the image of God. We were beautifully and wonderfully made, not because we're conforming to culture, but because God made us on purpose, by purpose, with purpose. We saw this rise of body positivity happen in the last 20 years. And now with the GLP1s, honestly, that's out the window. Let's just call it like it is. And we're seeing this return, return to ultra thin beauty ideals. And when we see that rise, we also see rise in body dysmorphia and eating disorders and anorexia and bulimia and obsessive exercise, all of these things. An entire generation is learning to see themselves through a filtered reality lens instead of through the reality of the word of God. And that is really sad.
We constantly criticize our bodies, our aging, our weight, our appearance
Now that gets back to us, how we see ourselves in pictures. So this, these are common phrases. When you take a picture, you see a picture of yourself. How often do you tell your kids or whoever took the picture, oh, oh, delete that. Oh, delete that. We all say that, right? Like, oh, delete that. I look terrible. Oh, I hate my smile. Look at my arm. Oh, look at my wrinkles. Oh, don't post that. Oh, I need to lose weight. Oh, my gosh, I can't believe you took that picture. It's terrible. And some listeners, you know exactly who you are. I've been that person too. Who's the person hiding in the back row volunteering to always take the picture so they never have to be in it. Here's the hard truth, okay? This is really tough, so put on your tough suit. Kids are listening to our self talk, Especially our daughters, especially our sons. And when we constantly criticize our bodies, our aging, our faces, our weight, our appearance, our physical attributes, in any way our children are learning internally that their appearance determines their worth. Now, we're not telling them this in words, but we are telling them this with words. So if you hate your nose, maybe your daughter learns to hate her nose too, because she inherited your nose. And she looks in the mirror and she sees the feature that you say that you hate every day. And if you shame your body, your son may learn his body is something to critique rather than something to steward. Kids aren't just inheriting our genetics and how they look like us. They're inheriting our inner monologue. So what if the way that we speak about ourselves becomes the way our children learn to think about themselves? And years from now, our children are not going to look at those pictures and study our imperfections. They're not going to. I, I, I tease my mother in law about this all the time and saying like, oh, that's a good funeral pick. Oh, that's a good picture. Oh, that one I'm putting in your funeral slideshow. But we're curating the moments of our lives. And when we look at those pictures of loved ones who have passed, you don't say, oh my gosh, they were really wrinkled. Oh, look at that angle. This is really a terrible picture. No, they're going to pour through the pictures in your album. And they're searching for evidence of something. They want evidence that you are there, that you were there in their lives. They were. You were holding them, you were laughing with them, you were cooking with them, you were cheering with them, you were comforting them, you were showing up, you were loving them faithfully. Children need that visual proof of your presence in the story of their life. Not polished perfection, but presence. And not just children. Your spouse, your extended family. We need to reframe verbally to our friends, to our family. When we look at crow's feet, hey, that's proof that you lived a life that had things worth laughing over. If you have worry lines, those are evidence of burdens carried and prayers that were prayed. If you have gray hair, we see that this is a crown in scripture, right? It's a testimony of survival and wisdom and faithfulness. If you have stretch marks or scars. I know, I just said that. That is a sign of life giving life, of a life lived sacrificially, a life lived fully, of a story to tell of survival. The culture says erase any evidence of aging. We have a culture that is so hyper focused on living, forever has been even more so. Now how can we reverse aging? You know, 60 is the new 40 like it just, it is so contradictory to scripture. Scripture often honors remembrance and endurance and legacy. And I remember just on, on a personal note, just recently on, on my last birthday, my daughter sent me pictures of me and her. And let me tell you, these are like on the bottom of the pile, the last pictures I would ever pick to share. Like I would not say, oh, share this picture. Those are the pictures that she loves when I'm most unguarded, most unfiltered, most showing of my personality. She wants those ordinary interactions because that's where they feel safe with us. They feel loved, they feel familiar. And the pictures that we often dislike the most are sometimes the ones that our children cherish the most because they capture who we truly were with them. And I've shared this story before as well. Even handing a phone back to my daughter, my daughter taking a picture and handing phone back to me and saying, you won't like that picture, you don't like that angle. And I thought that's so sad that I've taught them that without that even saying that. So I made a vow in that moment and I've pretty much mostly kept it. Mostly. Mostly. Ish. I really try hard not to critique myself because my daughters see themselves in me and I don't want them to have that message. So when we come back, we'll talk about reclaiming photography as gratitude, how you capture real life instead of performing for the camera and where we can take more pictures. And then after that, I'll talk about some home front headlines. Got a lot of things to talk to you about coming up including indoor tanning beds and body image pressure and all of these things that we are seeing, the risks that are made online. I'm also going to tell you about deep fakes. This is an important message. If you haven't heard it before, I'm going to keep talking about it. Kids are encountering these more. They need to be prepared and equipped and encouraged. I'll tell you how to do that when we come back after the break.
