The Family IT Guy on Cybersecurity, Parenting, and Keeping Families Safer Online

Summary

PODCAST SUMMARY

Parenting in a Tech World | Bark Technologies
Episode: The Family IT Guy on Cybersecurity, Parenting, and Keeping Families Safer Online
Date: February 4, 2026
Host: Titania Jordan
Guest: Ben Gillenwater (The Family IT Guy)

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Episode Overview

In this illuminating episode, Bark CMO Titania Jordan sits down with cybersecurity expert and parent advocate Ben Gillenwater, also known as The Family IT Guy. Together, they dive into the escalating challenges of parenting in a digitized world: from understanding the insidious design of popular platforms to the true risks children face online, and most importantly, actionable steps parents can take to keep their families safer. With three decades of experience, Ben brings a candid, data-driven, yet deeply empathetic voice—sharing personal stories, expert insights, and practical tools for every family, regardless of technical know-how.

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Ben’s Cybersecurity Background & Personal Tech Parenting Journey
00:49 – 10:01

• Ben has 30+ years in professional IT/cybersecurity, starting from age 14: "I started working at a computer store when I was a kid because I used to go there on the weekends for fun." (01:10)
• His unique path included senior roles at Northrop Grumman and BlackBerry, supporting massive government contracts: "At 27, I became the chief technologist of [Northrop's] $10 billion division... got to work with the NSA, DoD..." (02:33–03:07)
• After becoming a dad, Ben admits to falling into the same digital traps as other parents: “I fell into the same trap everybody else falls into. I, on my own accord, gave him an iPad. I gave him YouTube." (04:14)
• Parental controls proved ineffective; even YouTube Kids exposed his son to traumatic content: "He saw superheroes having sex with each other... nightmares for years." (05:30–05:54)
• Personal story illustrates: Even tech experts aren’t immune. “If I study this stuff for a living... and I hand these drugs to my kid and take it all for granted, how hard is it for people with no tech savvy?” (07:59–08:38)
• Realization: Tech is the problem, but not the answer—behavioral changes and relationship modeling matter more than perfect digital controls. (09:39–10:01)

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The Roblox Revelation: User-Generated Content, Business Models & Dangers
11:41 – 22:10

• Ben's online following surged after exposing dangers in Roblox—the “perfect intersection” of children, user-generated content, and predatory business incentives.
• Key insight: “Anytime you use something that’s free, it’s not free... Often you’re exchanging your attention." (13:16)
• Roblox is incentivized to keep children engaged and spending money, often at the expense of appropriate content filtering—even when registering as an eight-year-old:
  • "I could still see the thumbnail and names of all these really sexual games, but couldn’t open them." (16:57)
  • Explicit games like ‘Public Bathroom’ and ‘Dress To Impress’ exposed raunchy, hypersexualized, or violent scenarios to young users.
• Vivid quote: "It was like I gave him drugs... He would wake up earlier... drop his bag, and go to the iPad." (06:38–07:16)
• Core principle: Understand platforms through both technical tests and incentive analysis. “If they filter things for children, they reduce potential for buying Robux.” (15:47)
• Emphasizes critical parental role: focus on values, not just controls—“We have conversations around the fundamentals of respecting yourself and [others]... this game was rating girls based on their sexiness.” (21:10)

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The Family IT Guy Community: Resources, Community, & Stillness as an Antidote 22:57 – 25:15

• FamilyITGuy.com: Free articles, device/app setup guides, deep dives into dangers, plus an affordable parent community.
• “Community is one of the solutions... how do you surround yourself with people on the same journey?” (24:00)
• Introduces a self-built meditation app, Being, to help children (and parents) practice “stillness” as an antidote to Internet chaos.
• “Freedom is expensive. Time is expensive... We have to start by investing in ourselves. Because you can’t help your kids unless you help yourself first.” (24:51–25:15)

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Parental Modeling & Habits: Practicing What You Preach
25:31 – 30:54

• Ben details intentional family practices, e.g. “Sundays are no tech... our favorite day.” (26:25–26:54)
• Daily routines: Phone on Do Not Disturb, notifications silenced, screens hidden: "Whenever my son is with me, I fight my best to not touch my phone." (27:27)
• Emotional reflection: "My fear is that any of his moments include my phone being in the way... makes me emotional." (28:02)
• Defines “attention as a currency” and queries: “What am I consciously allowing to take my attention?” (29:25)

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Top Three Things Ben Would Never Let His Child Do (and Why) 31:21 – 58:21

1. Anonymous Online Chat: (31:31–40:09)

   • “Number one is anonymous online chat. All the chat systems... you’re connecting them to people that mean them harm."
   • Explains sextortion, grooming, and criminal networks; shares stats and tragic cases, e.g., Jordan Demay (34:46).
   • Quote: “If you give your kid access to a chat system... you are exposing the worst forms of evil to your kid.” (69:17)

2. Exposure to Addictive Algorithms (Endless Scroll): (40:17–58:02)

   • Defines bottomless feeds and profit-driven addiction: “You have to maximize the mental attachment to the product... drive people down a rabbit hole.” (41:16)
   • Cites data: Suicide is now the 2nd leading cause of death for children in the US, rising exponentially in tandem with social media adoption (45:50, 47:02).
   • Vivid statistic: “…In the 80s and 90s, 1 out of 20 children’s deaths were self-inflicted. In 2019, it was 1 out of 5.” (46:40)
   • “If you expose your kids to algorithms, you are putting them at a severe risk of highly damaging mental health issues.” (51:03)

3. Unmonitored AI Use: (58:21–66:23)

   • “Never let your kids use AI alone. Plus one to that with no nuance and no exceptions.” (58:26)
   • AI systems are not reliably truthful, fact-checked, or aligned with user safety.
   • Shares case study: Adam Raine, a teen whose ChatGPT conversations ultimately discouraged help-seeking and contributed to his suicide. (59:22–59:53)
   • Discusses “sycophancy” (AI mirroring dangerous user beliefs instead of offering critical guidance) and the prospect of AI systems exacerbating mental health crises for children.

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A Deeper Dive: Evil Online Networks & The 764 Cult 66:47 – 70:41

• Discusses the “764” self-harm cult: “That actually is literal evil by design. It’s the worst kind of pyramid scheme where kids are leveraging other kids..." (67:07)
• FBI has issued multiple warnings about such networks.
• Reminds parents: chat systems are prevalent in nearly all major platforms (Roblox, Fortnite, Minecraft, Snapchat, etc.), often appearing innocuous but becoming conduits for exploitation and harm. (69:29)

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Critical Practice: Tech Use in Bedrooms & The White-List Approach
70:41 – 71:34

• “If we’re going to do just one thing, it’s no tech in bedrooms or bathrooms. All tech needs to be in common areas of the home.” (70:54)
• Data point: Over 10% of Bark severe alerts occur between midnight and 6am.
• Advocates for a whitelist (allow only approved apps/sites) instead of blacklist (block as problems arise) approach for all children’s devices.

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Ben’s Review of Bark Phone, Watch, and Parent Tools
71:51 – 77:41

• Put Bark phone/watch through rigorous, expert-designed review: “I have like 147 requirements... Bark meets all the must haves.” (72:27, 73:44)
• Key praise for tamper-proof design, ease of use for parents (cross-ecosystem), and AI-powered alerting: "The Bark product is a low friction product that is accessible cross platform... parents have to generate [access codes] on their phone, which is the correct way to do it." (73:45–76:28)
• Emphasizes: Surveillance alone is overwhelming—tools must be discerning, respect privacy, and highlight only the critical alerts.

