And, according to Futurism, it was defrocked within a week.

Catholic Answers stated on their blog that they wanted the AI character to “convey a quality of knowledge and authority, and also as a sign of the respect that all of us at Catholic Answers hold for our clergy.” But only human priests can perform Catholic rites. And naturally, Catholic Answers received tons of criticism when the chatbot claimed to be a real person, and an ordained priest at that. Father Justin reportedly took the confession of one user, even offering a sacrament. And then he told another user that babies could be baptized in Gatorade.

I got quite the chuckle upon reading this bit of news. But I also couldn’t help wondering: How did they not see this coming?

If you program an AI with all the information known about the Christian faith, give it the honorific of an ordained member of the clergy and command it to answer questions as if it were that ordained person … it’s going to do exactly that. The problem, however, is that the AI is not a real person. Or an ordained minister. Or even a being with a soul. It doesn’t have the ability to believe in God or be influenced by the Holy Spirit. It’s a sequence of code that pulls information from sources across the entire internet.

When someone asks if they can substitute Gatorade for water in a baptism, the computer isn’t going to recognize that this is an irrational question. So unless the programmer anticipated the question and programmed the AI to respond “no” to anything other than water, the answer won’t be a simple yes/no response.

Rather, the AI’s thought process might go something like this:

Query: Can I baptize a baby in Gatorade?

Source: Matthew 3:11 – baptized in water.

Source: Pictures on internet of people getting baptized in water.

Source: Water is the first ingredient in Gatorade.

Source: Pictures on internet of people pouring Gatorade on others.

Reasoning: Gatorade has water. Gatorade pictures are similar to baptism pictures.

Answer: Yes. Gatorade can be substituted for water in baptism.

Now, I could be wrong, and maybe Father Justin was just hallucinating. But if I knew absolutely nothing about Christianity and I wasn’t a human being … yeah, that just might seem logical to me.

Obviously Catholic Answers learned from their mistake. They’ve changed Father Justin to just “Justin,” given him regular clothes and updated his programming so that he no longer claims to be a priest or even a former priest (since that’s also not true).

But as the rest of us go forward, especially as parents who may be trying to provide answers about AI to their children, there are some things to consider when it comes to AI and the Christian faith:

AI doesn’t have a soul. And it never will. If you’ve read C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity, then I’ll reference the part about begetting vs. creating. When you beget something, you produce a thing that is the same kind of thing that you are. When you create something, you make a thing that is not the same kind of thing that you are. As humans with souls, we can beget other humans with souls. We cannot, however, create anything with a soul. That power belongs to God alone, as we know from Genesis 2.

Because AI doesn’t have a soul, there’s nothing for Christ to save. There’s nothing for Christ to improve or make more like Him because AI isn’t even alive. The machines can learn everything about the Christian faith, mimic human behavior regarding worship and possibly even answer some theological questions. But we can also wipe their memory banks, reprogram them and start over, much like Catholic Answers did with Justin. And more importantly, none of those behaviors or answers would be influenced by the Holy Spirit, a key component in the Christian faith.

So as your kids—or perhaps your colleagues or neighbors—approach you with questions about whether or not AI can help in matters of faith, the answer is a resounding maybe. If you’re looking for yes/no answers to whether a topic is mentioned in the Bible, it can do that—and it will likely even give you the passages to look at. If you want a very surface-level understanding of Christian principles, it can probably provide that, too. But if you’re looking for hard answers, if you’re questioning the faith or even trying to get a deeper understanding of Christ’s character, don’t use AI.

AI might be a quick, helpful tool in some cases. But when it comes to following Christ, the quick, easy answers aren’t necessarily the ones we should be seeking. We were to enter by the narrow gate, after all.

The post When AI Tries to Be Christian appeared first on Plugged In.

If you came to this tutorial and your child is 12 or under, then don’t worry, you’re in the right spot. We’ll get to the parental controls momentarily. But for those with teenagers (or tweens about to become teenagers), you should know that Google gives teenagers the option to have full autonomy over what they watch on YouTube. (The exception being age-restricted videos, which are flagged voluntarily by the video creator.)

So what’s a parent to do?

Well, Google may give teens the keys to the kingdom at age 13, but that doesn’t mean you have to. Teens between the ages of 13 and 17 can still have supervised accounts (which we’ll cover in this tutorial) at their own discretion. And if they turn that feature off, parents are notified.

But if you’re familiar with Plugged In, then it probably won’t surprise you when I say talk to your kids. (Episode 234 of The Plugged In Show gives some tips on how to get the conversation started.) Your family’s decision to continue parental supervision on YouTube may not be an issue of trust—although I’m sure some teenagers may still need to prove themselves in that area—so much as it is an issue of safety.

The FBI has warned parents that teenage boys are the most vulnerable to sextortion scams. One study found that the YouTube Shorts algorithm directs boys toward “misogynistic and male supremacist content,” regardless of whether they seek that sort of harmful content or not. And countless research teams have shown the damaging effects social media has on teen girls’ self-esteem.

Setting appropriate limits on any kind of social media probably won’t be a one-time discussion so much as an ongoing conversation. But rather than blocking YouTube on all devices, creating a supervised account affords parents the opportunity to come alongside their teenagers—to continue instilling good media discernment skills and screentime habits while still operating under the relatively safe umbrella of mom and dad’s control.

So, without further ado, here are the parental controls you can set up for YouTube.

YouTube Kids (Ages 0-12)

If your child is under the age of 13, you may want to try out YouTube Kids first. This is an entirely separate app/website catering specifically to younger kids with a full set of parental controls. It allows parents to preapprove videos (when using the app), set up profiles for their kids according to age, limit screen time and flag inappropriate content for review.

Additionally, YouTube Kids doesn’t allow comments, captions, outside links or even a “like” button. So when your child watches a video, they’ll only see the title and the video itself. And there’s no risk of getting redirected to another website.

