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Bill Webb recently saw his 80 years of life flash before his eyes. It was through his seven grandchildren, who'd found old photos and, heartwarmingly, dressed up as him during different eras of his life—celebrating his birthday, his life, and their love for him.

His 21-year-old granddaughter, Kenzie Greene shared an Instagram post about the event. She said, “He definitely knows how to make all of us feel special and remembers things about each of us.” Kenzie recalls that their grandparents always showed up to their sports and other events to express their love and support.

After retiring, Bill has made the most of his life as a grandfather, spending countless nights playing games, sharing meals, and spending priceless time with them at the family house.

Kenzie and the family wanted to do something special for Pawpaw to show him how much he means to them. They decided to highlight eras from his life. Kenzie noted that “80 years is a long time,” and they had to fit all those years into 7 eras that each grandchild could personify.

For each era of their Pawpaw’s life, each grandchild chose an era that represented a connection they shared with him. For example, Kenzie’s cousin Hutton was really into football in high school, so he represented the “football era” of Bill’s life. Kenzie is currently studying at the University of Tennessee, where Bill also studied, so she naturally chose his “frat boy” era. As each grandchild came out, they announced what part of his life they represented, and then showed him an actual scrapbook picture of what he looked like at that stage of his life.

One commenter on her video wrote, “This speaks volumes about love, legacy, and the strength of family bonds. What a reminder of the beauty in honoring those who paved the road before us. This is the kind of legacy that inspires us all. What a family!”

If two of the 20th century’s iconic technologies, the automobile and the television, initiated the rise of American aloneness, then screens continue to fuel and even accelerated, our national anti-social streak. Countless books, articles, and cable-news segments have warned Americans that smartphones can negatively affect mental health and may be especially harmful to adolescents. But the fretful coverage is, if anything, restrained given how greatly these devices have changed our conscious experience.

The typical person is awake for about 900 minutes a day. American kids and teenagers spend, on average, about 270 minutes on weekdays and 380 minutes on weekends gazing into their screens, according to the Digital Parenthood Initiative. By this account, screens occupy more than 30 percent of their waking life.

Pornography consumption has skyrocketed in recent years, especially among young people. Despite this, many Americans, including Christians, remain unconcerned about its societal effects.

A new report by Barna and Pure Desire reveals that 61% of Americans now view porn at least occasionally, up from 55% in 2015. Even within the church, pastors are more likely to report personal histories of porn use, with nearly 1 in 5 currently struggling.

The report underscores pornography's widespread accessibility, noting that it "touches all segments of society" regardless of age, gender, or religious beliefs. The increased availability of online porn, coupled with factors like social isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic, has contributed to this surge. One recent study suggested 2.5 million people view online pornography every minute, and online porn consumption has increased by 91 percent since 2000.

While some faith-based efforts advocate for legal restrictions on the porn industry, others focus on helping individuals overcome pornography habits. However, the report highlights a significant hurdle: many people, including Christians, simply don't see a problem with it.

Research suggests that frequent porn use can lead to negative mental, emotional, and relational health outcomes. Despite this, many Christians remain comfortable with their own porn consumption. The reports states, “Over three in five Christians (62%) tell Barna they agree a person can regularly view pornography and live a sexually healthy life.” That’s only four percentage points behind the share of all US adults (66%) who don’t consider viewing pornography harmful.

The report also explores the impact of pornography on relationships, particularly between men and women. Women are more likely to report negative effects, including feeling less attractive to their partners. Additionally, the study reveals that young people are increasingly exposed to pornography at younger ages, with the average age of first exposure now 12.

Possible Preaching Angle:

While there are efforts to address the issue, the report emphasizes the need for churches to offer support and resources for those struggling with pornography. By fostering a community where people can find help and healing, churches can play a crucial role in combating the pervasive influence of pornography.

