Safety Isn't the Absence of Risk

Dr. Wisniewski

Sure. First let me give you a little bit of background about me. So I'm a principal research scientist at the International Computer Science Institute, which is an independent research nonprofit affiliated with UC Berkeley. Prior to that, I was a professor at Vanderbilt University and the University of Central Florida. My research is in human-computer interaction at the intersection of social computing, how people use technology to connect with one another, privacy and online safety, the unintended consequences of when we go online to interact with others. And one of the things that I often remind people is that nobody goes online to be more private. We go online because we want to interact with others and expand our worldview. And that's not any different for our youth. And so the research that I do in human-computer interaction is very teen-centered. We do participatory design, co-design interviews, digital trace data analyses of what teens are doing online and how their parents are interacting with them to manage their online interactions with others. And this is research that I've been doing for almost fifteen years now. And I'd like to say that it's been a pleasure working with parents and teens to really understand what's going on, to be able to dispel some of those myths that we have about teens, technology use, and some of the risks to their mental health and safety.

Dr. Wisniewski

Yes, it would. Really the most important thing that we need to have from our kids is buy-in. They need to be part of the process. And I think one of the myths that we often portray about kids is that they're trying to do things that we don't want them to do, when in actuality, they're struggling just like we are as adults to manage their time and be intentional online. And so by giving that reciprocity and that buy-in, parents and teens can work together to collaboratively manage their digital use online.

Dr. Wisniewski

Many of the existing parental control apps are heavily surveillance and restriction-based, meaning that they focus on what teens can't do online versus what they're allowed to do online. And it's really important that we understand that digital technology use can be beneficial as well as risky for teens. And we need to balance that so that we're mitigating risk while allowing meaningful engagement.

Dr. Wisniewski

I think one of the key points is that we need to treat teens as agents of their own online safety and the digital technology use, meaning finding ways to help raise self-awareness, so that they can do self-regulated behaviors. We need to shift that focus from younger children, where parents primarily have to manage and control what their kids are doing online, to giving teens more autonomy as they get older so that they can manage their own online behaviors and their usage. Because if we don't ever get to that shift where teens are learning how to do it themselves with the support of their parents, then we're doing a disservice to our youth.

Dr. Wisniewski

I think that's actually a misnomer because some of the more recent research shows that there's a decline in suicide rates and some of the statistics that people have been given about depression and anxiety among youth have been overstated. And there's also research by researchers like Candice Odgers or Amy Orben, that suggests that the correlation itself is actually pretty weak if not there at all. And it really just depends on the family and the kid too, because we can't look at global level statistics when we're talking about a child, right? So I think that's really where it breaks down, is that we tend to have this moral panic and this fear-based narrative around addiction and technology use for our kids that's really just not serving them well. Because what that does is it creates guilt and shame instead of coping mechanisms and ways to manage technology use in healthier, positive ways. And so really trying to get away from some of those fear-based negative narratives is the best thing that we can do for our kids. Instead of treating technology like a drug, treating it like a food, realizing that there's some foods that are unhealthy for us and that we need to have a healthy diet.

Dr. Wisniewski

That's a great question. I would actually say both. Kids feel like they're being bad because they can't manage their technology use. I know my own daughter gets mad at herself when she gets stuck in reels, right? And then parents, they feel like they're failures because they can't monitor everything their kid's doing online at all times. And they're also trying to manage their own screen time, and what technologies they're using because many of us have kids at home who are telling us, Well, you're on your phone all the time, so why are you telling me that I can't be? And so it really needs to be a family conversation of this is something that we all struggle with and that we can work together to find healthier habits and ways to manage how we engage with our phones and other digital technologies.