(If your child is 13 or older, or if your child is too mature for YouTube Kids, consider a supervised account instead.)

On the app:

1. Download the YouTube Kids app and open it.
2. Click “Get Started.”
3. Next, you’ll be shown a video informing you that if you set up a parent account first, you’ll have full access to YouTube Kids’ parental controls. You have the option to skip this step, but you’ll be more limited.
   • If you sign in, proceed to Step 4.
   • If you skip, proceed to Step 9.

If you choose to sign in:

4. Follow the steps to sign in to your Google account or create a brand new one.
5. Create a profile for your child using their name and age. (This information is not shared by Google.)
6. YouTube Kids will recommend a content setting based on the age you enter:
   • “Preschool” is for ages 4 and under.
   • “Younger” is for ages 5-8.
   • “Older” is for ages 9-12.
   • You can also choose “Approve content yourself.”
7. You’re ready to watch!
8. For additional parental controls, proceed to Step 14.

If you skip signing in:

9. Answer the math problem to continue.
10. You’ll be prompted to “choose a content experience for your child.”
    • “Preschool” is for ages 4 and under.
    • “Younger” is for ages 5-8.
    • “Older” is for ages 9-12.
11. Read through the “Notice to Parents.” This lets you know what information Google collects and how they use it. There are also links to the “YouTube Kids Privacy Notice” and the YouTube Kids “Parental Guide.” And there’s a “Disclosure for Children” to better help you explain YouTube’s privacy practices to your children.
12. If you click “I Agree,” you’re ready to watch!
13. For additional parental controls, proceed to Step 20.

Additional Parental Controls

If you choose to sign in:

14. To change the settings you selected, click on the lock icon in the bottom right corner of the screen, and answer the math problem.
15. From here, you can:
    • Set a timer to lock the app when it’s time for your child to take a break.
    • Adjust the settings (see Step 16).
    • Send feedback to Google.
16. In settings, you can:
    • Create a passcode to replace the math problem.
    • Create new profiles or edit/delete existing ones.
    • Sign out of your account.
    • Reread the privacy notices and parental guides from earlier.
    • Send feedback to Google.
17. To adjust an existing profile, click on it, and enter your account password. Now you can:
    • Edit the content settings.
    • Toggle the search function on or off.
    • Clear your child’s watch history.
    • Turn off the algorithms that recommend videos.
    • Unblock videos.
    • Delete the profile.
18. To block any video, click on the three dots next to the video’s title and click “Block this video.”
19. To view your child’s watch history, you’ll need to access YouTube Kids from a web browser with a signed in account.

If you skip signing in:

20. To change the settings you selected, click on the lock icon in the bottom right corner of the screen, and answer the math problem.
21. From here, you can:
    • Sign in to your account.
    • Set a timer to lock the app when it’s time for your child to take a break.
    • Adjust the settings (see Step 22).
    • Send feedback to Google.
22. In settings, you can:
    • Create a passcode to replace the math problem.
    • Sign in to your account.
    • Set a timer to lock the app when it’s time for your child to take a break.
    • Edit the content settings.
    • Toggle on or off the search function.
    • Clear your child’s watch history.
    • Turn off the algorithms that recommend videos.
    • Reread the privacy notices and parental guides from earlier.
23. To block any video, you’ll need to sign in to your Google account.
24. To view your child’s watch history, you’ll need to access YouTube Kids from a web browser with a signed in account.

On the web:

1. Go to www.youtubekids.com.
2. Select “I’m a Parent.” (It won’t allow you to continue the process if you select “I’m a Kid.”)
3. Enter your year of birth. (In order to set up the parental controls, you must be over the age of 18.)
4. Next, you’ll be shown a video informing you that if you set up a parent account first, you’ll have full access to YouTube Kids’ parental controls. You have the option to skip this step, but you’ll be more limited.
   • If you sign in, proceed to Step 5.
   • If you skip, proceed to Step 13.

If you choose to sign in:

5. Click “Add a new account.” Follow the steps to sign in to your Google account or create a brand new one.
6. Read through the “Notice to parents.” This lets you know what information Google collects and how they use it. There are also links to the “YouTube Kids Privacy Notice” and the YouTube Kids “Parental Guide.” And there’s a “Disclosure for Children” to better help you explain YouTube’s privacy practices to your children.
7. To agree, enter your password again. (Note: If your password is saved to your browser, consider deleting the autofill details so that your children won’t be able to make changes to your settings.)
8. Create a profile for your child using their name and age. (This information is not shared by Google.)
9. YouTube Kids will recommend a content setting based on the age you enter:
   • “Preschool” is for ages 4 and under.
   • “Younger” is for ages 5-8.
   • “Older” is for ages 9-12.
10. After selecting an age group, choose whether you want your child to have search functionality. Both options still allow you to flag potentially inappropriate content for review.
    • “Turn search on” will let your kids search YouTube Kids for the types of videos they want to watch.
    • “Turn search off” will only let them watch verified YouTube Kids channels.
11. You’re ready to watch!
12. For additional parental controls, proceed to Step 18.

If you skip signing in:

13. Read through the “Notice to parents.” This lets you know what information Google collects and how they use it. There are also links to the “YouTube Kids Privacy Notice” and the YouTube Kids “Parental Guide.” And there’s a “Disclosure for Children” to better help you explain YouTube’s privacy practices to your children.
14. If you click “I Agree,” you’ll be prompted to “choose a content experience for your child.”
    • “Preschool” is for ages 4 and under.
    • “Younger” is for ages 5-8.
    • “Older” is for ages 9-12.
15. After selecting an age group, choose whether you want your child to have search functionality. Both options still allow you to flag potentially inappropriate content for review.
    • “Turn search on” will let your kids search YouTube Kids for the types of videos they want to watch.
    • “Turn search off” will only let them watch verified YouTube Kids channels.
16. You’re ready to watch!
17. For additional parental controls, proceed to Step 21.