Preborn empowers women to become mothers with affordable ultrasounds
Mother's Day. It's one of the most beautiful moments of the year to share life changing news. Maybe you've seen it. A family gathered around the table. When someone stands up and says, next year there will be a brand new mom in our family, there's nothing like it. But for some women, Mother's Day feels very different. Instead of celebrating, they're carrying a secret. Afraid, unsure, alone. That's why preborn exists. Because when a woman sees her baby on an ultrasound and hears that tiny heartbeat. It doubles the chance she'll choose life. I couldn't imagine my life without him. Because of them. He's here. We're gonna get through it. And it's gonna be okay. Preborn empowers women to become mothers. Just $28 provides one ultrasound. To donate, dial pound 250 and say the keyword baby. That's pound 250, baby. Or donate securely at preborn.com/AFR, that's preborn.com/AFR. Still by Hillary Scott you're parting waters? Making a way for me? You're moving mountains that I don't even see? You've answered my prayer? Before I even speak? All you need for me to be is still? Dr. Jessica Peck Welcome back, friends. That is still by Hillary Scott and I, welcome you back. We're talking about something still. We're talking about still photos. I am m talking about week three of Tech Habits. We'll have 12 when we're all said and done. But we're talking about the habit of being in pictures. And this is so important because when we think about our tech habits, we have a camera that goes with us everywhere we are. And what a beautiful opportunity to capture moments of real life and to include photography, even taking pictures, as something that falls under a spiritual discipline. How are we telling the story of our, lives and we can reclaim photography as gratitude. we talked about gratitude as a, as a last method of communication in our eight week series there. And this comes over into picture. So how do we take, take pictures intentionally? Not just of those perfectly curated moments when everybody is in the matching Christmas pajamas or everybody's behaving or dressed really nice, or we have the nice backdrop, but just those silly moments at the dinner table. A messy morning, an ordinary moment of just driving in the car and doing a school drop off, going on a walk, just standing in the kitchen together, just having a bedtime story, just a soccer game, serving others. Stop waiting to take pictures. Stop waiting for the perfect weight, the perfect skin, a better season, a different hairstyle, more flattering outfit. Like just, you're more content with your life. Your family wants to see you as you are. And you know, I, I've been sharing some personal stories today, but I remember one time getting a family picture and one of my kids, I thought I had them all dressed perfectly, but the kids had, one of the kids had mismatching socks that were like really loud socks. And and you didn't see that until they sat down, you know, because we were sitting down for the picture and there they were And I just had this moment where I shifted and thought, you know what? Someday I'm gonna look back at this and I'm gonna laugh and I'm gonna say, yep, that was my life, almost everything I got. Okay, but there's always going to be something that's not perfect. And we need to have a, healthy family habits around pictures. Print those photos instead of just sharing them digitally distributed. Display those moments that you want to curate. Think about, look at the walls of your home and think those photos you have on the wall are telling a story of the times that you value, the people you value, the things that you value. Those experiences together celebrate authenticity. Don't just have the picture perfect ones. Throw a few candid shots in there. Maybe it starts with just taking some, candid shots and just printing them out and putting them on your kid's bathroom mirror as a morning message. Like, that's just your, your note to them. Maybe it's a picture of your spouse, a throwback photo that you want to send to them that, I love this about you. One of the most powerful things that you can do when you're looking at pictures is to tell your kids, tell your spouse, tell your loved one who's in that picture what you loved about that stage of their life. And not to say, like, you're not there anymore, but just say, hey, you know this picture. You know what this reminds me of? This remind me of a time in your life where you really had to be super strong, super resilient, super courageous, super kind, super patient. Tell them a character trait about that photo instead of telling them, oh, yes, this is when you won this award. Say, hey, this is when you learned that you could do hard things. Hey, this is, this is when you learned that hard work pays off. Talk about character rather than just appearance. But we've got to really teach our kids about media literacy. Have a conversation about filters, whether or not we want to use filters. I know, it's so tempting. Everybody over 40, that would be me. We're like, put the filter on it. But we got to think about what kind of message we're sending our kids. And, and we can really change the narrative by complimenting their character more than we complement. Complement their, their image. Joy matters more than the image you could have. That's the thing. When we're scrolling through social media and we're seeing the highlights of everybody else's life and we're seeing these perfect