Keeping Your Kids Safe In the Technology Age
LOVE OF MEDIA
As a kid, Caleb remembers his parents setting limits on the amount of time he was allowed to spend playing video games, or even staying indoors. While it frustrated him at the time, he later saw the wisdom in making him interact with friends in person and going outside to play. Years later, Caleb completed degrees in TV and Digital Media, and began his career as a multimedia producer. He kept up with new trends in technology, and in 2012, started producing tech lifestyle reports at CBN, including the popular Digital Download segment for CBN News, and technology updates on 700 Club Interactive. In 2012, Caleb also began working with NASA at Langley AFB to host an educational program, NASA 360, for kids. Through these experiences, two strong interests were continually being fed: technology and kids.
DANGERS OF TECHNOLOGY
The more Caleb researched consumer habits and how social media and tech usage affected people, he saw that there was cause for great concern. By the mid-2000’s, news reports were starting to link the internet, smart phones, and social media with depression, stalking, sexting, perpetrators preying on innocent minors and the elderly, and even teen suicides. His research also showed that parents were generally unaware of the dangers posed by their children having smart phones or unsupervised access to the internet, and if aware, they didn’t know how to protect them from what he calls the “sewage line” of bad influences. Citing a Pew Research Center statistic, he states that there are 2.34 billion social media users worldwide, including 90% of 18 to 34-year-olds, and makes the case that parents need to know what’s going on.
ADVOCATE FOR PARENTS
Caleb has been involved with youth programs for years which seek to teach life skills. When he suddenly became a parent to two teens last year, his motivation for protecting kids from the evils of tech world quickly escalated! His wife encouraged him to write a book, so Caleb did more research, including interviews with 100 middle and high school students. He received candid answers on how they thought about, interacted with, and used today’s technology. His work at CBN exposed him to the tragic story of Sydney Seller, age 14, who, in 2016, was interacting with a “friend” on an app called KIK. The person encouraged her to try “erotic asphyxiation,” and explained how to do it. Sydney’s mother found her hanging from a belt in her bedroom, having died. Caleb’s goal is not to scare or overwhelm parents, but to inform them about technology’s dangers, provide tools to protect their kids, for example, filters and time /location limits on usage, and encourage them that they can be successful. He strongly encourages communication between parents and their kids, and offers many discussion points. He says his guiding theme is: “Technology changes, but principles stay the same.”