Internal documents from Tik Tok executives and employees reveal that the social media platform is driven to capture the attention of users. Here were some of their own internal statements:

• An internal presentation on the 2021 strategy for TikTok describes the company as being in an “arms race for attention.”
• “It’s better to have young people as an early adopter, especially the teenagers in the U.S. Why? They’ve got a lot of time.”
• “Teenagers in the U.S. are a golden audience.
• “The product in itself has baked into it compulsive use.”
• “The reason kids watch TikTok is because the algorithm is really good... But I think we need to be cognizant of what it might mean for other opportunities. And when I say other opportunities, I literally mean sleep, and eating, and moving around the room, and looking at somebody in the eyes.”
• As an internal guide on push notifications explained, a key goal of TikTok’s push notifications is to “Activate & Engage users with the right content at the right time, to encourage users to open the App more and stay longer.”
• In a chat message a TikTok employee confirmed that the company’s “goal is not to reduce the time spent” on the TikTok app, but rather to ultimately “contribute to DAU [daily active users] and retention” of users.

Disney is trying to be as addictive as Netflix, and they want to grab and keep your attention. Disney spent years trying to attract new subscribers to its Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ streaming services. Now it is trying to make sure those customers spend more time glued to the screen. The entertainment giant is developing a host of new features aimed at lengthening the amount of time subscribers spend viewing its shows and movies. The goal is to mitigate customer defections and generate more revenue from advertising sales.

A metric known as “hours per subscriber”—a measure of user engagement—has taken on increased importance at Disney in recent months, current and former streaming employees say. Netflix, famous for enabling binge-watching with batch releases of episodes, has also given priority to improving user engagement and return visits in recent years.

New features in the works at Disney include a more-personalized algorithm to power content recommendations, customized promotional art for new shows based on subscriber’s tastes and usage history, and emails sent to viewers who stop watching in the middle of a series reminding them to finish.

The bottom line is this: many organizations are vying to capture your attention. What will you choose to set your mind on?

In today’s digital age, it’s become increasingly common for parents to hand their upset child a smartphone or tablet to calm them down. But could this seemingly harmless practice be hindering children’s emotional development? A new study from researchers suggests that using digital devices as emotional pacifiers may have unintended long-term consequences.

The researchers aimed to understand the relationship between parents using digital devices to regulate their children’s emotions and the development of children’s self-regulatory skills.

Self-regulation is a crucial skill that develops in early childhood. It involves the ability to manage one’s emotions, control impulses, and direct attention. These skills are essential for success in school and later in life. They help children navigate social situations, focus on tasks, and cope with frustration.

Imagine a scenario where a child is having a tantrum in a grocery store. A parent, desperate for a quick fix, hands over their smartphone to distract and calm the child. While this might work in the moment, the study suggests that repeatedly using this strategy could prevent the child from learning how to manage their emotions on their own. Children whose parents often relied on “digital pacifiers” showed more severe emotion-regulation problems, specifically, anger management problems, later in life.

Instead of relying on screens to soothe upset children, parents might consider alternative strategies that help kids learn to manage their emotions. For example, parents could try talking through emotions with their child, using deep breathing exercises, or engaging in a calming activity together like reading a book or coloring. These approaches may take more time and effort in the moment, but they could pay off in the long run by helping children develop crucial self-regulation skills.

Parents are bombarded with a dizzying list of orders when it comes to screen time and young children: No screens for babies under 18 months. Limit screens to one hour for children under 5. Only “high-quality” programming. No fast-paced apps. Don’t use screens to calm a fussy child. “Co-view” with your kid to interact while watching.

The stakes are high. Every few months it seems, a distressing study comes out linking screen time with a growing list of concerns for young children: Obesity. Behavioral problems. Sleep issues. Speech and developmental delays.

Maya Valree, the mother of a three-year-old girl in Los Angeles, understands the risks and constantly worries about them. But limiting her daughter’s screen time to one hour feels impossible as she juggles life as a working parent, she said.

Over the last few years, her child’s screen time has ranged up to two to three hours a day, more than double the limit recommended by pediatricians. Valree puts on educational programming whenever possible, but it doesn’t capture her child’s attention as well as her favorites, Meekah and The Powerpuff Girls.

“Screen time is in the top three or five things to feel guilty about as a mom,” she said. “I’ve used it to pacify my daughter while cooking or working or catching up on anything personal or professional.”