family pictures, we don't know behind the scenes that maybe they had a big fight Right before that, my, my daughter even said that we have a really good picture of us together on a. On a trip, and we were speaking at a conference together, and she's like, yep. And right after this, we had a big fight, which is so true, because that's life, and life is messy. But belonging matters more than perfection, and identity is rooted deeper than appearance. And so I encourage you anytime you struggle with how you look in the picture, reframe to who you are made in the image of God. You are made in the image of God. It tells us. The Bible tells us that in Genesis 1:27, you are fearfully and wonderfully made. Psalm 139, you are chosen and deeply loved. That is Colossians 3:12. You are God's workmanship. That's Ephesians 2:10. You are clothed with strength and dignity. Proverbs 31:25. Your worth was never meant to be determined by a camera angle, a clothing size, a filter, a comment section, a mirror. Your children need your faithful presence far more than they need your curated, perfected fake image.
Be in the pictures. Smile more freely. Stop apologizing for your appearance
So this week's healthy habit is really simple, but it's not easy. Be in the pictures. Curate the story that you are telling. Step into the frame. Stop apologizing for your appearance. Stop telling them to delete that photo. Don't post that photo. Smile more freely. Capture ordinary moments. Because one day those photos are going to become sacred evidence of love and faithfulness and laughter and presence. Family. The memories that your family will hold as sacred to them. Healthy families, again, are built one intentional habit at a time. And sometimes healing begins by just wanting to be seen. Now, when we look at the pressure to curate perfect pictures, we see this cascade down into all kinds of other things. And that brings us to home front headlines. And the first one that I'm bringing to you is this is, a new report about tanning, indoor tanning. Because of what we see like as, as a standard of beauty, we see the pressure to tan. Now, I want to be really honest with you and tell you you can look anywhere for any credible information. The truth is that indoor tanning is linked to melanoma diagnoses. At younger ages, that risk does increase. The longer that you use a tanning bed, the more intense that you intensely that you use it, that increases and, it does increase that skin cancer risk, especially when exposure begins during adolescence and young adulthood. And this is really far more about tanning beds because this is really reflecting the larger cultural reality that teenagers and teenagers and children are growing up increasingly in an appearance driven world where image is king. Beauty standards shift and so you shift with them and buy whatever product it is and risk is minimized if it produces attractiveness. So the, the end justifies the means. And we see some risky treatments, cosmetic treatments, whether that's tanning beds, or not. But that risk is worth it because we want to look younger, we want to look more attractive. And young people are receiving powerful messages that aging is okay, I'll say this, but my kids will cringe. But aging is buns, as they would say. Like aging is the pit. Aging is terrible, aging is undesirable. And that is really a message that is not biblical. And it's, it's a message that says, hey, your appearance determines your worth, your social currency. Beauty requires sacrifice of your safety and external validation matters deeply. So we've got to recognize that again, these body image pressures, they affect girls and boys and men and women. There are all kinds of products out there that are marketed and money to be made. So what can we do about this? Well, we've got to talk openly about how beauty standards change throughout history. We've got to teach our kids to think critically about appearance based messaging, to recognize it, to call it out and to reframe it and model healthy attitudes towards aging and the physical changes that come along with that. Doesn't mean, I'm saying don't take care of yourself and don't try to be healthy or you know, use a wrinkle cream. I'm not saying that at all. I'm just saying where is our heart behind this and what is the message that we're giving to our kids? We've got to emphasize stewardship of our body rather than obsession with the image of it. And we've got to talk about long term health con, consequences. Honestly that is really important to do. And another way that we see this playing out in the media is these weight loss marketing and body image pressure. So we see, as I said earlier, a rise of what used to be called in the 90s, heroin chic, which is basically when you are heavily using illicit drugs, you tend to be very, very thin because you're not eating and it's not healthy for you. And we see we see reports rising about AI driven companies. Now these are companies that are not licensed healthcare professionals that are not that are not reputable as far as, you know, individuals who care, have an individual caring about you and some telehealth companies that are not reputable, who are financially driven, who. And there are some increasing news reports. What I saw this week was AI driven television telehealth companies that were using physicians that weren't physicians, they were just AI avatars or AI generated testimonial or AI generated images of their quote unquote results or misleading marketing