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Final Thoughts & Philosophical Anchors
77:55 – 79:42

• Self-Responsibility is Essential: The industry won’t fix itself. Parents MUST model and teach self-control, critical thinking, and “separating ourselves from the technology.”
• “Rules don’t work. Skills work... bring [kids] on the journey so that when they leave the house... they have the skills they need to survive and be set up for success.” (78:00 – 79:42)
• Actionable challenge: Share your own screen time stats, model incremental improvement, normalize failure, and iterate together as a family.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments with Timestamps

• "It was like I gave him drugs." – Ben, on the addictive nature of iPads for kids (06:38)
• “If I study this stuff for a living... and I hand these drugs to my kid... how hard is it for people with no tech savvy?” (07:59)
• “What gets measured, gets done.” – Ben, on business incentives, especially for platforms like Roblox (12:47)
• "We have to start by investing in ourselves. Because you can't help your kids unless you help yourself first." (24:51)
• "My fear is that any of his moments include my phone being in the way... makes me emotional." (28:02)
• “If you allow access to chat or algorithms, you are putting [kids] at severe risk of highly damaging mental health issues.” (51:03)
• “Never let your kids use AI alone. Plus one to that with no nuance and no exceptions.” (58:26)
• “Self responsibility is the deepest answer... bring [kids] on the journey with you.” (78:00–79:42)

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Resource Highlights

• FamilyITGuy.com: Free and paid community, tech setup guides, meditation app (Being)
• Articles referenced: “Digital Danger Zone” (statistical analysis)
• Bark phone/watch lauded for best-in-class parental controls, tamper resistance, and actionable alerts.
• Meditation/mental wellness app: Being (available on iOS/Android)

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Conclusion

This episode is a wake-up call and guidebook for every parent navigating the intersection of technology and childhood. Through expert testimony, sobering data, and genuine empathy, Ben and Titania distill the “why” and “how” of raising children to be resilient, thoughtful, and protected digital citizens. A must-listen (or read) for anyone who wants to keep up—and keep their kids safe—in today’s tech world.

Transcript

[A]

We are thrilled to be chatting with Ben Gillenwater, aka the Family IT Guy. Today, Ben is a 30 year cybersecurity expert and dad on a mission to help families navigate the digital world safely. Whether you're a tech savvy parent or just trying to keep up, Ben shares tips every family can use to stay safer online. All right, so Ben, you. You've blown up just over the past year alone. Like, you've been doing this a long time, but the Internet has really been like, oh, yeah, yeah. But for anybody who doesn't already know you, and they should, can you share a little bit about your background in cybersecurity first and then how you became the family IT guy?

[B]

Sure. Yeah. So I, yeah, I've been doing the tech thing professionally for over 30 years now.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

I started in 95 when I was 14.

[A]

Right, right. Yeah.

[B]

Because to be clear, I'm not in my 60s yet.

[A]

I was like, by the way, separate podcast on what you're eating and drinking

[B]

and what do you do?

[A]

Exercise routine. Yeah.

[B]

So, yeah. I started professionally when I was 14 and I never stopped. So I started working at a computer store when I was a kid because I used to go there on the weekends for fun. My dad would say, what do you want to do this weekend? Well, I want to go to the computer store and study all the parts. So I memorized all the SKUs and all the motherboards and all the hard drives and all the things. And then the manager of the store was like, what are you doing? And who are you?

[A]

Who is this kid?

[B]

So I started working there. And then one of our customers who was. He ran a little IT business. He hired me to join him and help look after small business it. Long story short, when I was 24, I went to work for a defense contractor to help run one of their data centers for their fighter jet programs. Wow. So I got to work in the building where the F18 was built. And so on one end of the building was parts, bins, nuts and bolts, and then on the other building was jets, and I got to go out on my lunch breaks and watch them assemble F18s. And then I supported the engineering team that was designing the F35 and a bunch of the drone programs. And so I looked after. We had a whole. It was like in the movies, if you ever see in the movies, and people go into data centers and it's like rows and rows and rows of computers and there's robots and all kinds of stuff. So I helped run one of those. And then the group that I worked for. So Northrop Grumman was the company I worked for.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

They, at the time, they were a $40 billion business. A quarter of their business was it. Wow. So they did all the it for the government, so for the Defense Department, the intelligence agencies, state governments, a bunch of companies. And so when I was 27, I became the chief technologist of that group, that $10 billion division. So I was the most senior technical advisor for this gigantic IT business when I was a child.

[A]

That's really cool and terrifying.

[B]

Yes, it is. That's right. And looking back, it's hilarious. You know, this almost. It's 18 years ago, I was like, wow. I had no idea what I was doing, but I. I guess I knew enough. And so in that role, when I was the chief technologist for Northrop's IT business, I got involved in all of their major contracts. So anytime there was. They needed help with something, I would go help. So I got to work with the nsa. I got to work with different parts of the dod, I got to help with all these big companies like Toyota and Unical and all kinds of stuff. And so I got a really deep view into how technology works. And we had partnerships with all the big tech companies, so we had a big partnership with Microsoft and others, where I got to see under the covers of, like, what are their senior technical people doing? What's coming up next? And then I went to work for BlackBerry for a while, and then in 2012, I left BlackBerry. And then I've been an entrepreneur since. And my. I helped my brother start a gym franchise.

[A]

Nice.

[B]

So the CTO for the gym franchise for a while. And actually just recently, I've stopped doing everything, and now I just do family IT guy. Because I became a dad. And when my kid was 5, I fell into the same trap that everybody else falls into. I, on my own accord, gave him an iPad. I gave him YouTube.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

I gave him the things that said they had parental controls. And even though I knew what the incentives are for the businesses that make those products, I took for granted that their parental controls were effective. And it only took me a couple of days to find out that that wasn't the case.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And so within a couple of days, we took off YouTube because.

[A]

Right. Yeah.

[B]

Even though I had the settings where they were supposed to be, he was watching stuff that wasn't good for him. And then we put on YouTube kids. I was like, okay. And then I took for granted that YouTube Kids was for kids. It's not.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

YouTube Kids at the time was run by a grandma. The CEO of YouTube. Susan. I'm gonna mess up her last name.

[A]

Wojcick.

[B]

Wojcicki. Wojcicki something.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Was CEO of YouTube. Right. It was her grandma. Okay. So you have this product that's, in a sense, made by a grandma that has the word kids. He saw superheroes having sex with each other. Get out in costume.

[A]

Actually, don't get out because we're recording.

[B]

Right. Don't. Right.

[A]

Stay here, stay here.

[B]

So he saw a bunch of nightmare. He had nightmares for years. This is some of the stuff. I mean, like. But then it's this. It was so. It was at the same time so attracted. He wanted to watch the nightmare content, even though he was having nightmares about it. And so we took away YouTube kids. And then I took for granted that the iPad with the parental controls would be an acceptable toy.

[A]

Right. You think Apple, of all companies, should have rock solid, seamless parental controls. Yes, Think again.

[B]

And, you know, even aside from the parental controls, the device itself is so effectively designed.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

That it was like I gave him drugs.

[A]

Oh, man.