Too much screen time harms children, experts agree. So why do parents ignore them? Parents need to have some type of distraction for their kids, and “screens tend to be the easiest option, the lowest hanging fruit,” said pediatrician Whitney Casares. “I hear more people saying, ‘I know screen time is bad, I wish we had less of it in our family, but I feel helpless to change it.’”

The most recent data available comes from a national survey of nearly 1,500 families with children ages eight and younger conducted in 2020. The survey found that few families were not coming anywhere close to pediatricians’ recommended limits.

• Children under two watch an average of 49 minutes of digital media a day, while the guidelines recommend avoiding screens for children under two.

• Children ages two to four watch an average of two-and-a-half hours a day, more than twice the limit recommended.

• Children five to eight watch just over three hours a day. The American Academy of Pediatricians does not provide strict time limits for school-age children but advises parents to make sure screen time does not displace other activities.

A study of YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook revealed that American Teens—by a large margin—use YouTube (71%) more than TikTok (58%). But they're more likely to scroll through the TikTok app "almost constantly," according to Pew Research Center polling.

The stat points to how addictive and unhealthy TikTok's endless feed of videos can be for teens.

A study from the Center for Countering Digital Hate found that new TikTok accounts were shown self-harm and eating disorder content within minutes of scrolling.

• Suicide-related videos popped up within 2.6 minutes.
• Eating disorder content popped up in 8 minutes.

Because of this, there's suddenly a roaring national debate over fears about teens' privacy, their data security—and all the misinformation going straight to their phones. Citing national security concerns, Congress is pushing to force the platform's Chinese parent company to sell TikTok or face a ban.

Psychologist Jean Twenge says. "It's of course possible that people will replace TikTok time with YouTube time or Instagram time. However, TikTok's algorithm is particularly effective at getting you to spend more time on it."

Columnist Peggy Noonan wrote a sobering article based on the work of researcher Jonathan Haidt’s new book The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing An Epidemic of Mental Illness. Noonan mentions a dark irony raised by Haidt: (Noonan’s words here) “Parents are often physically overprotective of their children out of fear of sexual predators. But those predators have moved online, where it’s easy to find and contact children.”

Then she quotes a section in the book where Haidt includes an essay from a 14-year-old girl:

I was ten years old when I watched porn for the first time. I found myself on Pornhub, which I stumbled across by accident and returned to out of curiosity. The website has no age verification, no ID requirement, not even a prompt asking me if I was over 18. The site is easy to find, impossible to avoid, and has become a frequent rite of passage for kids my age. Where was my mother? In the next room, making sure I was eating nine differently colored fruits and vegetables on the daily.

“It’s hijacking my brain.” Say young people addicted to social media and who are desperate for help. Many people have compared the addictive nature of social media to cigarettes. Checking your likes, they say, is the new smoke break. More than 75% of teens check their phone hourly, and half say they feel like they’re addicted to their devices.

Here are some of the things they’ve said:

“TikTok has me in a chokehold.”

“I would 1,000% say I am addicted.”

“I feel completely aware that it is hijacking my brain, but I can’t put it down. This leaves me feeling ashamed.”

Maybe you’ve had similar feelings yourself, no matter your age. Although it’s true social technologies offer some benefits, many people feel uncomfortable with how much time they spend online and often wonder if they’re addicted.

One approach is to view your media consumption as a diet. Just as there are many ways to have a healthy diet, there are also a variety of ways to develop healthy and personalized social media habits.

The researchers offered practical steps that you can take right now to reduce your dependence on social media. This includes turning off notifications, removing apps that you find harmful, curating your social media feed by unfollowing certain accounts, setting your phone to grayscale to reduce the appeal, and reserving phone-free time.

Possible Preaching Angle:

In addition to the practical steps listed above, the believer should add prayer (Heb. 4:14-16; Jam. 1:5), time in the Word (especially memorizing God’s promises for overcoming destructive habits, Ps. 119:11), and finding an accountability partner (Prov. 27:17).

Some experts call it “the new great depression.” Since the rise of social media, depression and feelings of hopelessness have skyrocketed among teens. According to a new poll, nearly half of teens now say they agree with phrases like “I can’t do anything right,” “I do not enjoy life” and “My life is not useful”—roughly twice as many as did just a decade ago.