practices to promote weight loss medication. And this controversy really is opening our eyes to how rapidly AI is changing advertising, healthcare marketing and public trust. What is real and what's not? What is, even if it's technically legal, is it ethical? We don't know. And so we know that we're, we do know that we're raising children in a world where images may not be real. We see rapidly declining public trust in what images are real. It used to be if you had the video, if you had the audio, if you had the picture, that was it, that was the proof. And now people say, yeah, I really, okay, maybe it's real, maybe it's not. I don't know what to believe. And so we have to know when we're looking at beauty products that this may be fake, it may be manipulated, it may be AI generated. And we see. But at the same time, we see body image pressure increasing through fitness culture and editing apps and all kinds of things with social media. So what we're basically telling our kids is that their bodies are a project to fix, like even from early age. And we see this even in celebrities having facelifts earlier and earlier and earlier because we have no tolerance for aging. And we're teaching kids that their appearance determines their social value and that is a toxic message. So what can we do about that? Well, again, media literacy, how do we ingest media? What do we believe is real? How do we see that this is influencing us? If you're scrolling through social media and you get off of that scroll and you just feel bad about yourself, you get off and you think, okay, well now I feel fat and old and ugly. Like, then get off of the social media, stop the doom scrolling and don't surround yourself with things that are going to make you feel bad and that are just manipulating you to advertise to you. We've got to talk about how companies will profit from that and compliment children more on their character than we do their appearance. Compliment, them when they're kind, when they're resilient, when they're creative, when they have integrity. So often we say, oh, you look nice today. And that's a nice thing to say, there's nothing wrong with that. But do we say, oh, you behaved nicely today, you were so kind today and that is really important to do.
There is a growing gap in Europe's ability to proactively detect online child sexual abuse material
I'm also following a story where child safety advocates with whom I am very well familiar, they're warning about a growing gap in Europe's ability to proactively detect online child sexual abuse material. That's called CSAM and that's what I'll call it for the rest of this segment here. See Sam, because there's some legal and regulatory changes. Listen, parents really need to pay attention to this and this is something where we need to be full force fighting in the public square for child safety. Because as we're seeing rising capability of AI to generate explicit images, you have the creators of those images saying, hey, this is a safe way to create material that doesn't harm anybody. That couldn't be further from the truth. It rises demand and eventually that demand is going to be unsatisfied with a digital image. That demand is going to lead to want to abuse a real child. And so there are some organizations that are saying, hey, we have reduced detection tools. And again what we're debating here is adult privacy and kid safety. I'm always going to land on the side of kid safety. And we see that this reduced detection tools that are happening in Europe that are, and this is happening everywhere where we're seeing a rapidly changing regulatory environment. We have kids at greater risk for grooming, for exploitation, for AI generated abuse content, for online predators. And again we're talking about digital privacy and child protection. This matters because parents still think that online danger might look like a stranger, an obvious threat, an unsafe website. But today's risks are becoming more increasingly sophisticated and hidden. We're talking about encrypted apps, AI generated content that's almost impossible to differentiate from real content. Algorithmic recommendations that are just pulling kids darker and darker into a place on the web. We have more peer to peer exploitation. Heidi Olson and I talked about that the last show in April. We really raised the alarm about that. With children normalizing violence towards each other. And we have grooming that is disguised as friendship. And children are often navigating these digital environments that are highly adult with and they don't have the adult emotional maturity. They are, they have underdeveloped character to handle the overexposure of social media. So what can we do? Well, stay actively involved in your kids digital lives. Don't give them access to unsupervised technology. Whenever you can, whenever you can delay that. Use parental controls, but don't rely on parental controls. They're a tool to go alongside relationship and communication. We need to be talking to kids about privacy awareness and digital boundaries and consent and how do they keep themselves safe and online. This shouldn't be one fear infused conversation, but a long series of short conversations to help kids know they can come to you whenever they're uncomfortable. When we come back, I'll tell you some more about deep fakes. This is something that really every parent needs to be aware about. They'll, talk about some tough things. So you may want to take a moment to adjust your listening