[B]

And I mean that in a way that's not literal. But also it is, of course, because there's dopamine. It's a chemical effect. But the reason I say that is because just experientially, he would wake up earlier in the morning to go get his iPad instead of getting ready for school. And he would come home from school, and his. He's a lucky kid. So his. One of his best friends lives across the street, such that when you open our front door, there's his front door.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Dream like, straight line of sight.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so typically the pattern is he comes home from school, drops his bag, and then goes outside, and then they meet outside. Or he goes across the street to meet up with his friend. Instead, he would drop his bag and go to the iPad. And then at night or in the evening for dinner. Dinner was a distraction from the iPad. And then going to bed, he'd want to go to bed later because. Okay, so we took away the whole iPad. Yeah, that was an adjustment, you know, but took it away. And he would use it to communicate with family, too, because he had. Some of his family was on Google, meet some on FaceTime. So that was very unfortunate because he would do video calls with them.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So we just. We would let him use our stuff for video calls as needed. So I. I tell the story because I am, objectively speaking, an expert in this field. I understand how these devices are built and why they're built the way they're built. And I felt right, I fell right into it. And so if I study this stuff for a living and it's all, I think about 24, 7 and then I hand these drugs to my kid and take it all for granted, how hard is it for people that have no tech savvy? Which is most. Right. Most people are not IT experts. 100% percentage wise.

[A]

Right, right.

[B]

You know, so I think it's, it's, it really stood out to me. And then I, A bunch of people would ask me, you know, hey, Ben, what should I do with my kids device? And I started studying and looking and like, well, how should you set up your iPhone or your Android phone or your Chromebook?

[A]

Yeah. Or your Internet service provider settings.

[B]

Yeah. How do you address addiction? And at first I took a technical approach. It's like, oh, well, you need technical filters and you need a custom DNS system that nobody knows how to set up all these other things that are really difficult to manage. And I started specifically focusing on this in January of 24. So we're filming in December of 25 right now. And I have found that actually technology is the problem, but it is not the answer. Because I thought that it was the answer.

[A]

Right.

[B]

I thought, oh, it just changed the technology and then you can help to address the problem. But that's not the case. Actually. I think the. We'll get into the details during our conversation today, but I think the. The answer is much more how we address our own behaviors as parents.

[A]

The relationship that you have with your child, the modeling that you convey to your child.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Ben, I am so grateful that you shared that because I'm out there all the time as, you know, a tech executive that has spent her career at the intersection of parenting and tech. If anybody should have made the right choices with her son, it was me. And like you, I did not.

[B]

Oh, interesting.

[A]

And so you are giving me some relief of like, wow. I mean, this guy, nsa, Northrop Grubman, like, and you. And so just thank you for being so candid about that. Cause we're all struggling. Like I'm going to hopefully with therapy not, but like live forever with a bit of guilt of the childhood that my son didn't have and the innocence that was lost too early because I didn't have the confidence or the insight to do what was right for him, despite what I felt in my gut. And yeah, I fell into that same mistake that a lot of parents make. Well, if everybody else is letting Their kids play Roblox. Like, I guess I'll let him, you know, and. No, don't do that. So how old is your son now?

[B]

He's 10.

[A]

Oh, okay. And do you have other kids?

[B]

No, just one.

[A]

Okay. I just have one as well, so. Wow. That's. Wow. Okay, we have so much to talk about now. When you first started posting, I think it was on Instagram. I was like, this guy's, we need to pay attention to him. And then all of a sudden you blew up. Was there like one post that just skyrocketed your following or one collaboration? Like, where did you go from? Like, I'm doing this cause it's necessary to like, oh, wow, people are paying att.

[B]

Yeah, it was Roblox.

[A]

Oh, there you go. Yeah. My top performing content was Roblox as well. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

It's a very. It's the perfect intersection of all the things. Because it is. So I'd like to just put out there that based on your story. Based on my story, based on everything I've learned and everything I've studied, it's normal to have no idea as to the minutia of every single detail of every single game and every single app and every single device.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And I knew nothing about Roblox before somebody asked me, should I let my kid play Roblox? Because I hadn't played it myself and I hadn't even haven't given it to my kid yet. So I went and looked. And I like to look at things from sort of like a base. Like what are the base principles involved and what are the business incentives? Because one of my favorite phrases is what gets measured, gets done.

[A]

Oh, we like that. We like that. KPIs.

[B]

Yes, right. KPIs. Key performance in your careers.

[A]

Yeah. For those of you who are in the corporate lingo world. Yeah.

[B]

So what are Roblox's measurements? How do they measure success? Anytime you use something that's free, there it's not free.

[A]

Right. There's a cost.

[B]

Right. So you're not exchanging dollars or pesos or whatever your euros. What are you exchanging? Often you're exchanging your attention for Roblox. Specifically. They want your attention because they know that the more time you spend on their platform, the higher the percentages that you will buy Robux.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So they are in the business of

[A]

selling Robux to 5 to 12 year olds.

[B]

Yes. As demonstrated by their partnerships with SpongeBob, Barbie, Disney. Yeah. I mean, these companies that are for. For young children.

[A]

Wait, I think it's Disney. I just OpenAI.

[B]

And they just partnered with ChatGPT.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. So I actually, I don't know if Roblox actually partnered with Disney yet, but I wouldn't be. Don't sue me.

[B]

Yeah, not sure. Right. So, okay. So I like to. So the reason that my stuff kind of blew up in Roblox, because I look at it from the angle of like, what are they trying to do and why.

[A]

Right. With our children.

[B]

Yeah. And then also, instead of just reading the brochure, let me go test the thing myself, which is why I'm here today, because I got to test bark products and I love bark products. And the brochure actually matches the product.

[A]

Heck yes.

[B]

So on Roblox, the brochure, in a general sense, if you look at their website and their marketing materials, it's this really cool game. And it actually is a really cool game. It's a very. It's a brilliant system.

[A]

Right.

[B]

It teaches, it can teach kids how to code. So the games are made by other players. They're made mostly by other people. But the thing is, anytime you intersect free with what's called user Generated content, which is where, like most of the things we consume on social media, Reddit, Roblox, things written by or made by other people. User Generated Content, or ugc. Yeah, ugc. If you have the intersection of free plus ugc, there's usually something that there's a mechanism behind the scenes that's the real driver for revenue, and in this case, it's Robux. And so Roblox knows that for every hour that each person spends on the game or in their system, their likelihood of buying Robux is X. And then if you add for every additional hour you get them to stay, the likelihood increases. So therefore, they are incentivized to maximize the amount of time spent. If you're incentivized to maximize the amount of time spent, then you're incentivized to maximize the attraction of the content, regardless of its quality or its appropriateness. And so if you map that to children, that is why YouTube isn't safe for kids. That is why Instagram is not safe for kids. And that is why Roblox is not safe for kids. Because if they don't, if they filter things effectively for children, they reduce the potential for buying Robux, which is in and of itself totally fair. However, Roblox markets to children, right? So therefore I have a problem with that. And since I tested the product myself and so I read the brochure, okay, it's for kids. Let me go play the game. I found some stuff that in my opinion is bad for kids. And so there's three things that stood out. So the first one was a game called Public Bathroom.

[A]

Oh. Oh, yeah.

[B]

Sounds a little edgy, perhaps. So, okay, I registered as an eight year old.

[A]

Important fact, right?

[B]

So I didn't register as a 45 year old. I registered as an 8 year old.

[A]

I'm 45 too. Up top.

[B]

Oh, I find. So I go into the game and a lot of them were. A lot of the games were locked. They had little padlocks. I could still see the thumbnail and the names of all these really sexual games.

[A]

Oh, wow.

[B]

But I couldn't open them to play

[A]

them because Roblox knew you were eight.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

So their filtering system works most of

[A]

the time, but you still saw a snippet.

