Wake Up, Look Up

Hello, everybody. Thanks for listening to Wake Up Look Up podcast, where we connect the events that are happening in our world with the gospel of Jesus Christ. This episode is on tech in the next 10 years. How do we parent kids into the future? It's prompted by an article that came out in Vox recently.

There was a megatrend analysis looking at where the world will be 10 years from now. One particular item stood out. It was about Elon Musk's project, Neuralink, which currently is a program where they're putting microchips into the brains of people with disabilities to help them regain function. But the next 10 years, Vox suggested, Neuralink will go from a restorative tool in the minds of people with disabilities to actually a tool that otherwise healthy people will use to transcend their own limited, their own human limitations to become something more even than human. That's concerning in a podcast for another day.

But it got me thinking, if that's where we're gonna be 10 years from now, think of all the advancements and all the things that are gonna take place between today and that day 10 years from now. And then it got me concerned. As a parent, raising kids in a technologically advanced world, I always feel like I'm a little behind the world. I'm a little behind even my kids. They're asking me for new apps, new programs that I've never heard of that are doing things I didn't even know were possible.

How can we, as parents, raise kids successfully in a world where technology is advancing so rapidly? That's a great question, and I'm sure it's something you're feeling too. So let me offer 4 pieces of pastoral advice for raising kids successfully in a technologically advancing world. The first is we have to be informed. As parents, it can feel like the last thing we have time for is reading up on the trends of where technology is headed.

Our lives are busy. We are tired all the time, and there's something new seemingly coming out every day, how can we stay informed? Well, no one's saying that parents have to stay on the cutting edge of technology. If you don't work in a tech related field, that's probably not gonna be possible. But there's an old joke about 2 guys in the woods who run into a bear, and one guy says to his friend, I don't have to outrun the bear.

I just have to outrun you. We don't have to be on the cutting edge of technology, but we do have to be a little ahead of our own children. We have to know what's going on in their lives. We have to know about the programs and the technology that they are utilizing. We simply cannot feign ignorance.

It's not an excuse. We have to make sure we know what our kids are doing and the apps and the programs on which they're doing it. You have to become informed. The second thing is we have to utilize the tools that are available to us. I read in an article recently that our Instagram says that only 10% of the teenagers who are utilizing Instagram are doing so with parental guidelines in place.

That means 90%, 9 out of every 10 teenagers that are on Instagram are on there without any parental supervision. I have to be honest with you, I think all the data suggests that your children, even your teenagers, shouldn't be on social media. All the sociological data suggests that Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter is wholly unhelpful and even harmful for teenagers. But if you decide to push past that and to let your teens utilize social media, you have to make sure you know what tools are available to you as a parent and to be leveraging those tools to make sure they're having the safest experience possible. You you have to utilize those tools, so log on, find out what they are, and begin to leverage them.

Don't apologize to your children for limiting their experience. Instead, parent for the approval of your 25 year old child who thanks you for keeping them safe and not for the approval of your 15 year old child who just wants what they want now. The 3rd piece of advice I'll offer is this, if Instagram has been out there for as long as it has and only 10% of parents are using the parental settings, then you have to realize that it may not be best to be an early adopter. The reason why so many teens are on Instagram without supervision is because Instagram was available before the guidelines were. That's because tech has to be out for a little while for us to know how people are using it and misusing it.

So my encouragement to you is don't jump so quickly onto the train of the latest greatest thing. I know teenagers have major FOMO. They don't wanna be left out of anything. But the truth is you don't know and neither do they what's harmful about a new platform or a new program or a new app until it's been out for a little while. So consider letting things be for 6 months, for a year.

Get up to speed on what people are realizing is harmful and is helpful, and then you're in a position to better curtail and leverage your child's experience. Don't jump so quickly onto the latest and greatest fad. If you do so, you're not gonna know where the problem areas lie. And then 4th, this one's gonna sting the most, monitor your own use of technology and social media. As always, our kids are paying more attention to what we do than what we say.

So they need to see you modeling restraint in your usage of social media and technology. They need to see you telling yourself no even when you don't wanna hear no because it's what's best. In other words, model. Go first in sacrificing your own happiness or your own desires for what's good and what's safe and what's profitable. Show your kids what it looks like.

After all, you have to realize that tech companies are out to create consumers, not Christ followers. And if we desire to be the latter more than the former, we're gonna have to say no to some things. Let's show our kids what that looks like all the time while we're asking them to do it themselves. Let's make sure that we're leading by example in our own use of technology. Lisa, your major takeaway of this is parenting kids in the technological world isn't easy.

It isn't easy, especially if we're lazy about it. So don't be. Don't be. Get informed. Find out the tools that are available to you.

Don't jump on the train too early, and model for your kids what it looks like to be a Christian who uses technology well. Have a great day. This episode of Wake Up Look Up was produced by Noel Aker and Andy Hoffman. Our topic researchers are Caitlin Hynel and Tyler Ritchie. This episode was directed by Andy Hoffman.

Our podcast coordinator is Hallie Andrews. Our production manager is Marcus Cunningham, with tech and engineering support from Matthew Adel and Landon Hull, and our copy editor is Maddie Goebel. I'm your host, Zach Weierach. Join us on the next episode of Wake Up, Look Up.