Psychologist Dr. Jean Twenge says, “These are staggering numbers, just enormous increases, and parents are rightfully very concerned about their children’s mental health.”

The poll, conducted by the University of Michigan is just the latest startling revelation about youth mental health, as rates of teen anxiety and depression have grown.

The number one cause, according to Twenge, is social media and screen time. In fact, rates of teen depressive symptoms have increased massively since the mass popularization of the smartphone in the early 2010. “There’s no question that is the primary cause of the increase in teen depression now,” Twenge said. “It’s by far the largest change in teens’ everyday lives over the past 10 to 12 years. Nothing else even comes close.”

Grammy award-winning singer Billie Eilish says she has deleted her social media apps from her phone due to her complicated relationship with the internet.

In 2023 Eilish said, “I don’t look at it anymore. I’ve deleted it all off my phone.” She noted that the move was “such a huge deal” for her as a self-proclaimed “internet kid.”

I feel like I grew up in the perfect time of the internet when it wasn’t so internet-y that I didn’t have a childhood. I really had such a childhood, and I was doing stuff all the time. It was like computers and games on computers, but barely.

And then when I became a pre-teen, there were iPhones, and then I got a little older, there was all of what has become. But being a pre-teen and a teenager on the internet, those were my people, I was one of them. Anything I read on the internet I believe. And I know for a fact that’s stupid and I shouldn’t do that because I have proof that it’s not all true. Almost none of it’s true. It’s, like, little things, like small white lies that goes over everybody’s head, but everyone believes.

It’s so hard to be comfortable during commercial air flight, that many TikTok influencers have begun advocating for an unorthodox seating position. Catering to the more flexible among us, these influencers are taking videos with their knees at their chest, perching their feet at the edge of their seat, and securing their seat belt around their ankles

But experts call it risky and unsafe, primarily for one simple reason. Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants, said “The seat belt is designed to sit low and tight across your lap. This is not only for your safety; if you are not properly buckled in you will likely hurt someone else when thrown in turbulence.”

Delta Airlines spokesman Drake Castañeda said, “Buckling your seat belt is chief among the ways to stay safe on an airplane. Especially as you see all these stories in the news and on social media of severe turbulence.” Castañeda says this is why flight attendants explain the federal laws that apply to each and every flight before takeoff.

Flight attendant Sabrina Schaller said, “I’ve heard many, many stories where flight attendants have told me they’ve had an unexpected hit-the-ceiling-type situation. So always wear the seat belt. Always, always, always, just to be safe.”

The CDC’s bi-annual Youth Risk Behavior Survey (2023) showed that most teen girls (57%) now say that they experience persistent sadness or hopelessness (up from 36% in 2011), and 30% of teen girls now say that they have seriously considered suicide (up from 19% in 2011). Boys are doing badly too, but their rates of depression and anxiety are not as high, and their increases since 2011 are smaller.

What are the causes behind this concerning trend? It’s complex, but in a thorough overview of hundreds of studies, here’s how researcher Jon Haidt summarizes the data:

There is one giant, obvious, international, and gendered cause: Social media. Instagram was founded in 2010. The iPhone 4 was released then too—the first smartphone with a front-facing camera. In 2012 Facebook bought Instagram, and that’s the year that its user base exploded. By 2015, it was becoming normal for 12-year-old girls to spend hours each day taking selfies, editing selfies, and posting them for friends, enemies, and strangers to comment on, while also spending hours each day scrolling through photos of other girls and fabulously wealthy female celebrities with (seemingly) vastly superior bodies and lives. The hours girls spent each day on Instagram were taken from sleep, exercise, and time with friends and family. What did we think would happen to them?

The week of Thanksgiving, Michael Larkin, in Hamilton, Ohio, answered a phone call. It was the local police, and they wanted footage from Larkin’s front door camera. Larkin had a Ring video doorbell, one of the more than 10 million Americans with the product installed at their front doors. The police said they were conducting a drug-related investigation on a neighbor, and they wanted videos of “suspicious activity” around his home. Larkin cooperated, and sent clips of a car that drove by his Ring camera more than 12 times in the requested time frame. He thought that was all the police would need. Instead, it was just the beginning.