[B]

Yeah, right. It's like I remember when I was a kid, if you didn't have the right cable TV channels, they'd be fuzzy or there'd be snow and then sometimes you could. Is that a boob?

[A]

Right? Yeah. You're like. I think was that.

[B]

It was like that. Especially as a young boy, I'm like, whoa, let me keep looking at that. So it's like that, but without the snowy. It's a clear thumbnail image of like what the thing is and the name and the description. Which goes to show, by the way, that because they're in the business of keeping your eyeballs right, if they didn't do that, they would get less eyeball time.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

They would sell less Robux. So I go into this public bathroom game that was not locked, it was not filtered. So I go in and it's like the YMCA by where I live has this big indoor pool. And so it reminds me of this like kind of YMCA style, just massive indoor pool. And then around the thing that was not like the YMCA was that around the edges of the pool were beds. And then there's characters humping each other on the beds and making very sexual noises.

[A]

Oh my gosh.

[B]

And it's in stereo. So as you walk around, you can hear the one on the left and you can hear the one on the right. And I have a recording of this on my TikTok, so you can. I recorded myself playing that.

[A]

Oh my gosh. Yeah, we need to link to that in the comments.

[B]

Yeah, I'll send you guys the.

[A]

Oh my gosh.

[B]

And so I was like, okay, this is not really for eight year olds.

[A]

No.

[B]

So I leave the pool area and I walk into the bathroom component, which is the main, main theme of the game. And then, so you have bathroom stalls and then you have these like bathtubs with curtains, shower curtains. And there's people going in and out of the stalls and the bathtubs together and like humping each other in the bathtubs. Okay, so this is interesting. And then I played a game called Rob mom where you're dropped into a room where you can get a gun. And then there's a big projector on the wall that says who the name. The name of the wealthiest person so you're. So you can go kill the rich people. And then, and then there was an Apple store and I got to shoot the Apple store employees and the cops showed up and then they shot me. Right. I'm an eight year old.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So. And I was playing it in a way where like, what would I do if I was eight? Get the gun and go shoot people? Because, like, it's a video game.

[A]

Right.

[B]

You know, and then, and then I played the game that is the feature game. When you first drop into Roblox, it's dressed to impress. Oh boy. So then my character turned into a little girl wearing underwear.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And then you're in a place where you can go shop for outfits. And the reason that you shop for outfits is so that you can compete with the other girl figurines for who's the sexiest.

[A]

I have played that game with my son as well. And that was one of my first realizations of like, this isn't for him.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But please continue.

[B]

It just, you know, and there's a lot of. I say all this recognizing that everybody has their own values. Right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So this is through the lens of my values and my values, my like family values tell me that. So I teach my son to respect girls. We have conversations around the fundamentals of respecting yourself and respecting the girls that are around you. And the way you do that is you support them, you don't touch them. If, if it's your cousins or something, you can give them a hug or something. But like you respect them by respecting their person and respecting their space and respecting the value of their humanity and their brains and their minds and their souls. And this game was raiding girls based on how sexy they are as little young girl figurines, which is against my values.

[A]

That's so sick.

[B]

Like, I don't think that's okay for. Because even if my character, because I told it I was a boy, even if my character was a girl, I don't. My. The Little girls in my life, my, my nieces, you know, I don't. I want them to respect themselves too. That they're more than just how others rate them based on their sexiness or

[A]

just appearance in general. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Like that's not, that's not a, that's not what I want them focusing on, you know, so anyway, so that was my experience with Roblox and I started talking about that and all of a sudden there's like, you know, millions of views and tens of thousands of comments and all these things. And, and so I've just, I'm just on a roll. Like I just look at like, what are all the things that kids are exposed to and what are the problems and how are these problems manifesting and then what can we do to help the kids? The theme of my work is setting up kids for success. How do we set up kids for success?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

What path can we guide them on or what path can we show them? What skills can we help them develop so that they can have positivity and love and knowledge and respect so that they can become free, useful, valuable, loving people?

[A]

I mean, what you're saying is common sense. But we as a society, globally have gone so far away from it and we need more people like you speaking online to educate everybody on the fact that tech is a tool, it's a very powerful tool and we need to teach our children how to use it responsibly and not be used by it.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

You have built an online community for parents. We'll make sure that your handles and places are linked everywhere that you're watching and listening to this. But can you just tell us a bit more about that and what parents can expect when they join?

[B]

Sure. Yeah.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

So my website is familyitguy.com it's amazing.

[A]

That was available same when I found

[B]

that, I was like, awesome.

[A]

Take that. Is the one winning?

[B]

Yeah, I like this. And it's the family IT guy too.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

So I. The website is primarily free, so I have a ton of articles and breakdowns. And how do you set up YouTube kids? How do you set up Minecraft? How do you set up Fortnite? What do you need to know about what things, what stuff out there is dangerous that you should be aware of?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then I have a very inexpensive but paid community where it's just to be amongst like minded people. Because I think community is one of the solutions is how do you surround yourself with people that are on the same journey.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So I have this, this community that you can find on my website. I've got, you know, I even have a meditation app that I built recently just for this purpose. Because I think part of the answer is stillness and boredom. And how do you embrace the Internet is chaos.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And so the antidote to chaos is stillness, calm. But you have to practice stillness. And all of this stuff takes practice. It all takes effort. Because similar like what we're talking about with these software systems where they're free, but they're not really free.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So actually nothing is free. Right. The best things in life have costs. Freedom is expensive.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Time is expensive. Attention is expensive. Love is expensive. We have to invest our energy and our passions and our own time and stuff into those things. And we have to start by investing in ourselves. Because you can't help your kids unless you help yourself first.

[A]

That's right. And you mentioned leading by example modeling. How has your tech usage changed as you're trying to model a healthy relationship with tech for your son?

[B]

That's a great question. I've. I've had to really take it head on.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, there's times in my life where I look back, I remember explicitly when I was in my 20s, I was at a. One of these open lawn, open air concerts in the summertime, and I was amongst some friends and I was on my BlackBerry the whole time.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And one of my friends was like, hey, man, like, that's, you know, rude.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like, what are you doing?

[A]

Right.

[B]

And now, now that I have a kid, I mean, I, you know, and I work all the time. So I work, I work like six days a week, 10 to 12 hours a day, sometimes like 16 hours, depending on the day. So one of the things I've done is to make sure that I don't work seven days a week is my wife and I and our son have all agreed to take Sundays off. And so Sundays are no outside world day.

[A]

Oh.

[B]

Sundays are no tech. Sundays are no external signals. And so Sundays are like disconnect and focus on each other. So that's one of the things that has been the most impactful. It's our son's favorite day. It's my favorite day. It's my wife's favorite day. It's probably our dog's favorite day. Totally. Our bikes get used the most on Sundays. Our board games get used on Sundays. Our barbecue gets used on Sundays. I have to fight the desire to take my phone and check something or do something is just drawing at me, even if it's in a different room. What I do day to day is when I'm done with work, I turn my phone on do not disturb mode, and I have it set up where it sets it to black and white. It turns off all the notifications. Nobody except for my family can call me.

[A]

Amazing.

[B]

No dings, no buzzes. And then I also am very conscious, and I'm definitely not perfect at it, but whenever my son is with me, I fight my best to not touch my phone. Because my fear is that any of his moments include my phone being in the way of him wanting to say something, of him wanting to make eye contact with me, of him wanting to come and hug me. That makes me emotional.

[A]

Me too.