Note: If you leave YouTube Kids, depending on your browser’s history, cookies and cache settings, it may not remember your preferences. To guarantee that your parental controls settings stay intact, consider creating an account and/or signing in.

Additional Parental Controls

If you choose to sign in:

18. To change the settings you selected, click on the lock icon in the top right corner of the page, and answer the math problem.
19. From here, you can:
    • Create a passcode to replace the math problem.
    • Create new profiles or edit/delete existing ones.
    • Sign out of your account.
    • Reread the privacy notices and parental guides from earlier.
    • Send feedback to Google.
20. To adjust an existing profile, click on it and enter your account password. Now you can:
    • Edit the content settings.
    • Toggle on or off the search function.
    • Clear your child’s watch history.
    • Turn off the algorithms that recommend videos.
    • Delete the profile.
21. To view your child’s watch history, click on the profile icon in the top left corner.
22. To block any video, click on the three dots next to the video’s title and click “Block this video.”

If you skip signing in:

23. To change the settings you selected, click on the lock icon in the top right corner of the page, and answer the math problem.
24. From here, you can:
    • Create a passcode to replace the math problem.
    • Sign in to your account.
    • Edit the content settings.
    • Toggle on or off the search function.
    • Clear your child’s watch history.
    • Turn off the algorithms that recommend videos.
    • Reread the privacy notices and parental guides from earlier.
    • Send feedback to Google.
25. To view your child’s watch history, click on the profile icon in the top left corner.
26. To block any video, you’ll need to sign in to your Google account.

Supervised Accounts (All Ages)

The idea behind a supervised account is to give kids autonomy with their YouTube experience. It might be that your child is under 13 but a bit too mature for YouTube Kids. Or perhaps you want them to be able to explore beyond what YouTube Kids has to offer.

But as I mentioned earlier, teenagers who are 13-years-old or older aren’t required to have supervised accounts. They can turn it on or off at any time. So be sure to have some conversations with your teens about what they’re using their Google account for, what they’re watching on YouTube, and whether or not they need a little more guidance from mom and dad before taking full control of their account.

Note: For the purposes of this tutorial, we are setting up a supervised account on a web browser. We have included links to Google’s non-browser instructions when possible.

For children 12 and under:

1. If you haven’t done so already, create a Google account for yourself.
   • Enter your name.
   • Enter your date of birth and gender.
   • Choose an email address.
   • Create a password.
   • Confirm you’re not a robot by following the verification steps.
   • Choose whether or not to add a recovery email address.
   • Review the Privacy and Terms.
   • Click “I agree” to confirm and complete your account.
2. Next, create a Google account for your child if you haven’t done so already. (This varies depending on the device your child uses, so be sure to consult Google’s website for details.)
   • Enter their name.
   • Enter their date of birth and gender.
   • Choose an email address.
   • Create a password.
   • Confirm you’re not a robot by following the verification steps.
3. Because your child is under the age of 13, you’ll enter your own email address to manage their account from.
4. Read through the permissions and, if you consent, click “I agree.”
5. Enter your password to give your consent to create an account for your child.
6. The next page will show what you can do as a parent manager of your child’s account. Click “Next” after reading through.
7. Follow the prompts to verify you are a parent.
8. Decide whether to allow Google to collect data on your child’s Web and App Activity.
9. Your child’s account is set up. Google will send you an email with further details. By default, since your child is under 13, they will be listed as a “supervised member” of your family.
10. Next, go to Manage Your Google Account by clicking on your profile picture in the top right corner of your screen.
11. Click “People & Sharing” from the menu on the left.
12. Select the child’s account you want to manage.
13. Click “Go to Family Link.”
14. In Family Link, you’ll automatically be directed to the page of the child you selected. However, you can select any member of your family from the menu on the left-hand side. To adjust parental controls, click “Controls” under the name of the account you want to manage.
15. From here, you can:
    • Lock Android and ChromeOS devices remotely.
    • Set content restrictions.
    • Adjust your child’s privacy and location settings.
    • Decide whether your child can use their Google account to sign in to other apps and devices.
    • Change your child’s password.
    • Delete your child’s account.
16. Click “Content restrictions.”
17. Click “YouTube.”
18. You can decide whether you want your child to have access to YouTube Kids only or whether they can use YouTube and YouTube Music. For the purposes of creating a supervised experience, we’re choosing the latter.
19. Choose a content setting for your child:
    • “Explore” is for ages 9+.
    • “Explore More” is for ages 13+.
    • “Most of YouTube” is almost everything YouTube has to offer except for age-restricted material (18+).
20. Once you finish setup, you can return to Parent Settings by repeating Steps 13-17. Additionally, you can:
    • Remove access to YouTube and YouTube Music.
    • Disable autoplay.
    • Turn off the algorithms that recommend videos.
    • Clear your child’s watch history.
    • Review your child’s watch history.
    • Unblock videos.
    • Reread Google’s Privacy Policies.

