“Protect Young Eyes” sessions in Salisbury, Jefferson City to help parents keep children safe in the Digital Age
A year ago, the public was just waking up to the ways vulnerable people could be exploited by the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the digital realm.
It’s no longer an emerging issue.
“It is a clear and present danger to children — particularly to our teen girls,” stated Chris McKenna, Catholic founder of Protect Young Eyes (protectyoungeyes.com), an organization that teaches families, schools and communities how to create safer digital spaces for young people.
“Pornography has magnified and multiplied,” he noted. “The scalability of artificial intelligence allows anyone to be made into pornography by someone with nefarious intentions.”
This is one of many pressing issues Mr. McKenna is committed to helping parents understand, in order to help keep their children safe.
He will be back in the Jefferson City diocese on Sept. 29-30, 2024, to lead two free informational workshops for adults:
- Sunday, Sept. 29, from 5 to 6:30 p.m. in the St. Joseph School Gymnasium, 105 N. Willie Ave. in Salisbury.
- Monday, Sept. 30, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. in Cana Hall in the Cathedral of St. Joseph, 2305 W. Main St. in Jefferson City.
Parents and all adults who care about the safety and wellbeing of children are encouraged to attend.
Registration is required at: diojeffcity.org/pye-registration
Mr. McKenna will build on themes from the presentations he and members of the Protect Young Eyes team gave while visiting the diocese last fall.
“Things have really changed in the past year,” he noted. “Those who hear us for the first time will come away with a heavy dose of enlightenment and encouragement. Those who come back will experience a deepening of what they’ve already learned.”
Participants will gain valuable insights into:
- how young, developing brains are impacted by today’s technologies;
- how electronic hardware and software can be used to keep children safe; and
- ways to ensure that family members of all ages are prepared, balanced and protected online.
Confidence is key
Mr. McKenna and wife Andrea have been married 25 years. He’s also the father of four children, ages 12-19.
He and his team have given over 1,700 presentations at schools, churches, and other groups throughout the United States and internationally.
He’s a regular guest on news, radio and podcasts.
His 2019 testimony before Congress helped prompt the drafting and introduction of new federal and state child-protection laws for the internet.
He said that of all the things that currently impact a child’s spiritual, relational, neurological and emotional development, technology is likely the most influential.
“When adults come to one of our presentations, they can expect to leave with soaring confidence, knowing how to have these conversations, how to have devices that are better protected, and to put shared values concerning digital things into practice,” he said.
Costs versus benefits
Mr. McKenna noted that artificial intelligence can be used both for amazing good and devastating harm.
“And it is now scalable, and discoverable on any smart phone and downloadable from any app store,” he said.
This just compounds the perennial issues of online bullying and harassment, which are a constant threat to young people’s mental health.
Loving parents often unwittingly play into this these scenarios by giving their children unrestricted access to electronic devices.
“We drop our kids into digital spaces that are not designed with the children’s wellbeing in mind, that do not have filters, that do not point them toward goodness and excellence and integrity,” said Mr. McKenna.
“We want parents to never forget that every digital space we give our children access to has goals for their hearts and minds that are very different from our own,” he stated.
He’ll state the case for creating distraction-free learning environments, and how personal electronic devices — including smartphones, digital watches and similar technologies — provide no proven educational benefits to students in kindergarten through high school.
“They do not enhance the learning and evangelization goals of our education system,” Mr. McKenna stated. “Until they can be proven to have any benefit, we need to remove them from the education environment.”
He noted that these not only create distractions, they also provide a gateway to “a space that is not designed for holiness, not designed to point them toward God’s goodness.”
“We’re allowing our children to navigate hazards and temptations that we would never have been able to navigate successfully when we were their age, and then we get angry at them when we find out they’re not doing that successfully,” he said.
Created for connection
Presenters will speak of the exponential proliferation of pornography on the internet, how easy it is for children to find it and how easy it is for pornography to find them.
“That’s what we have to guard against, prepare against, have conversations about, have policies against in our homes and in our communities,” said Mr. McKenna.
Speakers will address the issue of “sextortion” — how young people can be manipulated into giving up photos of themselves in compromising situations, and then being blackmailed.
“We talk a lot about this issue, which is now more prevalent than ever, and how we can help guard the hearts and minds of our young boys,” said Mr. McKenna.
Participants will also learn about ways they can encourage lawmakers to pass legislation to protect young people in the emerging digital landscape.
Presenters will discuss how technology offers not only artificial intelligence but also artificial intimacy and artificial connection.
These things always leave the user hungry for the real thing, which technology can never offer.
“We’re created for connection, for relationship,” Mr. McKenna noted. “It’s just the way we are, and technology can’t replace that.”
Speakers will also address the example adults give by how they use these technologies in their free time and in the time they share with their children is very important.
They’ll give insights into how adults can pursue authentic connection with their children, which is a foundation for constructive authority.
“You don’t just tell them to do something or not do something, you talk about why we do things, and you foster these discussions during together time, in car time, at mealtime,” said Mr. McKenna.
“It’s very important to be able to help them understand why we use our technology in certain ways so that it doesn’t control us,” he stated.
They’ll talk about a play- and work-based childhood as the foundation for raising a resilient teenager.
“Children need to have chores and responsibilities at home as children,” said Mr. McKenna. “These things help them develop an appreciation for a job well done, for delayed gratification, for the hard work and effort it takes to get the things we’d like to have.”
“The bottom line”
Mr. McKenna said there’s probably nothing else on any adult’s calendar that has as profound or immediate current or eternal impact on their children as to how they use their digital devices today.
“This is a prime opportunity for them to have one-on-one kind of interaction with a known expert in this field,” he said.
He insisted that parents and other trusted adults don’t have to be tech-savvy to have the necessary conversations that will help keep children safe.
“They can lead relationally,” he said. “They can say, ‘I want you to know that whatever you find on this screen that disturbs you, you can land safely and softly with us.’”
Protect Young Eyes offers an age-appropriate digital safety curriculum to schools called “Be Tech Ready.”
Mr. McKenna sees all of this as part of doing God’s work.
“The bottom line is, I think our Lord cares deeply about the things that our children experience during this unique developmental time called their childhood,” he said.
“I want them to care this much about this time in their lives as the Lord does,” he said.
Babysitting will be available for both Protect Young Eyes events in the diocese. Sign up for babysitting using the registration form at: diojeffcity.org/pye-registration.