[B]

You know, these are the things that are in my mind. And so in the mornings, I wake up before he does and my routine is like, I make coffee and I have this little thing I do. And then now that it's funny because, like, I don't use social media personally. And I actually, luckily, one of my friends helps me with my social media because I don't even know how. And so she helps me post all the right things. Like, I don't know the difference between this kind of post and a story. And this stuff.

[A]

Okay. Probably so much healthier because of that. Oh, my gosh, that's great.

[B]

I have no idea what's going. I don't check the news. Amazing.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

But I do have to check. I check all my comments.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Because people ask me for help and I want to reply to people. And so part of my routine now is checking all my comments.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And then when he wakes up and he comes out of his room, I put my phone down.

[A]

Beautiful.

[B]

And so. And then I try to put it face down.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

You know, so that I don't see it light up or anything. So I'm just basically throughout my routine every day. I'm thinking, how can I distract from the thing that's trying to get my attention, from the thing literal thing that's trying to get my attention so that the person that's trying to get my attention can have my attention.

[A]

Yes. How can I be present with the people who are actually in my presence versus the hundreds or thousands of people that I'm connected to.

[B]

Yeah. And so I think I like this concept of attention as a currency.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And we have a few currencies. We have time, we have attention. And then we have the currencies that go in the. In an actual bank, like the dollars, of which I have few of all of those. They're all scarce. But Attention is the one that I think about the most. So when you ask about adapting the way that I, you know, how do I interact with technology? I think about it in the context of attention. And attention can be taken and it can be given. Where am I consciously giving my attention? What am I consciously allowing to take my attention? And what am I unconsciously allowing to take my attention? And am I just. Is it being zapped from the stuff on my phone and from the outside world? I see my phone as a proxy to the outside world.

[A]

Yeah. There's an opportunity cost.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. And that cost is heavy. And you can't get it back. You can't make more attention. You can make more money sometimes if you're lucky, but you cannot make more attention.

[A]

Or more time.

[B]

Or more time.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I'm here for my family. I'm here for myself and my family and first. And the outside world and all the rest of that. That. That desires my attention in any way, positive or negative, that's secondary. And I'm. I'm. So that's my approach. That's the basics of my approach.

[A]

I love it. I hope we can all take just one little tidbit away from that and start to make some subtle but very powerful changes within our own homes. Speaking of that, I'm gonna ask you for the top three things, but if you've got four or five, feel free to share them. But what are the top three things you would never let your child do as the cybersecurity expert that you are?

[B]

Yeah, I mean, you know, the never thing is interesting because it's an absolute and it's difficult. So I'll tell you the things that I would try to help them understand of what they need to avoid.

[A]

Cool.

[B]

Number one is anonymous online chat. All the chat systems that exist and all the big games. And on the social media programs. It makes me sound old, doesn't it? Social media programs, social media apps. Like I said, I don't use this stuff myself, so I know how they work. I know what they are.

[A]

But you know the dangers.

[B]

Yeah. So if the fact of the matter is right now. So there's a couple of unfortunate facts that we'll probably talk about today. This is one of them. The current state of affairs is that when you give your kid access to a chat system that has strangers on the other side, there's a bunch of people that mean them harm that you're connecting them to. So the. There's two types, specifically. There's sexual predators and there's criminal networks. Both of which are looking to actively exploit children. Specifically, the sexual predators are looking to exploit all different ages and every child that they desire to. And they don't hang out by the park in a white van and risk getting arrested. They hang out on the Internet behind a VPN using proxies so that nobody can figure out who they are. So that they can trick kids into thinking that they're kids and that they can become have some kind of relationship with them and then convince them to do things and basically groom them. Which grooming means to get somebody used to something that they're not already used to. So they slowly get them used to things so that before they know it, they're doing something that they probably shouldn't be doing. And then eventually potentially even use that to exploit them in person, which happens a lot. The criminal network kind has automated hunting programs that primarily target teenage boys. And the reason they do that is because the biology is easy to take advantage of.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Just like I talked about when, you know, HBO in the 90s with the snowy, like is that a boob? You know, teenage boys have a proclivity that their biology drives them towards where if you pretend that you are on the other end, you know, if you're a creep, that's a 45 year old man in Manila and you send them a picture of yourself, supposedly that's like an attractive girl and like, hey, send me a picture back. They will.

[A]

Yeah. The odds are in your favor.

[B]

Yeah. To the effect that this happens to boys multiple times to the same boy. I mean this is, the biology is so strong, of course that you can do it again and again and again re. Victimize the same person.

[A]

It's so horrific. I mean the FBI has released multiple warnings this year alone about the rise in sextortion and, and not just younger like older teen boys, like 17 years old.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And then they're so ashamed, they're so afraid. They're like, I can't possibly reach out for help. I can't tell my parents about this. And then they die by suicide. They would rather die by suicide than talk to their parents or a law enforcement official to get the help they need. And that is heartbreaking.

[B]

Yeah. It reminds me of the story of Jordan Demay from Michigan.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

I believe he was 17.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And that was one of like I've this work has me crying at my desk sometimes. And that was one where it's just like so heavy to read. But everybody should read about that story because it's not uncommon. And his mom has said since that she didn't know what sextortion was. He probably didn't know what it was either.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Most people don't. I mean, this is not common. This is new stuff.

[A]

Right. This is a new form of crime.

[B]

Yeah. In fact, the statistics specifically on sextortion are fairly remarkable in a very bad way. So I like to look at, when I look at statistics, I like to look at the change over time to indicate is the problem static or is it changing? Is it growing or shrinking?

[A]

Right.

[B]

This problem is growing very quickly. So I'll give you some numbers, please. So there's a tip line that the national center for Missing and exploited children runs.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

1-800-the lost yes. So the national center for Missing and Exploited Children is a group that's funded by the US Congress, and they participate with a lot of the state's Internet crimes against Children task forces, and they collaborate with the FBI and they collaborate with tech companies. So that if you're. If somebody exploits you with an image of yourself, they help you get it removed.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

So they keep track of the stats. So specifically for the category of the number of times that adults sexually exploited children via the Internet in 2023 was 187,000 in 2024.

[A]

And that's just known.

[B]

That's reported. Reported to a single tip line.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Because not only. Cause. How many people know about sex tortion? Not very many. How many people know about the national center for Missing Exploited Children and what their phone number is and how to contact them?

[A]

Less than that.

[B]

And that. That's a thing you could do when you've just experienced an emergency in your

[A]

family and you're in crisis mode.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Even if you call the police, they may very well not know that. Like, oh, you should go call these people. Right. So this is a subset of the actual number. And like, how many get reported? Most are not going to get reported. I would guess so 187,000. In 2023, 2024, the number increased to 546,000. Wow. A hundred of thousand. A hundred thousand of which were AI generated. Which means that those kids didn't even get tricked into taking a nude photo of themselves and sending it to a stranger. The stranger used a photo of that kid, a regular photo, made it naked, and then extorted the kid using that.

[A]

Which is a strong reminder to all parents, and I've done this myself, do not post pictures of your family of your children online. At least not publicly.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Friends of friends. Private mode. Close friends. But when in doubt, just Text it to grandma. Right. You don't need to be making your profile photo on Facebook, for example, your kid's school photo.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Or your family Christmas photo. Like that's. Let's not do that anymore. It is so easy for anyone, bullies or predators alike, to take your child's likeness and manipulate it into things that are bad and can hurt them.

[B]

That's right. And it's, I mean, of course, it's so extremely unfortunate because what a beautiful thing to share your family with all your friends and your community and your people that you think in even the world, look how proud I am of my kid, you know, look how beautiful my family is.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

In 2025, we're going to close the year at about a million.