A week later, Larkin received a notice from Ring itself: The company had received a warrant, signed by a local judge. The notice informed him it was obligated to send footage from more than 20 cameras—whether or not Larkin was willing to share it himself.

After sending the initial footage, Larkin started to find the police demands onerous. Larkin said, “He asked for all the footage from October 25.” Larkin said that he has five cameras surrounding his house. He also has three cameras inside his house, as well as 13 cameras inside the store that he owns, which is nowhere near his home. All these cameras are connected to his Ring account. He declined that request. He says his main concern at first was practical: Each clip would take up to a minute to download and send over.

Then he received an email from Ring, notifying him that his account was the subject of a warrant from the police department. This time, Larkin wasn’t able to choose which cameras he could send videos from. The warrant included all five of his outdoor cameras, and also added a sixth camera that was inside his house. It would include footage recorded from cameras he had in his living room and bedroom, as well as the 13 cameras he had installed at his store associated with his account.

Larkin, now incensed that police were requesting footage from inside his home for an investigation that didn’t even involve him. He said, “That’s the thing that upsets me the most—the fact that a judge just signed off on that. He’s just going to hand over footage of mine, and the case doesn’t even involve me in any way, shape, or form.”

Possible Preaching Angles:

1) Government; Crime - The footage on Ring’s servers amounts to a large and unregulated web of eyes on American communities. This can provide law enforcement valuable information in the event of a crime, but also create a 24/7 ever-expanding web of surveillance operation that even the owners of the cameras aren’t fully aware they’ve helped to build. 2) Omniscience of God; Judgment Day - “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Heb. 4:13).

The Federal Aviation Administration sent a letter to Trevor Jacob on April 11, 2023, informing him that his pilot’s certification was being revoked. The letter read, “On November 24, 2021, you demonstrated a lack of care, judgment, and responsibility by choosing to jump out of an aircraft solely so you could record the footage of the crash.”

Jacob had denied the accusation on numerous occasions, including in a statement to The New York Times, stating flatly, “I’ll happily say I did not purposely crash my plane for views on YouTube.” In May, however, as part of a guilty plea he admitted the truth that the crash intended to boost views for a sponsorship deal on his YouTube channel.

That lie was only the tip of Jacob’s iceberg of falsehoods related to the crash. He lied to FAA investigators by telling them he didn’t know the location of the plane’s remains, when he’d previously contracted a helicopter firm to airlift the wreckage to a nearby hangar for disposal. Jacob also lied when he told investigators the initial reason for the crash was that his plane lost all its power and he parachuted after not being able to find any safe landing options. In their letter, the FAA noted that Jacobs’ own footage showed that he’d failed to take all the necessary steps to attempt a safe landing. According to the FAA’s analysis, Jacob’s actions were “egregious and intentional.”

Andew Madsen is a representative of the Los Padres National Forest, the location where Jacob’s plane crash landed. Madsen called the stunt dangerous and noted that anyone who intentionally causes a wildfire can be held liable for all costs associated with fighting the fire. He said, “Thankfully this incident did not spark a fire.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Taking shortcuts to fame and success often involves reckless behavior that can threaten our safety and/or ruin our reputation. You can lose more than you can gain.

At the intersection of social media platforms and fast-food trends lives a new entry into the category of viral posts: the secret menu item. Influencers are making videos about food combinations, and the surge of interest is wreaking havoc, causing annoyance for workers across America.

After a TikTok user created a video of her customized Waffle House order—a Texas bacon melt with waffles instead of bread—Waffle Houses across the south were inundated with orders for the improvised delicacy. Managers at one store in Georgia created a sign stating, “Order from the menu. We are not making anything you saw on TikTok!!”

Another TikTok user experienced success after her fast-food hack video got almost two million views. At a friend’s prompting, she ordered a Chipotle quesadilla with steak and veggies inside, and dipped it in a combination of sour cream and vinaigrette. The friend, a Chipotle manager, said it tasted like a Philly cheesesteak.