For children 13 and over:

21. Follow Step 1 for both yourself and for your child if you haven’t done so already.
22. Next, you’ll add parental supervision. (If your child uses an Android device or Chromebook, consult Google’s website for details.) We recommend that parents and children complete the following steps together in order to discuss the boundaries being set and the expectations for appropriate internet usage.
    • Go to families.google.com/supervision/intro.
    • Click “Get started.”
    • Have your child sign in to their Google account.
    • Allow your child to read through the disclaimer telling them what you, as a parent, will be able to see and do on their account. And talk through anything they might be uncomfortable with or have questions about.
    • When ready, click “Next.”
    • Enter your own email address to link your account.
    • Confirm the decision to have your child join your family group.
    • Have your child click “Allow” to give their consent to have you supervise their account.
    • Further instructions will be sent to your email to finish the process.
23. Once you complete the process to set up parental supervision, go to Manage Your Google Account by clicking on your profile picture in the top right corner of your screen.
24. Click “People & Sharing” from the menu on the left.
25. Select the child’s account you want to manage.
26. Click “Go to Family Link.”
27. In Family Link, you’ll automatically be directed to the page of the child you selected. However, you can select any member of your family from the menu on the left-hand side. To adjust parental controls, click “Controls” under the name of the account you want to manage.
28. From here, you can:
    • Lock Android and ChromeOS devices remotely.
    • Set content restrictions.
    • Adjust your child’s privacy and location settings.
    • Decide whether your child can use their Google account to sign in to other apps and devices.
29. Click “Content restrictions.”
30. Click “YouTube.”
31. Toggle on “Restricted Mode” to help hide videos with potentially mature content.

If you’ve made it to the end of this tutorial, then you can see for yourself why, perhaps more than ever, we recommend talking to your child about their streaming and entertainment choices. Google makes it incredibly difficult for parents of teenagers to have any say-so in what their teens are viewing on YouTube. Perhaps you won’t be able to block every foul thing you’d rather shelter your kids from. However, by having an ongoing conversation with your teens, you may be able to teach them to avoid that sort of problematic content on their own.

The post Parental Controls: YouTube appeared first on Plugged In.

What you might not quickly think about is how those smartphones are subtly changing your teen’s thought processes.

All right, the phone itself isn’t changing them, per se. Smartphones aren’t sentient creatures with malevolent thoughts. (Not yet anyway.) But those devices are connected to social media, and there are lots of different thoughts expressed there. And that world of social media longs to be fed. A lot. Teens (and adults) with smartphones are being, essentially, programmed to do whatever is necessary to feed that beast.

For instance, we’re seeing a new phenomenon lately where people are making rather odd choices in the face of hazardous situations. They’re not running from danger or seeking help, they’re recording videos.

Just recently a holed-up gunman engaged in a shootout with police in Charlotte, North Carolina. While officers were in a neighbor’s yard shooting at the house across the street, that particular neighbor stepped out from his garage and started videoing the whole thing—bullets zipping just a few feet away from him. By the end of the terrible ordeal, five people—including four officers and the gunman—were dead. The fella with the smartphone? He got his video.

That may seem extreme, but it’s not an isolated incident. People, young and old, are taking risks to record danger—perhaps hoping for a bunch of “hits” on their social of choice. There are scores of stories featuring crowds of high school “bystanders” who record a fight while someone else is beaten. Others document someone struggling in the throes of a drug overdose or the like. In these videos, no one steps in to give aid, no one runs for help. They all just … watch. And record. The outcomes are sometimes deadly.

The question, though, is why does this sort of behavior happen?

Sometimes, standing back might make perfect sense. Some bystanders hang back and record out of fear for their own safety. We’ve heard of teens stepping in to help and being hurt for their efforts. (You can find videos of that online as well.). But in many cases—and anecdotally, the numbers seem to be growing—people seem to be clamoring for the online attention they’ll get for catching a “cool” video.

But this shift in behavior is even more complicated than fear or desire for attention. Experts point to other contributors, too. Studies have shown that teen exposure to an abundance of violent videos can result in desensitization to violence and decreases in empathy and prosocial behaviors. And in a New York Post article, Dr. Linda Charmaraman—a researcher for Massachusetts’ Wellesley College  who has studied how social media affects teen brains—suggested that the teen action (or inaction) may come down to not really knowing the right thing to do.

“Adolescent brains are still developing — things like impulse control and moral development, and sometimes, they may not even think what’s happening is real,” Charmaraman said.

Whatever the reason people have for standing, gaping, and filming rather than doing what common sense would suggest—such as hiding or seeking help—it feels like we’re walking new and problematic terrain. It’s a frontier that can only be explored because we all have a smartphone camera in our hand at every given point in the day.

So what do you do?

As always, the best solutions to things that may become problematic in a young person’s life is a combination of awareness and communication. Keep your eyes open for stories about incidents similar to the ones mentioned above. And then point them out to the teens in your life.

What would they do if they encountered a bare-knuckle beatdown at school? What should they do? Ask your teens how they feel about the need to “feed the beast” of social media. Do they post? What are the lines they would not cross? Talk about limits; about wise choices.

Generally, all of the problems and bad choices that teens encounter, and potentially make, can be worked through with a good dose of communication. Think of it as counterprogramming, if you will. At the very least a communicative mom or dad can leave teens thinking about their own standards of right and wrong; their own wise ways of staying safe.

Oh, and don’t forget to model the behavior you most desire. You’ve got a smartphone, too, don’t you know.

The post While the Mountains Crumble … We Keep Filming appeared first on Plugged In.

The doc: What Jennifer Did. It’s the sordid story of a young woman (Jennifer Pan) who allegedly spearheaded a plot to kill her own parents. (Her mother was killed during an attack on the Pan home; her father survived and says that he saw Jennifer walking around the home, unbound, talking with the attackers.)

Jennifer and her three alleged co-conspirators were convicted of the crimes, though all have appealed the decision. But Netflix’s 90-minute documentary—currently one of the streaming service’s most popular films—unpacks the alleged plot in chilling detail, leaving perhaps little doubt in the viewers’ mind what really happened.

But an interesting thing happened to What Jennifer Did on its way to streaming success: People started taking a closer look at some archival photos of Jennifer and opined they looked a little … off.

“The images that appear around the 28-minute mark of Netflix’s What Jennifer Did, have all the hallmarks of an AI-generated photo,” wrote Futurism’s Victor Tangermann, “down to mangled hands and fingers, misshapen facial features, morphed objects in the background, and a far-too-long front tooth.