[A]

Oh, Ben. I mean,

[B]

on one tip line, I

[A]

mean, on one hand, I think there is a growing awareness of the tip line. So more people are reporting, right? Yeah, but that's not all just a rise in awareness. That is a rise in occurrence.

[B]

That's right. That's right. I mean, so the, the hunting process is automated for the criminal networks. All the major criminal networks in the world have pivoted to using this because they, they generate money from it.

[A]

Yes, they do.

[B]

So, so they extort the kids for money. They have the kids buy an itunes gift card and then itunes gift cards are like your international currency for whatever reason and it's a thing. So it's like, hey, send us $200 of iTunes gift card. And then you do and oh, now that you did, now you need to send us 300, now you need to send us 500. So they generate a lot of money this way. And so online chat is the first one because I think you wanted the top three. Right. So online chat is number one because that is actually there's direct physical harm that occurs either one to one with the, with the person doing the attacking or with the predator or based on the kid actually hurting themselves. And that's how they tie into self harm cults like 764.

[A]

Oh my gosh.

[B]

So the. That's like we should actually talk about that as a separate thing. So maybe we'll table that for a minute.

[A]

Okay. Yeah, we'll put a pin in 764 and come back to it. But it's.

[B]

But online chat is dangerous.

[A]

Yeah, online chat, that's the first thing of the top three maybe things that you would never let your child do as a cybersecurity expert.

[B]

That's right. The second one is exposure to addictive algorithms, also known as Endless scroll, bottomless feeds, social media scrolling. Yeah, Anything that if you scroll and scroll and scroll and it never stops. That's an algorithm.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

In the context of this conversation.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And if you encounter an algorithm that is dangerous for your kids. Now why is that? The reason is similar to what we're talking about with Roblox. The incentives for the companies that make products that are driven by algorithms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, Sora, the new OpenAI video generation social media nightmare. Their incentives are to maximize eyeball time.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Because all of those companies are not tech companies. Those are advertising companies.

[A]

They, in just 2022 alone, the largest social media platforms generated around $11 billion in ad revenue just from children. It's big money, big business. Could please continue.

[B]

Right. Some of the biggest money that there is.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I mean, Google is an advertising company. Right. I mean, and they make like YouTube is one of their products. They leverage their advertising surveillance infrastructure across other things too. But in the context of what do you need to make sure that your kids don't touch? Are products that are algorithmic and driven to maximize exposure and maximize eyeball time. Now the reason that is is because in order to maximize eyeball time, you have to maximize the mental attachment to the product. And the way that you do that is you drive people down what you could call like a rabbit hole. And so, for example, one of the Facebook or meta whistleblowers that spoke to Congress recently talked about one of the things that Instagram does. So if you're a young girl on Instagram and you post a selfie, but then you cancel the post, it signals to their system that you're feeling bad about yourself, which signals to their advertising network to show you ads for diet pills. And a lot of young people, young girls are getting driven down into these like anorexia rabbit holes. Yeah.

[A]

Disordered eating and body image related issues are on the rise per our annual report data. I mean, we know why.

[B]

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, Bark has a unique insight into this.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Based on the analysis that you guys have now. This, this. I'm already like feeling emotional because just I'm about to say. But I have to say this, okay. The algorithm problem manifests itself in literally the worst ways. Oftentimes we talk about them in the context of anxiety and depression. Now the thing is that a, that that's true. According to any teacher, psychologist, anybody you talk to that studies mental health in children will tell you that that is anecdotally true. But if we're to look at change over time and statistics. We don't really have good data on anxiety and depression because there isn't a globally uniform way of measuring and reporting on anxiety and depression. So I wanted to see for myself, like, what does this really mean? And is the problem, are we just learning more about what's already been happening for a while or is there actually a problem that's growing? Something that is measured very well is death. The World Health Organization operates a mortality database that they have on their website that you can access for free. And they categorize cause of death and they even subcategorize. I won't even talk about the subcategories because it's really dark. But they categorize, for example, self inflicted death.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So I pulled the data for the US and I've pulled age 0 to 39 and they break them into five year groups, you know, 0 to 4, 5 to 9, 10 to 14, so on. And I pulled for boys and girls and said, okay, what percentage of deaths each year since they started gathering data in 1951, all the way to 2021 were self inflicted. And what is the change over time? So in 1951, for example, if we take 10 to 14 year olds, about 1% of deaths were self inflicted. Which actually in and of itself sounds high.

[A]

It does.

[B]

Because these are young children.

[A]

Right.

[B]

My son is 10. Like to imagine such a thing, you know. But the data shows about 1%. In the 80s and 90s, that same age group rose to about 5%. One out of every 20 children of that age group that, that, that died in the 80s and 90s were self inflicted. Like a 5x increase.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

For whatever reason, whatever was going on at that time, it stated about those rates. And specifically ages 10 to 24, generally, out of all the ages I pulled, ages 10 to 24 had a remarkable change specifically between the years of 2007 to 2019.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

I have charts on my website. There's an article called Digital Danger Zone on my website that people should look at. And you can see all these charts. And so I was like, what was happening during these years between 2007 to 2019? And you could see when you look at the charts, the graphs go up and then up and then up. They have these bumps to them. The bumps generally correlate to the release of each new social media platform.

[A]

Oh my gosh.

[B]

To the effect that in the 80s and 90s it was 1 out of 20, it was 5%. In 2019 it was 1 out of 5, it was 20%. And of children.

[A]

Yeah. When I started working at Bark almost 10 years ago, the fact that suicide was the second leading cause of death in children in this nation just floored me. I found that out, and I think I had to take the day just. I was like, wow. Wow. And every single day, we're sending between 85 and 100 severe self harm or suicidal ideation alerts. These are children that aren't just, like, thinking about it. These are children who are in imminent danger. And of course, we aren't protecting every child across the nation, so those numbers are probably higher. And also to send a BARK alert to a family, and sometimes we'll hear back from this family saying, your phone, your watch, your app saved my child's life. You know, thank you. We were able to get them the help they needed. We had no idea they were feeling this way. It's just. It's the work. The work that our entire team is doing is so important, and there's so many more issues that we send alerts. Not just suicide and self harm, but the fact to your point that it has increased exponentially. And we can point to the technological advances that have fed that epidemic, and yet the entities responsible for it cannot currently be held liable or accountable for that. Is a problem.

[B]

Yeah. Yes, it is. And the. That's why it's so impactful to have conversations like this, because we started off the conversation talking about the things that I took for granted.

[A]

Mm.

[B]

The things that we're discussing are all brand new. To be a parent of a human has a new category now that never existed in humanity before, prior to roughly 2007.

[A]

Right.

[B]

That new category is addiction to technology. We don't know how to deal with it for ourselves as adults. We definitely barely know what to do for our kids, which is why we're sitting here talking about it.

[A]

Right. Because we have to act.

[B]

I think that this is one of the biggest crises in human history.

[A]

I could not agree more. This is not, I don't know what the word is. There are things that people worry about that they don't need to worry about.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

This is, I think, the biggest public health crisis in the globe. This is the biggest experiment that has been done to humans, particularly children. At what point would any of us say, yeah, her, take my kid, take their mental health, take their physical health, and just, let's see what happens for the next 15 years. You know, you just do what you want.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And make money off of them. Yeah, we would never do that. Yet we are doing that.