audience and just this and, and protect those little ears. We'll be right back. On the other side of this break. Do you believe in the absolute inerrancy of God's holy word? Do you believe in the power of the Holy Spirit to radically change lives and empower us to live like Christ? At Wesley Biblical Seminary, we believe God is raising up a movement of people across our nation and across the world who hold fast to the authority of the Bible and the hope of holiness. We are working today to equip tomorrow's pastors and Christian leaders through biblical and theological education in practical ministry that's accredited, affordable, online and highly personal. Our programs include undergraduate, master's and doctoral degrees, certificate programs, and even training for lay people. So whatever your next step is in being equipped for ministry, we're here for you. And if you believe these are the kinds of of pastors we need leading our churches in the future. We invite you to learn more about partnering with us through giving. Learn more about Wesley Biblical Seminary by visiting us at wbs.edu today. Even If by MercyMe
Dr. Jessica Peck: My hope is you alone. Welcome back, friends. That is, even if by mercy me.
This week's Homefront habit is about being authentically in pictures
Welcome back. On this Friday, we are really diving into tech habits. I'll be talking every Friday, this whole summer, 12 weeks about tech habits, about what's going on in the tech world and what we can do about it. That's the important thing. I don't want you to walk away from here feeling just terrified, feeling afraid, feeling powerless. Because God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a power and love and a sound mind. And this week's habit is about being authentically in pictures. Kids want real pictures of real life. They want us laughing with our crow's feet on full display, our mouth open like in a full throated laugh. They want to see us just with a belly laugh. They want to see those authentic moments. And they're craving authenticity because as I'm bringing to you on this week's Homefront headlines, they are seeing increasingly Artificial and manipulated photos.
So I want to talk to you about something called deepfakes
So I want to talk to you about something called deepfakes. I've talked about it before. I will keep talking about it because it is rising and rising as a level of concern for families today. So to catch you up, make sure we're all on the same page. Deep fakes. Deep fake. That's like jumping in the deep end of the pool. And something that's fake, that's not real. It's a deep fake, an AI deep fake. This is AI that takes an image and manipulates it to look like it's someone. It's not. It's somewhere. It's not manipulating the image in some way. Now, when we first started seeing AI deep fakes come on the scene, a lot of them were funny, to be honest. A lot of them were political figures. A lot of them were maybe athletic coaches. Those were the kind of two common ones that I would see. And you would see a thing like, okay, here's coach's speech after the game. And it's. It's wildly, you know, not what he would say, but kind of what you think he might be thinking or a politician in that way. And we all laugh about that. But then we really have this rise of technology before we think it through. We're just moving before we can act. We're moving without thinking. This is moving faster than we can keep up with for regulatory frameworks. So that can be funny with a celebrity and say, yeah, that was not me. But what about the somebody without resources, someone who doesn't have the money, the lawyers of that. And even then, it still doesn't make it right. If we're manipulating someone's speech, their voice, their appearance without their consent, what does that mean for a biblical framework? But we already have these deep fakes that are introduced, and kids think that they're funny, and so they start making them about their peers. Well, then what happens when you make a deep, fake of someone who says something that's. That's racially offensive or, or. Or crude language or sexual in nature or just rude and out of character? And all of a sudden this is passing around. Nobody knows if it's real or if it's not. But it's funny. It's funny. That's what they say. This is a problem. This is a problem. And so we have kids who can't navigate that line because we as adults can't navigate that line. When does it stop being funny? And it starts being abusive or exploitative or harmful in some way. It's really hard to figure out where that line is. Now you bring in AI technology that is even elevated called. Okay, I'm going to tell you to watch your little ears around here. This is not information for little ears. But parents and grandparents really need to know this. There is AI technology now called nudeifying apps. Nude. Ify like the word nude. N U D I F Y. I know. It's so hard when we have this new, this new technology, this new even vocabulary to know what it is. Nudeifying apps. These apps came out just in the regular app store. Anybody could download them. And the first wave of notifying apps, it was because of this open source code that came with AI. App developers could go and get that open source code and they made notifying apps. Hey, how funny would it be just to take the clothes off the people in your pictures? Well, as you can imagine, there's a lot of people, including me, who don't find that funny at all. And then especially when you put that into