Dr. Wisniewski

I think the answer is complicated. And this is something that I've spoken about publicly. When the age bans came for pornographic sites and age verification, I spoke publicly that that was a beneficial thing because pornography online, by definition, should be age-gated to those who are of age. But I think social media is a different story. I know that we could say that, you know, social media is just all porn, but it's not. There's beneficial uses of social media, such as being able to connect with one's friends, being able to get social support. And we've done a number of research studies to show both the positive ways that teens use social media to get help and find resources, but also some of the ways that they encounter risks. And so right now, especially in the US, there's a kind of an arbitrary age gate of thirteen because of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, and that kind of goes globally. But we're trying to increase those age limits, with bans of teens who are sixteen, or below sixteen. My concern is that the way in which we're treating teens and how they interact with other people online is so very different than how we're treating them in real life. We allow fifteen-year-olds to get a driver's permit and sixteen-year-olds to drive. There are sixteen-year-olds who are having sex and experimenting with risky behaviors that are somewhat developmentally appropriate for them to experience at that age level. At age eighteen they can enlist to go into the military. And so we have to be careful that we're not treating teens online like they have less agency and responsibility and skills to be able to protect themselves as we treat them how we treat them offline. Because it's sending the wrong message that we don't trust you, that you can't protect yourself, and that you can't develop these skills to navigate these spaces safely.

Dr. Wisniewski

Yeah, and one of the things that I wanna say is that just by age-gating social media, it's not going to lead to the consequence that we're hoping for it to lead to. So instead of teens using the platforms that actually are more closely monitored, they're going to go to platforms that are less safe. It's going to give the online platforms a pass to be able to have ads that are more adult, like sexually mature, because they're going to say, Well, kids aren't allowed on the platforms. And we all know very well that teens are pretty tech-savvy and can find ways to get around them. So for instance, in the US, many smartphones already come pre-equipped with a VPN so that you can spoof what state you're in. So if you're in Texas, it's really easy to say that you're in New York to be able to bypass some of the age verification requirements. So we have to keep in mind that just because the goal is to keep teens safer by increasing the age limits for social media, that isn't necessarily based on the evidence of what's gonna actually happen when these age bans go into effect.

Dr. Wisniewski

I learned to type on AOL Instant Messenger. And so the ways in which we engage with technology become part of how we grow up and how we experience life.

Dr. Wisniewski

Definitely. One of the things that we see in research is this concept called practical obscurity, meaning that we often don't know what our kids are doing on their phones, what apps are installed, and then even at that more granular level, what features are available on those apps. A typical kid may use 15 different apps in a day or more, and it's really hard for a parent to be able to stay on top of the different types of apps used and the different benefits and risks available in each one. And so any tool that we can give parents to educate them so that they understand the different capabilities, as well as the different benefits and risks of the various platforms their kids are engaging on, it gives them that opportunity to have those conversations with their kids. For instance, my 11-year-old uses Roblox, but one of the things that we told her early on is, Don't use the chat-based features to communicate with strangers, just communicate with your friends. And so a lot of the parenting that we do isn't necessarily through the parental controls of each of the apps. We kind of centralize it to giving our kids a rulebook of heuristics to use that might generalize across platforms. So if there's a tool that can mimic some of that parenting that we do kind of ad hoc on a daily basis, that would definitely help us win the battle against trying to triage what all is out there. One of the things that we wanna be careful of is leaning too much into that stranger danger myth. We don't wanna teach kids that every stranger that they meet online is a predator. Because honestly, if we try to teach them that, they're gonna tune us out because they know better and over 50% of kids meet somebody new online, oftentimes in these gaming platforms. And so restricting the use of audio chat or private messaging that's really throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Because we wanna teach teens the tactics that a cyber groomer might use, so that they can develop protective strategies to be able to combat those. In our research, one of the things that we often cite is one in ten or more teens gets sexually solicited online. But one of the things that we often forget is that most of them say no. And so it's really important that we have open communication and that we have exit strategies, and that we're talking to our kids. And any kind of platform that allows us to have better more open communication with our kids to discuss these things in a non-judgmental way could be beneficial. Because you don't wanna punish your kid for talking to a stranger online. You want to teach them the safe ways in which to engage with a stranger online, and that you're always there for them if something happens that made you feel unsafe. One of the things that we see in the news more frequently these days are cases of sextortion, where a young teenage boy gets tricked into sending naked pictures of himself to a scammer or a bad actor. And the sad part is that they don't feel like they can go to anybody for help because they're gonna get in trouble. As parents, and as adults, it's our job to let teens know that if they get in trouble online, we're not gonna make it worse.

