An Interview With David Leichner
Do Some Research: Spend time understanding the social and gaming platforms your kids are using so that you can understand what your kids are talking about when they talk to you about their online relationships.
Young people today are growing up in an era where screen time is a given from a very young age. Unfortunately, studies show that large amounts of screen time can be damaging, and social media can be even worse. Our children are facing enormous challenges before their brains and bodies have had a chance to develop fully. Social media can potentially keep kids from developing social cues and lead to increased mental health challenges, bullying, and much more. So what can parents do to create healthier habits around social media? How can kids be taught to use social media in a healthy way that causes as little damage as possible? In this interview series, we are talking to authors, and mental health professionals, about Raising Children With Healthy Social Media and Digital Media Habits. As a part of this series, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Kim Key.
Kim Key is a Security Analyst and Writer for PCMag. She speaks authoratively on topics such as B2C Security, online wellbeing and privacy tools. Before joining PCMag in 2021, Kim worked for CNN, Fanbyte, Mashable, The New York Times, and TechRadar, where she focused on news, sports, tech, and video games.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?
Sure! I’m as surprised as anyone to find myself in my current role, because it’s a real turn from my previous career. Not long ago, I was a television sports news producer at CNN International. I worked with a team to create daily broadcasts and cover live sporting events around the world. It was all very fun, but I couldn’t ignore the rising influence and importance of the internet in my life, so I made the choice to pivot to a new category: technology.
I got my start covering esports and reviewing video games, and later went on to work as a freelance writer at publications such as The New York Times and TechRadar. I joined the PCMag team in 2021 to cover privacy and security software. I’ve since learned a lot about the darker and scarier side of being online, and I’m passionate about letting people know easy ways to protect themselves.
Can you share the most interesting story that has happened since you started your career?
James Brown, the king of Soul, once wandered into my video editing bay while I was working at my first job. He patted the top of my head, called me a “fine lil’ lady” and was quickly led away by a team of handlers.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
Currently I am working on a series about digital nomadism. I look forward to telling people how to use the internet to stay employed while traveling the world at the same time, and how to stay safe while doing so!
Fantastic. Let’s now turn to the main part of our interview. For the benefit of our readers, can you tell us a bit about why you are an authority on how to help children develop healthy social media habits?
I’m qualified to talk about this because I grew up on the internet! I’m a milennial, the first generation to really come of age in a world where our entire social lives are online. I can’t imagine how odd it was for my parents when I started spending a lot of time on the computer, but I think one thing they really got right with me is that they didn’t try to openly and obviously monitor or control my online life. Instead, they learned about it.
To this day, my mom will ask me about some of my online friends from 8th grade! She knows their real names, she knows where they live, she knows who they dated, she knows all of the drama. Some of that was just her being interested in me as a parent and friend, but a lot of that was her gathering data about my online life to determine whether or not the activities described were all age-appropriate and above-board. It’s not prying, and it’s not snooping when you act engage in conversations about your child’s online friendships.
From your experience or research, can you help articulate some of the downsides of children having access to social media? Is there an amount of time, or certain content, that is just too much?
Kids will access social media whether parents want them to access it or not, so my advice to parents is to know that fact, understand your lack of control in this situation, and work with your child using that reality as a framework.
Talk to your kids about what kind of behavior you think is appropriate for them to engage in online. Find out why they want to engage on social media. Give them opportunities to chat with their friends in the environment that is comfortable for them, but limit the amount of time they spend engaging with a screen each day.
Is there a positive side too? Can children gain and grow from social media?
Kids need spaces where they are allowed to be kids. Non-public online spaces such as Discord chats, WhatsApp groups, or group private messages may fulfill their communication needs without sacrificing their privacy.
Social media is an accepted part of life today. We know that along with all of the good comes a lot of challenges. From your experience or research, what five steps can we take to raise children with healthy social media and digital media habits?
1 . Be a Kind Role Model: Kids see everything! If you think your child hasn’t found your burner facebook or twitter account yet, you do not know any children. I promise that your kids see your online activities, and just as it is in the physical world, they’re bound to emulate your behavior. Set a great example for your kids, and don’t engage in arguments online or trolling.