the hands of teenagers where their prefrontal cortex is not developed, so they don't have good decision making, their thumb moves faster than the prefrontal cortex in their brain and they think, yeah, that's funny. Let's just feed in a bunch of pictures of my peers or my family or whatever it is. And we see a, recent report, a major investigation, I just read this this week, found that these nudifying apps are a big problem for students. And it is becoming increasingly normal to create these fake nude images of classmates using ordinary social media photos. Not only that, you may think, okay, well that's why my kid's not on social media. Well, they can just take a picture of them without their consent because they walk around with a camera in their pocket 24, 7. And schools around the world are reporting really serious incidents involving humiliation and bullying and harassment and emotional trauma and viral sharing of these fake explicit images. And there are a lot of schools and parents and I have worked with both who feel completely unprepared for how fast this technology is spreading. You imagine how traumatic it might be to have this image shared of you that is not real, but it looks real, it seems real, it feels violating, just as if it had been a real issue, a real image. And now we have an ordinary photo posted online. It can be manipulated, it can be sexualized, it can be weaponized, it can be redistributed without consent. And that means that we have families who are parenting in an era where technology is outpacing wisdom and children have unprecedented creative power to make whatever vision they have in their head come to life. So empathy and digital ethics matter more than ever. And we're starting to see states who have laws against this. Now, there are lots of states where it's not illegal to do that, but if you experience that, you can imagine how violating it might feel. And sometimes these images can be used to blackmail children and say, I have this image. The child knows it's not real. But hey, if you don't give me more, if you don't give me money, I'll, I'll share this anyway. And by the way, because you're on social media, I know who your principal is and your pastor and your professors and your peers. I know all of those people that can be really, really disheartening and unsettling. So what can we do about this? I know this is where we start to say, okay, Jessica, you said not to be afraid, but I am feeling very afraid. We've got to talk proactively about AI and ethics. And just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should do something. We have to recognize that children, especially younger school age children, have a limited capacity for empathy to understand what it's like to be in someone else's shoes. That usually comes later in life, earlier in their childhood. They're more concerned with protecting themselves. That's why they want the bigger piece of everything. They want. The they want everything is about like trying to negotiate to get a better position for them. But we need to teach people how that can harm people and see that fake harm is still real harm. That's what I hear kids say all the time when we talk about this, like it's fake, it's fake, it's not real. But the feelings that you feel are very, very real.
Technology is reshaping identity. Kids are increasingly learning about standards of beauty
So we've got to talk about kids, talk about this with kids. Now, you may think a common phrase that I hear is, oh, well, my kid would never. My kid would never. And I want to think that, I want to think that about my own kids. Oh, I pray that my kid would never. But kids are kids. And even the best kids can make the worst choices. Good kids can make really poor choices. And so we've got to prepare them for what they will do. And maybe they wouldn't manipulate that image, but they very likely may see one. They may receive one on a text message, they may see one just have somebody hold their screen in their face at the school lunchroom or as they're walking. Did you see this? What are you going to do? How are you going to Respond. And this is where kids will really protest, but role playing with them is really helpful. Saying, okay, all right, let me pretend to be your friend and, and you know, show you this image and what would you do? And walk it through. And they'll say, oh, mom, don't do that. That's so, that's so lame. And you say, I don't care, I don't care. I want to make sure that you're prepared. And then they can be confident in that situation. And you don't have to tell them, anything explicit or specific about images. Just say, what if someone shows you something you don't think that you should be looking at? That's all you have to say. Encourage children never to participate in sharing any images that come their way. Definitely it's not okay to create. I would, go so far as to say you are not allowed to create any deep fake images of anybody else without explicit boundaries or consent. Or that is part of something that's specific for a specific purpose that is really important. And we've got to be watching what our kids are watching, monitor their app usage and their online behavior. Not so that we're the phone police, but so that we're the safety patrol, we're the crossing guard, we're the lighthouse, there to make sure that we are casting light for them as they're navigating these, this world of culture. And we've got to reinforce empathy. Imagine if this happened to you. This happened to