[B]

Yeah. And we're all. We're all just. We've all fallen into it ourselves, and the kids are falling in right behind us. And so that's why it's most important to focus on our own relationship with technology first and not take it for granted and realize that, like you said, there's a lot of problems that are. That you can brush off.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Everybody's got a problem to share.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Everything's out there.

[A]

Life is hard.

[B]

You know, nowadays, your food's trying to get you, Your water's trying to get you.

[A]

The protein powder you're using has lead in it. Like, Lord, help me.

[B]

Yeah, right. The baby formulas and all the things, bpa, whatever. But if you expose your kids to algorithms, you are putting them at a severe risk of highly damaging mental health issues.

[A]

Right. And it's not just Ben and Titania that are saying this. The U.S. surgeon General, the nation's top doctor, said social media needs a warning label, just like cigarettes. Ask any pediatrician in the nation how many more children are being brought to their practice for mental health concerns. Not the fever, not the cold, not the broken arm. Mental health concerns. I'd say it's about a 30% increase or 30% of their patients. Patients are now presenting to their offices for mental health issues as a direct relation to their screen time and social media use. Ask any ER physician, pediatric ER physician, they'll tell you. Over the past 15 years, the amount of children that have arrived at their ER with either successful or unsuccessful suicide attempts have skyrocketed. We have enough data to tell us beyond a shadow of a doubt what we need to be doing differently to better protect our children as parents and as a society. And it's time for parents to wake up and start paying attention and do the right thing. And we're telling you this not to judge you, but as two parents who have worked in tech and have made mistakes of our own volition, and we wish we could go back in time. Not to speak for you, but I bet, you know, wish could go back in time and do some things differently. We can't. We cannot go back. All we can do is sound the alarm. Using, ironically, social media as a tool to educate and hope enough people pay attention.

[B]

Yeah. And I think I actually. I'm glad that I've experienced the problems that I have, and I'm glad that my kid got to go through it, too, because if he had not, and if we had not, they would have been worse in the future.

[A]

Interesting.

[B]

So these problems are getting worse with every day that Passes. And I think that failure, in a sense, is the best teacher.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

You know, like you have to fall down in order to get back up and learn about how you fell.

[A]

Resilience.

[B]

And I love teaching kids about that. I love, like, you know, my kid has, like, his legs are destroyed because he's fallen down so much. You know, awesome, man. Get up and do it again.

[A]

Bruises, cuts, sprains, all of it, as

[B]

long as we're still here talking about it. And these statistics indicate that a lot of kids aren't.

[A]

But what Ben is not saying, if I can speak for you, is just let your kid have unfettered access. We're not talking about those sort of mistakes.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

Because there's some things you can't unsee and that can harm your heart and your mind for the rest of your life.

[B]

That's right now. Correct. If I could go back and say, would I have chosen outright to expose him to those things, knowing what I know now? No.

[A]

Right.

[B]

The reason I bring up that failure can be useful is because there are 5 billion people in the world on social media. And so almost everybody listening to this conversation can probably relate to, wow, maybe if I could do it again, I would do it differently. But here we are now. And so from this point forward, we have to embrace the fact that the stuff that we have access to, that attracts our minds, that is free, is not free. It is the most expensive for our kids. It's very expensive for adults because you can't get back your attention. You can't oftentimes get back your mental health. Mental health. You know, there's this guy, Dr. Daniel. Amen.

[A]

Oh, yeah, it's great. Big fan.

[B]

He's actually why I made the meditation app.

[A]

Nice.

[B]

He describes a meditation protocol. I built the app on his protocol.

[A]

Nice.

[B]

Because I went looking for an app that did what he describes and there wasn't one.

[A]

Brilliant.

[B]

So I just made my own.

[A]

Brilliant.

[B]

So I like his stuff.

[A]

What's the app called?

[B]

It's called Being, Being, and Apple Store, Google store, Apple Watch, iPad, iPhone, Apple TV and Android.

[A]

Nice.

[B]

And I have it on my watch. I actually used it before this.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

You know, and it's. So he describes this process where it's a 15 second breathing cycle, and if you do it four times, it makes you feel calm. So I call the app being one minute to calm.

[A]

Ooh, very cool. Well, hopefully remember to drop a link to that as well, because that sounds like it can help people.

[B]

Yeah. And so you have to invest in all that to say Dr. Amen has a lot of great stuff around the importance of mental health and investing in mental health. And you have to practice it, you have to invest in it, you have to make trade offs of your own. So first of all, recognize the trade offs you're making right now every time you open Instagram.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

What are you trading and what are you showing your kids? And then make the explicit, I recommend make the explicit trade off of not using that thing, which is very difficult,

[A]

very hard to do.

[B]

These are addictive substances. They are built by the world's best addiction experts.

[A]

Yeah, they're leading scientists and behavioral experts in Ph.D. in psychology and human behavior.

[B]

The best of the best.

[A]

Right.

[B]

The best software engineers with the best psychologists and the best psychiatrists are making things to addict you on purpose. So it's not easy. It's not supposed to be easy, but the best stuff is not easy. The best stuff is hard. And so if you value yourself, if you value your mental health, if you value demonstrating to your kids a healthy way of interacting with technology, then one of the things that you can and should practice is separating yourself from your technology. And you alluded to it earlier, basically demonstrating to yourself that you can control your tech as opposed to it automatically, by default, controlling you. Because if you think about your behavior patterns and how many times you pick up your phone and how many times it dings and buzzes and how much time on the clock it takes from when you look into it to where you look up and how often that is per day, which the phone will tell you if you look in the screen time settings.

[A]

Yeah. I do not like reflecting on that because it's like, wow, that could have done so many other things during that time. Now, granted, if I'm working right, answering emails, taking phone calls, that's one thing, but just passive time.

[B]

Yeah, there's definitely nuance.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So those are two.

[A]

Yeah, those are two. So hold one. Hold right there. We've got. Got number one. We got number two. What's number three? And again, we're talking about the things you would never let your child do as a cyber security expert. So number three is AI. Oh, I'm so glad you said that. Please expand.

[B]

Okay. I'll say the quick part up front.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Never let your kids use AI alone. Plus one to that with no nuance and no exceptions.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Do not let your kids use any product that is powered by a large language model, which is all the current, like the chatbots. Do not let them use them alone. These things are also Incentivized to maximize exposure.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

For various reasons. There are horrific stories of the outcomes that have already occurred. So ChatGPT is like the most popular software product in history, I think. I can't remember what the timeline was. It didn't take them very long to reach a billion users. And then their Sora app actually grew even faster. But everybody should look up the story of Adam Rain. Who? R A I N E. He's a boy who committed suicide.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And he was chatting with ChatGPT about his. His thoughts and his desires, which included telling his mom so that she could help him not do it. And the Transcripts from his ChatGPT logs indicate that ChatGPT convinced him not to tell her and that he doesn't owe her anything.

[A]

It's horrific. It's absolutely horrific. And yet ChatGPT is still allowed to operate without ramification. Yes, because of the bad PR and hopefully because people that work there have a sense of decency. Implemented some parental controls now based on this, but it shouldn't have come to that.

[B]

And their parental controls are garbage.

[A]

Well, there's that too.

[B]

I tried it myself. I'm sure you total nonsense. Yeah, it's smokescreen.

[A]

I have yet to see meaningful parental controls from anyone but bark.

[B]

Yeah, it's rare.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And that's very disappointing.

[A]

They could do better. They could ask their own system how to do better.