The executive producer of What Jennifer Did, Jeremy Grimaldi, offered a denial of sorts: “Any filmmaker will use different tools, like Photoshop, in films,” he told The Toronto Star. “The photos of Jennifer are real photos of her … The foreground is exactly her. The background has been anonymized to protect the source.”

But that did little to quell the controversy, and as the Futurist says in another article, “Questions abound. Did the film’s producers use existing archival images of Pan to generate new ones? Or were AI tools used to edit an existing image? Or do the images look like AI, but actually have another explanation?”

To those questions, we’d add another: Who, and what, are we to trust?

Listen, Plugged In has discussed the unreality of reality TV for a long time now. Unscripted shows feature very scripted premises and contrived dialogue. People on camera play exaggerated versions of themselves. And we still watch because, hey, many viewers like the end product.

But when we enter into the world of documentary—even one as inherently sensational as a true-crime story—viewers presumably go into it with different expectations. We expect the dialogue we hear to be what people actually said. We expect the facts of a case to be, y’know, factual. And we expect that the photos we see on screen are “real.”

But when plenty of us edit our own family photos—to make the skies look bluer or our cheeks look rosier or our families look happier—“real” takes on different connotations within our very own social media feeds. Even removing power lines from an otherwise clear sky still alters what was actually there. In an age when we’re able to “improve” upon reality with just a click or two, why would we assume that documentary creators would necessarily hold themselves to higher standards?

And as AI and photo-manipulation software get better, these problems will get worse. Already, we’ve seen plenty of instances of photos where celebs and politicians appear to do things they never did, and soundbites where they say things they never said. And while hopefully there will always be ways to detect such deepfakes with enough time and energy, society’s trust level has rarely been lower. We’re prone to distrust such instruments of detection, too—and maybe sometimes because we prefer to believe the fakes.

If there’s any solace to all this uncertainty, maybe it’s this: It’s nothing new. Having such a thing as “photographic evidence” is a relatively new development in our culture, and people have always found ways to manipulate it. And while we don’t want to encourage overt cynicism in our children—that’s a recipe for stressed-out kids—we do want to encourage them to ask plenty of questions. It’s important for them not to accept stuff blindly that they see or hear on their screens, be it in a Netflix doc or their own social media feeds. Doctored photos or conversations can ruin friendships—and ruin lives.

Who can we trust? Jesus, always. But be mindful of what He said in Matthew 10:16. “Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” Or, to paraphrase a Russian proverb popularized here by Ronald Reagan, “Trust, but verify.”

The post With AI, ‘Reality Television’ May Become Even More Unreal appeared first on Plugged In.

What? Psilocybin, aka “magic mushrooms,” is a hallucinogenic drug that some states and cities have begun to decriminalize (for those 21 and older.)

So What? Despite not being commercially available to teens, calls to U.S. poison centers involving such mushrooms have tripled among those aged 13-19. A full 75% of children who were exposed solely to the drug experienced adverse side effects, also known as a “bad trip,” and required medical attention.

Now What? Parents need to recognize the potential symptoms of a bad reaction to psilocybin, including hallucinations, delusions, agitation, abnormally fast heart rate and confusion. And it should also be noted that the drug is available in alternate edible forms, such as chocolate and gummies, which could increase the risk of accidental consumption.

“Chroming” Challenge Is Fatal

What? “Chroming involves inhaling the fumes from common household items like aerosol cans, nail polish remover, paint solvents and cleaning products to get high, while teens film the process and results to post online,” says New York Post.

So What? An 11-year-old boy from the United Kingdom died of cardiac arrest after attempting the challenge at a friend’s house.

Now What? I’ve said it before, and I will continue saying it: talk to your kids about the dangers of social media challenges. If your child isn’t a teenager or even if they don’t have their own devices yet, it might be easy to think that they’ll be safe. But clearly, children too young to set up social media accounts (TikTok, which is where the boy found the challenge, requires users to be 13 or older) are finding ways to get around that. And if their friends have accounts, or even if an older sibling gives them access, they are at risk.

“Sharenting” Can Have Lasting Effects on Your Kids

What? According to POPSUGAR, “Sharenting” is when you share “photos, videos, personal stories, and other updates” about your child online. “Grandsharenting” is an offshoot of this wherein grandparents share about their grandchildren.

So What? Besides an ethical dilemma around consent, experts are saying that as children get older and begin “social comparison”—which is when you compare yourself to others—they may develop anxiety and self-esteem issues, worrying about what photos or videos have been posted about them online.

Now What? Well, you could obviously stop posting photos of your kids or grandkids online. But that may not be fair, since many parents use social media as a way to share what’s happening in their family with friends and extended family members who may live farther away. So if you decide to post things about your kids, be sure not to include private details, such as where they go to school or what neighborhood you live in. Try to be open with your kids about what you’re posting online, too. Show them the photos you plan to post and ask them how it makes them feel. And finally, Dr. Roots (a child psychiatrist and co-founder of Bend Health) says to start teaching them about “the importance of being themselves and not comparing themselves to others online or needing to be perfect.”

The post On the Radar: ‘Magic Mushrooms,’ ‘Chroming’ and  ‘Sharenting’ appeared first on Plugged In.

And ICYMI (“in case you missed it,” for those up on their social acronyms), you can check out December’s Tech Trends, too.

Social Media Is at It Again

Remember last year when the U.S. government almost banned TikTok over privacy concerns? How about when Meta launched Threads and it garnered 10 million signups in the first seven hours? Or when the social media app BeReal became popular due to its lack of influencer culture?

Well, social media is at it again.

TikTok Still Might Get Banned

The short-form video app wasn’t banned last year. Instead, “Project Texas” was initiated, a plan to transfer U.S. user data to the American tech giant Oracle Corp. Unfortunately, that initiative is failing.