your brother, this happened to your sister. Now when we look at all of these stories, there's some common threads across these home front headlines this week. They may seem unrelated, but they all share some major themes that we need to revisit and really d be deeply contemplative about. Technology is reshaping identity. Kids are increasingly learning about standards of beauty, about standards of worth, about sexuality, about relationships, about truth through the filter of digital culture rather than through the filter of trusted relationships. Your relationship should be a filter on every life experience they have in your home. And you should be the filter to help them figure out what is true and what is not true and what is worthy of repeating what is not. And, and basically the bottom line where their identity is in Christ. So we know technology is reshaping identity right under our noses. Number two, we know that appearance pressure is intensifying. There is an image based identity that's becoming more extreme and more psychologically powerful. And we see this through the trend of Get Ready with Me m videos where we will sit and watch influencers get ready to see like how do they do their makeup, how do they do their hair, how do they tailor their clothes, how do they dress? And, and again, this is man, woman, boy, girl. This is everybody. This is impacting. But the most important thing we need to remember to do is not to panic, to remember and recognize that God has equipped you for such a time as this. We don't have to understand every app perfectly. We don't have to have knowledge of every digital platform. We don't need to be technology pros. The goal is not to be a, ah, proficient at technology but to be proficient in our relationships with those around us we love. And so when grandparents are out there listening and thinking, I don't understand this AI, I don't understand the technology, deep fakes, I'm just learning about that. Our kids need to know, hey, you've been through some tough stuff and you recognize that they're going through a tough time too. And you can share with them about how God has been extraordinarily faithful in your life through the good, through the bad and the ugly. And maybe you never had deep fakes, but you had other things that you encountered. Kids want our time, they want to hear the stories. And so I would encourage grandparents out there, if you have grandkids who are visiting, get out your digital photo album, your, your regular photo albums. They will love to see your regular photo albums and maybe pick a couple of pictures of you that would surprise them to know that hey, that was me back in the day. Tell them the stories of your faith. Tell them the stories of character building. Tell them stories, stories about when God has been with you. Maybe make it a thing when they come over. One picture, one story. I'll tell you that one of my guests quite a while ago had a great idea of treating the grandparents house almost like it was a museum and said, give us a tour of your house. Tell us about the things in here that are special to you and tell me about the stories behind the pictures. That's one of the saddest things that I have had after my, my sweet granny went to be with Jesus. I have so many of her pictures and I don't know all of the stories behind them. I know she kept them because photos were precious then, but I don't know what the story is.
Using photos as a discipleship tool to honor times the Lord was with you
That brings us back to this week's healthy habit. Using photos as a discipleship tool, using them to honor times that the Lord was with you, that the Lord was faithful. This, the images of seeing your family's identity through the image of God in a world constantly asking, how do I look? We gotta say, hey, how is your heart? Who are you? Whose are you? And what actually gives human beings value? Listen, this technology may be constantly changing. Tomorrow there will be a new threat. I'm telling you it's already here. Even if you're looking at genetic AI versus a genetic generative AI versus a genetic AI, we have already a massive evolution. And coming up, I'm going to tell you about some ways that AI is completely changing the world. We're talking self driving cars that take you captive because you're not drinking enough water to take you to the pharmacy. Yeah, I'll tell you that story on another show. That technology is always changing. But you know what doesn't change? The word of God. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. Children still need the same timeless anchors. Truth and wisdom and safety and belonging. And families who are willing to walk closely beside them in relationship. I'm convinced that the Lord has given you your family for such a time as this. And he has equipped you for every good work. And he who has began a good work will be faithful to complete it. Solomon said there is nothing new under the sun and I believe it. I believe there is no tech challenge that will come a family's way that we are not equipped to handle through the lens of healthy relationships. And how do we get those healthy relationships? By building healthy habits one at a time. And I look forward to seeing you next week where we continue talking about all things tech. May the Lord bless you and keep you and make his face to shine upon you. I'll see you right back here next time.
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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.