According to industry analyst Adam Chandler, such makeshift delicacies can bring extra revenue to fast-food chains, but they can gum up the workers at the store if they haven’t prepared for the scrutiny and attention. Chandler said, “It really places a lot of stress on fast-food workers.”

Chandler noted that while social media trends offer the potential for increased revenue, they can cause problems. “Service has slowed down, in part because people have started modifying their orders. So, we’re looking at a context where fast food is becoming less fast.”

The trend sometimes has results that are more positive. One TikTok user initiated a viral video after posting about a favorite snack idea at Momofuku. VP Ryan Healy at Momofuku said, “It’s not the way we set out to do this, but she’s bringing more people into our world. We see [TikTok trends] as a positive thing and hopefully broaden people’s minds — to help change the way people eat and eat more adventurously.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Selfishly demanding that things be done our way is never God’s plan for believers. We should instead be considerate of others who are working hard to do their jobs to serve many people.

The number of teenagers who say they are chronically online has nearly doubled since 2015, according to a survey from Pew Research Center. YouTube is the most popular platform among U.S. teens, with 95% of the coveted demographic saying they use the site or its mobile app, the survey found. TikTok, which was launched in the U.S. in 2018 and thus didn’t exist the last time Pew performed a similar survey, is now used by about 67% of those between 13 and 17-years-old.

Almost half of U.S. teens reported that they are online “almost constantly,” a jump from the 24% who reported similar behavior to Pew in 2015. On social media specifically, 35% of U.S. teens reported that they were on at least one of the major platforms almost constantly.

Just when pandemic-related misinformation was started to recede from public awareness, the Food and Drug Administration had to recently issue a warning against a new dangerous trend: misinformation resulting from viral video challenges. The latest concerned something called “NyQuil chicken.”

The FDA said in a press release, “A recent social media video challenge encourages people to cook chicken in NyQuil (acetaminophen, dextromethorphan, and doxylamine) or another similar over-the-counter cough and cold medication, presumably to eat. Social media trends and peer pressure can be a dangerous combination to your children and their friends, especially when involving misusing medicines.”

One of the reasons why the challenge is dangerous is that the chemical properties of NyQuil change when the liquid is heated to a boil, and high levels of the chemicals can be inhaled as vapors. An FDA spokesperson said, “The challenge sounds silly and unappetizing – and it is, Put simply: Someone could take a dangerously high amount of the cough and cold medicine without even realizing it.”

Parents can keep young people safe by following three common-sense practices:

Keep medicines away from children in a safe, inaccessible place.

Speak with children about the dangers of misusing pharmaceuticals.

Use all medications according to the directions given.

Possible Preaching Angle:

As Christians parents we need to protect our children from foolish pranks spread by social medial. Instead, in a supportive and loving way we should encourage our vulnerable children in wise living and thinking before they act on foolish trends.

In a kind of “sting operation” on the social media site TikTok, The Wall Street Journal created dozens of automated accounts, also called bots. They set up these bots to understand what TikTok shows young users. These bots, registered as users aged 13 to 15, were turned loose to browse TikTok’s videos. The videos revealed that TikTok can quickly drive minors (and of course adults, too) into “rabbit holes” of content focused on drugs, violence, or sex.

For example, one bot was programmed to dwell on videos with hashtags related to drugs. On its first day on the platform, the account lingered on a video of a young woman walking through the woods, with a caption suggesting she was in search of marijuana.

The next day, the account also watched a video of a marijuana-themed cake. Soon after, the teenager’s feed took an abrupt turn … with the majority of the next thousand videos touting drugs and drug use, including marijuana, psychedelics, and prescription medication. One showed an image of a person exhaling smoke and linked to a website that was “420 friendly” (code for marijuana use) and offered “yummy goodies for all.”

The article concluded that TikTok only needs one important piece of information to figure out what a user wants: The amount of time you linger over a piece of content. Every second you hesitate or re-watch, the app tracks you. Through that one powerful signal, TikTok can learn your most hidden interests and emotions, and drive users of any age deep into rabbit holes of content—in which feeds are heavily dominated by videos about a specific topic or theme. It’s an experience that other social-media companies like YouTube have struggled to stop.