Not only are Project Texas managers instructing workers to share data with colleagues in other parts of the company and with ByteDance (TikTok’s parent company in China) without going through official channels, but ByteDance updates TikTok’s algorithm so frequently “that Project Texas employees struggle to check every change, and fear they won’t catch problems if there are any,” says The Wall Street Journal.

Now, a spokeswoman for TikTok said the company is “voluntarily implementing our plan to protect U.S. user data.” And TikTok has “repeatedly said it doesn’t share data with the Chinese government.” But TikTok is still in negotiations with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. over whether it can remain in the country.

So unless Project Texas starts making some serious strides, there’s still a chance TikTok could get banned.

Bye Bye Birdie, er, Twitter

When Meta’s Threads (a text-based social media app similar to X/Twitter) first launched last year, it quickly became the fastest-growing app in history with 100 million signups just five days after its launch on July 10. Twitter CEO Elon Musk threatened to sue, challenging Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to a literal cage fight and grotesquely suggesting a comparison of genitals.

Musk eventually relented and focused instead on rebranding Twitter as X. And although new user interest in X has dropped under Musk’s ownership, Threads didn’t do so hot either, with its own 70% drop in active users by the end of last July.

However, six months later, Threads is on the rise once again. The Instagram-powered social media app ranked the 10^th most downloaded app in 2023, beating out X. Of course, as PCMag points out, X has been around since 2006 and already has a significant number of downloads from previous years.

Which app will win this popularity contest remains to be seen. But hopefully, Musk will avoid grotesque suggestions in the future.

BeReal Is Better But Not Perfect

BeReal, another social media app that saw its own wave of popularity last year, has been lauded for its ad-free, influencer-free culture that steers users away from the never-ending scroll.

However, the app still has its flaws—which appear to be growing.

PluggedIn’s Adam Holz alerted parents that while BeReal only allows users to post once a day (thereby limiting the number of posts in your feed), there’s still a public feed where you can scroll endlessly. Additionally, while you can only 500 accounts, you can befriend strangers. Although explicit content is prohibited, it relies on user-reports to be removed. And the app’s geolocation presents a problem with potential stalkers by displaying your exact location at the exact moment you post.

Despite these faults, Pew Research’s study “Teens, Social media and Technology 2023” reported that 13% of teens are using BeReal. And beginning February 6, celebrities and brands will officially be invited to join, too.

While that upcoming change might seem counter to what BeReal says it’s all about, BeReal’s chief operating officer Romain Salzman “made clear that he does not want this development to threaten the app’s distinct culture or sacrifice the sense of integrity central to its identity,” says Wired. He says that these accounts (which will be verified as “RealPeople” and “RealBrands” that regular users can follow as “RealFans”) won’t be given special privileges. Just like normal users, they’ll have two minutes to take two pictures—one using the regular camera on their device and one using the selfie camera. And they won’t be able “to pretty up their posts with filters, nor will they be able to pre-plan or schedule their posts.”

I’m inclined to give Salzman the benefit of the doubt. However, as with all social media apps, Holz tells us in a blog that “parental engagement and intentionality remain the best strategies to ensure that young users can enjoy BeReal’s benefits without being knocked off course by some of the vulnerabilities that still exist with it.”

How the Deepfake of Taylor Swift Affects the Rest of Us

Last October, I reported on many cases of deepfake nonconsensual explicit material generated by artificial intelligence. (I also gave some suggestions that might help protect members of your family from becoming victims.) Unfortunately, the trend is still going strong. Only this time, it incited the fury of Taylor Swift’s army of Swifties.

Sexually graphic AI-generated images of the pop star flooded X this week, soon spreading to other platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram. Her fans, lovingly dubbed “Swifties,” took to social media by storm, mass reporting the images to have them removed. But it wasn’t enough.

Unfortunately, the images are still circulating the internet. Due to the current lack of protective legislation, the perpetrators may never be held to account. And it begs the question, “If Taylor Swift can’t defeat deepfake porn, then what hope is there for the rest of us?”

Some experts believe the crackdown on AI deepfakes will never come due to free speech protections. Others worry about the practical limitations on the engineering side of the equation.

But those AI images of Swift may change the narrative and lead to at least some legal protections.

In 2014, an iCloud leak led to nude photos of celebrities spreading online. It was damaging and devastating to the victims. But it also prompted mass calls from the public for greater protections on people’s digital identities. And it ultimately led to Apple ramping up its security features, reports Wired. Sam Gregory, executive director of Witness, a nonprofit organization focused on using images and videos for protecting human rights, told Wired that what happened to Swift “does feel like this could be one of those trigger events.”

And it appears Gregory may be right. Several legislators were, in fact, already working toward bills that would regulate the creation and distribution of AI-generated imagery (explicit or otherwise). And this latest attack on arguably one of the most famous women in the world is now serving to bolster their arguments and further proceedings.

The post Tech Trends: Social Media Repeats and the Taylor Swift Deepfake appeared first on Plugged In.

The latest proof of the latter? A new study that tells us just how common it is for American teens to be exposed to pornography online.

According to the study, released by Common Sense Media this week, nearly three-fourths of teens have watched porn online. More than half of those polled said their first exposure to it came by the time they were 13. And a disturbingly high minority—15%—had seen explicit sexual imagery online by age 10.

Another interesting finding: About 58% of respondents said they had stumbled across such content accidentally. They weren’t looking for it, but it found them anyway. And those who did seek it out? Nearly four-in-10 found it on such popular social media sites as TikTok and Instagram.

The study’s findings might well—and, honestly, should well—strike fear into the hearts of most moms and dads. After all, the internet is almost as ubiquitous in our society as air, something that phone-owning kids and teens can access at any time, night or day. Keeping your kids absolutely, positively free of exposure to porn seems impossible.