2 . Talk to Your Kids: Every expert I’ve interviewed about parental control software or curbing cyberbullying among children has told me one thing: software cannot take care of your children as well as you can.
You know your kids, and you know how to appeal to their best nature. I’ve written several articles with advice from experts about starting fun and natural conversations with your kids about their online habits that don’t turn into interrogations. There are also a number of parental control apps out there that include prompts for parents to start conversations with their kids, which I think is fantastic.
3 . Be Willing to Compromise: Your kids probably know a lot more about the online communities they’re interacting with than you do, so it’s wise to loosen the “my way or the highway” mentality when it comes to these kinds of discussions.
I suggest talking to your kids and also chatting with other parents about the amount of screen time they really need to have each day. Be willing to show some flexibility. Maybe you could allow your kid to take a peek at ESPN.com throughout the day instead of only allow access to educational websites. You know your kid and their needs the best, so it’s to you to decide how much freedom they can handle online.
4 . Do Some Research: Spend time understanding the social and gaming platforms your kids are using so that you can understand what your kids are talking about when they talk to you about their online relationships.
Childhood friendship drama is basically the same, no matter the decade, but the manner in which it manifests itself and how it plays out is always dependent on the medium of its origin. Knowing more about the tools your child’s communication arsenal can assist you when your child comes to you for advice or help with a personal issue.
5 . Accept Reality: Unless you prevent your kid from accessing the internet completely, you cannot ensure that they will only interact with content that you agree with or find age-appropriate. Accept this as a fact and work within that reality. The internet was not created with child-safety guardrails in place, so it is up to you and your child to determine how much unsupervised interaction they should engage in online.
5 things video YouTube URL:https://youtu.be/dRyW6oGpSqY
How do you effectively respond to the constant refrain of “but all my friends do this!”?
Talk to your kids about why their friends do those things, and why you think they shouldn’t. Encourage your children to explain why they think they should be allowed to participate in certain activities online, and explain why you think they should not. You may be able to find a compromise as a solution, but either way, your kid will feel heard, and you will start to better understand their online world.
What are the best resources you would suggest to a parent or educator who would like to learn more about this?
My columns on PCMag.com are a great start! I also suggest looking through resources from the National Cybersecurity Alliance or other groups.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life?
“Have a good time.” Try to enjoy the journey toward your goals. There’s no use in getting to the top of whatever mountain you’re climbing and then realizing, “oof, that was boring.” Try to have fun every single day, throughout the day.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Put your smartphone in a drawer on Friday evening and don’t take it out until Monday morning. See how long you can go without needing to check your phone for something. Use the screen time management functions built into your phone to help you with this.
One way to get the whole household on the right track with parental control applications is to ask all family members to use a native control app, such as Apple’s Screen Time, Microsoft’s Family Safety, or Google’s Family app. Limit everyone’s screen time for certain hours of the day and call it “free time”. You don’t even have to hang out together or talk if you don’t want to. People can read, watch a movie, go outside, find a hobby, whatever.
You don’t have to make a big deal about it! You can just say, “hey, I’d like for all of us to only have access to social media for two hours a day.” It can be any two hours! They can spread it around!
The point is that you’re all in it together, and that will make the kids feel less like they’re being restricted or punished for something because everyone is going through it. Heck, you all may become less dependant on social media afterwards! Ancedotally, I tried this in my house late last year, and it’s been working. I’m certainly a lot less dependent on the internet for just about everything now, which is great!
What is the best way our readers can continue to follow your work online?
Please follow me in the fediverse on Mastodon at https://journa.host/@kimkey. I need more cool people to chat with there! You can read my work at PCMag.com.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!
About The Interviewer: David Leichner is a veteran of the Israeli high-tech industry with significant experience in the areas of cyber and security, enterprise software and communications. At Cybellum, a leading provider of Product Security Lifecycle Management, David is responsible for creating and executing the marketing strategy and managing the global marketing team that forms the foundation for Cybellum’s product and market penetration. Prior to Cybellum, David was CMO at SQream and VP Sales and Marketing at endpoint protection vendor, Cynet. David is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Jerusalem Technology College. He holds a BA in Information Systems Management and an MBA in International Business from the City University of New York.
PCMag’s Kim Key On Raising Children With Healthy Social Media & Digital Media Habits was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.