Dr. Wisniewski

It's a little bit of both. If we take a developmental perspective of youth and how they mature over time, the one thing that I think we're getting wrong is we're treating it like a switch. It can't be, okay, at the age of 16, now you can go on social media. So from a developmental perspective, the best approach is a scaffolded approach, where we give our kids who are younger access to technology in a more mediated, parental controlled way so that we can co-mediate and teach them how to use it. And as they get older, we slowly let go of the reins. So think about it, just like automobiles and transportation. Like, first, we give a kid a trike with training wheels and we eventually take those training wheels off when we see that they can balance. And then they're riding bikes, and now motorized scooters. And then eventually we give them driving lessons, and then one day they're driving and doing their own thing. And that's really the model that we need for social media and technology use. Because if we don't teach younger kids how to manage a mean comment in a group chat, with their friends, then when they're older and in middle school, which is like the most brutal time of development, right? They're gonna have a harder time being able to manage those things because they're not exposed in a way that gives them the opportunity to develop those skills. From a developmental perspective, taking that more scaffolded approach of teaching them over time and releasing the reins. But then there's also the individual needs of a particular child. And sometimes giving kids a cell phone or a digital tool helps give them the independence they need to be able to go to a summer camp, or be able to, I mean, there's kids with type one diabetes who need that to manage their health. So we can't set a broad rule and apply it to everybody because there's always going to be those edge cases where there's going to be a good reason to give one kid access to something that maybe another parent decides their kid's not ready for. So while we might create policies like cell phone bans in schools, we need to be able to have ways to have exceptions to those policies when a parent feels like there's a good need for that for their child.

Dr. Wisniewski

There's all different kinds of parents out there. There's the more neglectful or indulgent parents who take a more laissez-faire approach. There's the authoritative parents who set high standards for their kids, but also, you know, support autonomy-seeking. And then there's the more authoritarian parents who are the do as I say, not as I do, and tend to be a little over-restrictive. And I can't say that we can change the parenting teen dynamic in families because those are so entrenched in cultural norms, but we can coach. So for instance, providing guidance to parents about best practices or making sure that there's some agency built into the design of products for teens to give them the ability to assent to monitoring. And that there's transparency so that it's not like we're installing a Trojan horse on their phones that then becomes something that just gets them in trouble. And so in many ways, showing parents the benefits of more collaborative and open approach, and that it actually works with their teens so that there's not constant battles at home, is probably the best way to engender that type of parenting within a family. I don't think we should preach, and I don't think that we should lead with judgment, because every family is different, and so we need to kinda meet them where they are, but then share those kind of best practices and standards, possibly by doing kind of a crowd-based approach of like letting families know what other families are doing. Because that level of social norming, to some extent, helps us all understand a little better what everybody else is doing to reevaluate maybe what I should do.

Dr. Wisniewski

In one context, we developed an app called COPS. It's Community Oversight of Privacy and Security. And what we did is it's a community-based app where parents and teens and even older family members or friends or coworkers could install the app to be able to view what apps are installed on each other's phones and what privacy permissions are shared. And what we saw is that collective, collaborative awareness and transparency and ability to make suggestions and recommendations to others did change their behavior, to some extent over time. And it raised their collective efficacy or their confidence that they have the capability to make these types of decisions together. Parents having an idea what other parents are doing also can be beneficial for the kids because instead of a kid having to say, Well, Mom, that's not how everybody else in my school's doing it, parents can get that from other parents or from kind of a centralized place for advice. And so it's not a battle that the kid has to fight on their own. So there is evidence-based research that suggests that doing some crowdsourced kind of knowledge development can help parents understand what the norms are across different families. Because one of the problems that we see online with reviews or forums is that we tend to see mostly the extremes. People leave a review when they're really happy with a product or when they're really unhappy with a product. And so that's why we see a lot more polarization in online spaces. So anything that can bring us more towards the middle so that people understand kind of what's normal instead of what's extreme could be beneficial in helping parents understand where they sit in that spectrum.