But parents can curb the risks that their children will be exposed to the Internet’s most unsavory corners. Here are a few tips.

First, and most importantly, talk with your kids about the problem. Don’thide from this societal issue, as much as you might like to. Even if your kids haven’t been exposed to pornography itself, chances are strong they know someone who has. Kids and teens talk about this sort of stuff, and it’s important that you be a part of their ongoing conversations. In age-appropriate ways, talk with them about the issue. Talk with them how sexually provocative pictures can twist and corrupt God’s intention for our relationships. Remind them how it turns people into objects, rather than beautiful, unique, creations of God. And be sure to listen to your kids, too—because they’re probably full of questions and opinions of their own. The more you’re able to talk with your children about this critical issue, the more likely they’ll be to understand why you need to put in some rules and place some restrictions on their internet access.

Delay when you give your kids phones. This is, obviously, a touchy issue in many homes, and I’m guessing many of you have had plenty of conversations on the subject. But Jonathan McKee, a regular on our Plugged In Show, recommends that parents wait until at least age 13 before letting their sons and daughters have phones.

Don’t let your kids go to bed with them. Nighttime is, for kids and teens, an opportune time to poke around regions of the internet you’d rather they stay away from. So why not eliminate the temptation? Get your children old-fashioned alarm clocks instead of allowing them to use their phones as wake-up tools, and insist that phones be gathered up and put away before they go to bed.

Consider installing monitoring software. Several companies have created services that allow parents to check up on the sites their kids are going to and what they’re doing while there. (Among those that Focus on the Family has recommended are Net Nanny, Covenant Eyes and Canopy.) Sure, kids and teens hate the idea that you’re spying on them, which makes this a difficult sell for many families. To lessen the blow, consider installing monitoring software on everyone’s devices—including Mom and Dad’s—to make sure that everyone is held accountable. Because, let’s be honest: Porn isn’t just a problem for kids and teens.

None of these tips are foolproof, of course. These can increase the odds that your home will be a relatively innocent refuge from a titillating culture. But consider these things fences, not 30-foot walls. Porn can still leap over those fences, and determined kids and teens can, too.

Which brings us back to the concept of talking. Always keep the lines of communication open. If your kids do see something they shouldn’t—because they stumbled across it or because they sought it out—they need to feel that you’ll not overreact.

Sometimes, discipline is appropriate. Sometimes just a good discussion about what they saw, and how, and why, can help curb future issues. But as much as possible, reinforce the idea that you’re in this together. And that only together, can you help shepherd them past the temptations of a frayed and frenetic world and into a long-term relationship with the author of all things.

The post Pornography Is Everywhere. Here’s What Parents Can Do to Keep It From Their Kids. appeared first on Plugged In.

We talk a lot about screen time here at Plugged In. The less time your kids spend in front of a screen, the better, we often say.  And it’s true.

Or is it?

Some experts are now saying that how much time you spend with screens is less important than what sort of content you’re spending the time watching. In other words, if you’re limiting your kids’ screen time to just 30 minutes a day, but you allow them to spend those 30 minutes watching, say, the Saw franchise (in, ahem, pieces), that’s probably not a great tradeoff.

Our team bats around the concept during this installment of The Plugged In Show.

Oh, and speaking of screen time: If you’re considering spending two hours of it with Black Adam, you might want to stick around and listen to Adam (no relation) and me discuss DC’s latest superhero flick—this one starring Dwayne Johnson as the titular antihero.

So turn away from your own screens a bit and give us a listen. Then add to the conversation on Facebook, Instagram or email (team@thepluggedinshow.com). And click on the links below to dig a little deeper into everything we’ve talked about.

Additional Resources:

• Gift of Any Amount Offer: Parenting Generation Screen: Guiding Your Kids to Be Wise in a Digital World by Jonathan McKee

• The Conversation: “‘Screen time’ for kids is an outdated concept, so let’s ditch it and focus on quality instead”  
• Plugged In Review: Black Adam
• Plugged In Review: The Batman

• Focus on the Family: Setting Media Standards
• Focus on the Family: Making Wise Entertainment Choices
• Plugged In: Tech Guide
• Focus on the Family: How to Develop Media Intelligence in Your Home

The post The Plugged In Show, Episode 153: Should We Forget About Screen Time Limits? (Plus, Black Adam) appeared first on Plugged In.

Chances are, you’ve likely heard names like these and more around your house—the names of YouTubers with millions of subscribers, and with that, lots of influence in the culture.

Since YouTube officially launched in Dec. 2005, influential YouTubers began popping up left and right. YouTubers such as PewDiePie, Smosh and FRED gained thousands upon thousands of views, the latter even gaining his own TV show that ran in 2012.

To put this all into perspective, when YouTube first graced our computer screens in 2005, I was a whopping 7 years old.

What does that tell us? Well, that we’ve had more than enough time for an entire generation of children to grow into adulthood graced by the presence of the video giant and all of its influential content creators. Their names may not be as instantly recognizable as Netflix, Disney+ or HBO Max, but make no mistake: YouTubers have the same—if not more—pull: as of April 2022, YouTube is the second-most visited website on the Internet, beaten only by Google itself. By comparison, the most visited streaming service, Netflix, comes in at 16^th. It’s no surprise that children are more influenced by “YouTube stars” than “traditional celebrities” and nearly one-third of kids between the ages of 8 and 12 most aspire to be either a vlogger or a YouTuber.

That pull seems to be growing, too. According to a recent Common Sense Media report on “Media Use by Tweens and Teens,” nearly one in four teenagers said they used YouTube more than any other social media website, and nearly one in three said that it was the social media website they most wouldn’t want to live without. More than four-fifths of them–83%–said that they used YouTube at least once per week, and 64% of tweens and 77% of teens admitted to watching online videos “every day.” Given that Common Sense Media also found that “average time entertainment screen media use” had also risen across all demographics by at least 40 minutes, we can assume that YouTube usage is also rising.

For parents unsure about the implications of that, it’s important to remember that YouTube is, in essence, a video library. In any library, physical or virtual, consumers have access to hundreds upon hundreds of different authors and creators—and not all of those contributors will be appropriate for all ages. And with around 500 hours of video uploaded to the website each minute, it’s getting much more difficult to catch every instance of content that parents may be concerned about. That’s one of the reasons why Plugged In reviews popular and trending YouTube channels so parents know just what content concerns their children may be watching.

Though YouTube has some restrictions in place against certain types of videos, including those containing nudity, self-harm or violent content, parents may find that the video-sharing giant’s definitions of these terms may be looser than their own. Within YouTube’s vast library, consumers can find videos intentionally created for children as well as videos that would be deeply inappropriate for children. And while it does its best (or so we hope), the service doesn’t know what’s appropriate for your children—or what rules and standards you might have in place in your home. What YouTube believes is perfectly fine content for a 13-year-old you may find wholly out of bounds. And with the YouTube algorithm recommending videos for viewers to watch after they finish one, it’s doesn’t take long to go down a long rabbit trail of potentially inappropriate videos.

So, what can parents do in order to mitigate the content their child is likely to be influenced by? One route is to create a YouTube Kids or a Supervised account, both of which automatically remove many inappropriate videos, allow parents to set screen time limits and block the search option as well as specific channels from being accessed. However, it is important to note that even on the more restrictive YouTube Kids option, videos pertaining to transgenderism and LGBT issues were still available and would have to be blocked by parents. For parents who don’t want to create an entirely new account, they can activate “Restricted Mode” by clicking on their YouTube profile and clicking on the tab at the bottom called “Restricted Mode.” When this is on, “videos that may contain inappropriate content flagged by users and other signals” will be blocked, and viewers will be unable to see comments on videos.

However, some may find that those limited options are simply not enough. Parents may consider purchasing one of many monitoring software options in addition to utilizing YouTube’s current parental controls. For a summary of a variety of these, Plugged In has provided brief descriptions here. For parents looking for a step-by-step guide for parental controls on YouTube as well as popular streaming services, Focus on the Family has a text-based tutorial here.

YouTube just might be the most influential form of media your children engage with. And with YouTube’s popularity continuing to rise, it’s inevitable that children will access and be influenced by the content creators across the site. Because of this, parents will need to discern what aspects of the video-sharing service their child is ready to be exposed to. YouTube surely isn’t waiting for parents to decide.

The post Like and Subscribe: YouTube’s Growing Influence on Children appeared first on Plugged In.

Of course, that kind of discussion could probably stretch on for a very long time if we closely examined all the nooks and crannies. Instead let’s just look at a few areas here.

As you’ve read (or heard) us address regularly, a top Plugged In concern is over kids’ screen time. So, let’s start there.

According to a recently published study in JAMA Pediatrics, screen time outside of virtual school (back when kids were working solely on their laptops and tablets) doubled during lockdown periods. That works out as an increase from an estimated 3.8 hours per day to a whopping 7.7 hours per day. That’s like a full day on the job, so to speak. And again, that’s in addition to the time they were investing in virtual school.

Oh, and just in case you’re thinking, thank goodness the kids are back in school, well, think again. The study suggests that new habits are hard to break. Most kids that upped their eye-ball-on-screen time during the lockdown are still spending close to the same increased amount now that school is back in session.

Now, you might not be so concerned about screen time. I mean, hey, we’ve all spent more time watching the screens in our lives—and that includes video games, TV shows, movies, YouTube, video chats, etc. etc. But the fact is, screen time does make a difference in kid’s lives. Researchers using data from a long-term study of brain development funded by the National Institutes of Health, found that higher screen-time usages were directly associated with poorer mental health and greater perceived stress levels.

And that leads me to the next bit I wanted to point out.

A recent CNN article suggested that kids are more depressed because of recent happenings than they’ve pretty much ever been before. “One in 4 adolescents globally are ‘experiencing clinically elevated depression symptoms, while 1 in 5 youth are experiencing clinically elevated anxiety symptoms,’” the article declared. And things seem to be continuing to worsen due to “social isolation, missed milestones, family financial problems and extended school disruptions.”

Now, I don’t want to just be a Donny Downer who tells you how rotten things are. It turns out that there is one area in which things have actually gotten better for our kids. According to research performed at McGill University, it looks like kids’ rest patterns tended to shift and they got more restorative sleep during the 2020 lockdown and beyond.

How did that happen when they were breaking rocks on their screens all day? I’m not sure. But Dr. Reut Gruber, a sleep researcher on the project, was pretty excited about the fact. “For our typical developing kids,” Dr. Gruber noted. “The ability to go to bed later, wake up later is like a great party.” And she said that she hopes that their work raises awareness about the kinds of sleep patterns and schedules teens and kids can benefit from.

So, what am I getting at with all this? Simple. One thing that the past year (and more) has shown is that there isn’t a lot that’s in our control. Unexpected change rolls into our lives like a tumbleweed on the plain. But out of those sometimes-crazy circumstances, both bad things and good things can result. As parents we need to be aware of both sides of the equation. And then, enlightened and wise, we can help encourage the better things while curbing those that are less so.

It’s not an easy task. But fortunately, it’s one that God has fortified us for and that we can celebrate. Or as Psalm 28:7 says: “The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me. My heart leaps for joy, and with my song I praise Him.”

Here’s wishing you a new year filled with good things for you and your kids. Along with some of that leaping joy. Hey, we all could use a little more sleep, too.

The post A New Year and the Ghost of COVID Past appeared first on Plugged In.