Dr. Wisniewski

Definitely. One of the things that we know about families is that the dynamic shifts, if there's multiple siblings or if there's aunts and uncles involved or grandparents. And so if we can model that more community-based like family network, in a way that can support the entire family, that would be stronger than just kind of this power hierarchy relationship of like the parent controlling each child individually. So, being able to have siblings be able to talk about and discuss and possibly even see their technology use, and be able to navigate and discuss that among themselves without their parents, that could be really beneficial. Or a kid being able to tell their parent, Hey, Dad, you know, you spent too much time on this website this week. What's up with that? That changes that power dynamic from the idea of like, Hey, this is just a tool to surveillance and police kids and get them in trouble, and there's no value proposition for them, to giving them that sense of agency where they might be able to help others. And that's one of the things that we do see in families often is that kids, with parents who don't have that tech savviness, they're often the ones in the household who set up the family network, who help troubleshoot how their parents use technology. And so this idea that it's the parent who has to control the technology use for their kids is oftentimes archaic.

Dr. Wisniewski

That's a paradigm that the tech companies want us to buy into because it shifts the liability from good design of the platforms, to, Hey, this is the parent's responsibility to monitor and make sure their kids are safer online. But there's so many other approaches that we can take that are more based in community and based in family that don't put parents and teens at odds. So for instance, as we were talking about before, realizing that parents struggle with some of the same things that kids struggle with online, of managing their time and how often they check their mobile device. And so being able to work on that problem together so that we're using our technologies in the ways that we feel good about ourselves, rather than everybody treating it as the parent's job is to keep your kids off their phones. By managing it together, it makes it less about parent versus teen and more about the family versus all of the demands for our attention and our time that we want to manage ourselves to be able to have meaningful time as a family, to do enriching things as individuals, instead of some of the traps that we get into with mindless scrolling. So being able to increase intention as a family and be able to manage that together instead of making it kind of the struggle in the family where we're always constantly telling our kids to get off their phones.

Dr. Wisniewski

One of the things that I say over and over again in my research is that safety is not the absence of risk. Safety is being able to teach teens how to navigate levels of risk so that they can engage in the world meaningfully and giving them mechanisms to protect themselves, one of the most poignant stories that somebody told me after one of my talks when I talked about resilience and risk, and teaching teens how to navigate risks online rather than trying to just shield them from any and all risks, was a preschool teacher who came up to me and said, You know, never in my life have I seen this phenomenon where I have kids showing up in preschool and they're going across the monkey bars, and they just let go, and they break both of their ankles because nobody ever let them experience monkey bars and the risk associated with falling. I think as a society, one of the things that we're trying to do more and more because social media has raised our awareness of the risks that are out there, is taking that more protectionist approach of like, Let's not let our kids fall. That is such an unrealistic standard that none of us are ever gonna be able to meet. And so teaching our kids how to fall gracefully and how to help pick them back up, those are the core parenting principles that we wanna bring forward because we can't live in a society where we put our kids in bubble wrap and hope that, you know, we can keep them safe because they need to experience the world.

Dr. Wisniewski

The one thing that would be the most important thing to take away is that we need to stop treating teens like they're victims online, and realize that our youth are creative and they're resilient and they're smart, and they're growing up in a completely different world than we grew up in. And so we need to take the time to listen to them and learn from them, and ask questions with curiosity rather than coming from the place where we are, where we didn't grow up with these technologies and we're trying to, you know, assert our expectations on how they should grow up with them. And so really taking that approach where we give respect in our parenting to the youth who are growing up in this digital economy. Not saying give them the reins and let the kids be in control, but really leading with love and respect so that we can work together to tackle some of these challenges instead of making it a battle between generations.

Dr. Wisniewski

Awesome. Thank you for having me.