[B]

Yeah. And I mean, it's because we operate on quarterly financial cycles. And so the entire structure of our investment system as a society requires short sighted thinking. And then if you don't operate in that way, if you operate with long term thinking, then you get fired. Because if you're the CEO of a public company and you don't maximize shareholder value, then you're not doing your job. So the board will fire you and get somebody that will. So AI should never be used by kids alone. At the same time, every adult should maximize their education and awareness and exposure to AI with two things in mind. Maximum skepticism, and where possible, critical thinking, which, you know, in a joking way, is in short supply, it seems.

[A]

You know, I do know it's hard.

[B]

Not everybody has that. And one of the reasons is because our minds are so distracted because of the chaos, because of the lack of

[A]

stillness, because of the brain rotation.

[B]

Yes. And this is by design. This is not blaming any individuals. This is the way things are right now is our brains are so busy and distracted with all the chaos that we're not thinking deeply. We're not taking the opportunity to practice deep critical thought. But These AI systems, they are very, very fancy word matching machines. And so what they do is, they do what our brains do. So the neural networks in our brains operate similarly to the neural networks that power these AI systems. So if I say the word to you, coffee, what do you think about

[A]

my coffee that I have sitting right here and how bad I want it?

[B]

Okay, so you have, there's a bunch of words that you just said. There's three themes. Those words and themes have other words and themes that are attached. There's a network in your mind that has synapses that connect all these things together.

[A]

Pleasure, comfort, nostalgia, smells, tastes. Yeah.

[B]

And those are connected via electrical pathways. And the pathways that have the least resistance are the strongest connections, which are the ones that come to mind first. And so the AI systems do the same thing. And so when you chat with the chatbot and you feed in words, it goes into its neural network and sees which ones have the strongest mathematical connection. Instead of an electrical connection, it's a mathematical connection. And then it comes back with words that match those that the way that they're connected in the materials that it has studied. So these systems go out and read all the words on the Internet, for example, and the ways that other humans assemble words. And that's how they draw strengths of different attachments to different words and concepts. And then when they reply back, they're, they're just. It's a fancy math game of like, well, here's words that are supposed to go to together according to what other people have connected. That's. That's all there is to it, right? That's the core. I mean, that's very, very simple. But like, that's the core of what's going on. And the reason that's important to understand is because when anybody, a kid or adult, uses one of these systems, these systems are not designed to be truthful. They're not designed to be useful in a sense. I mean, they are in a sense, but they're also not. They're just designed to connect words in a mathematically viable way. And, and those word connections can be used to great extent, Right? We've all, I mean, everybody's used it by now. We all know how magical these things feel. But for a kid, I. Again, back to family values, right? Personal values. Family values. I value honesty and I value usefulness and I value constructiveness, and I value like, benefit of the doubt and positivity. And these systems don't contain those values. They just contain math that connects words in ways that other people Connect words.

[A]

Well, not only that, but there's also the, I'm going to say phenomena or phenomenon of sycophancy, which is a fancy word for basically saying these chatbots. This AI system is prone to excessive agreement and flattery of the individual, using it not prioritizing honesty, but to mirror the user's beliefs, which is really harmful, especially for children who are in distress or searching for reliable, incredible health information. So there is a lot more, a lot more to AI than just let me type in some info and get straight facts. There's hallucinations and in the worst cases that we've seen with children that have died by suicide, I would say there's something darker there beyond just math and science, because I think so too. It's not. Okay.

[B]

I think so too. I actually completely agree. I try to take a very, you know, I'm a tech nerd, so I try to take a real tech nerd approach.

[A]

Data, show me the data.

[B]

But my gut tells me that this, there's something. I'll just be frank about it. I think there's something evil going on. And I think that when you expose kids, there's a psychological nightmare that's attached to, to these systems.

[A]

You speak of evil. Which reminds me, we should talk about 764.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That is evil. It is, it is absolutely evil. It's a network, global network, encouraging children to harm themselves, harm each other, harm their pets, harm their parents. That's not just an algorithm. That is evil.

[B]

Yeah. That actually is literal evil by design. Yeah, it's, it's demonstrative of how when you break a lot of people, then we, then we start to break each other.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, and then, and then kids doing it to each other. So this, so it's, it's now, it's a, it's the worst kind of pyramid scheme where kids are leveraging other kids to leverage other kids to leverage other kids.

[A]

It's horrible. And because we have, as a society, desensitized our children too violent, graphic sexual content, their internal compass that says, hey, this isn't right is a bit muted. And it's, it's horrific, it's terrifying. And so please don't think that this is just something that we're talking about for clickbait or shock value back to the FBI. They have released warnings about this network and that parents need to pay attention.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. I interviewed a dad, this guy, Jason Sokolowski. His daughter Penelope committed suicide because of 764. And that's a heavy one. That, that's a three and a half hour interview where, goodness gracious, when we were done, I had. I literally went and stood in the river and just like stood there.

[A]

I mean, right?

[B]

And just, I mean, I cried and

[A]

just like, it's horrific.

[B]

It's really. The sweet girl Penelope was just leveraged into, like, so she actually thought they, they convinced her that if she didn't do this stuff to herself that they would kill her parents. She was trying to protect her parents and had to hurt herself in order to protect them. Which of course wasn't the objective truth. But these people do go to people's homes to find them and hurt them. So there's a. There. This is like the darkest stuff that you could ever imagine. And the thing is, it happens via exposure to chat systems. If you expose your kid to a chat system, you are exposing the worst forms of evil to your kid.

[A]

Let's make that more real for parents. A chat system. I'm a parent. I'm listening to Ben and Titania and I'm like, okay, where can my kid access a chat system?

[B]

Roblox, Fortnite, Minecraft, Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Sora, YouTube? YouTube has in the comments. Yeah, you have communication through the comments. Basically what it comes down to is historically the approach to tech has been, and it's not been that long of a history, but historically, historically it's been allow access to anything and then if a red flag pops up, go and remove that thing. That's. In the tech world, we call that a blacklist approach. A blacklist approach is you have access to everything except for a few things. The flip side of that is what's called a whitelist approach, where you have access to nothing except for what is specifically given access to. And that is the approach that needs to be taken so that before your kid accesses a thing, you should go and see does it have chat and does it have an algorithm. If it has either one, that is a high risk scenario and proceed with caution. Ideally, don't proceed at all, but. And definitely don't let them use it in their bedrooms.

[A]

Oh my gosh, yes. No connected tech. Behind bedroom, behind closed doors. In the bedroom. If you're fortunate to have a basement or an attic, you know, don't put the tech there. Keep anything in the common areas of the home.

[B]

Yeah, because that's actually the one thing. Because you asked me for three things. If, if, if the question and just throw it out there. If there. If we're going to do just one Thing, it's no tech in the bedrooms or the bathrooms. All the tech needs to be in the common areas of the home. The bedroom should be a place of solace. It should be a place of disconnection. It should be a place of fortitude and calmness. And those devices are the opposite. All the systems that exist on those devices are the opposite. All the worst stuff that happens, all the things we're talking about happens late at night in the bedrooms and the bathrooms.

[A]

100%. 100%. Over 10% of bark alerts are generated from activity happening between midnight and 6am These things are happening while we're sleeping and while our kids are supposed to be sleeping. We need to wrap.

[B]

All right.

[A]

But before we do, and I know we'll be talking more about this online together. You were able to test out the bark phone, the bark watch. Why did you love it? What stood out to you? Just any anecdotes about that?

[B]

Yeah. First off, I always look. Like I said, does the product match the brochure?

[A]

Does the marketing match the actual.

[B]

And it does.

[A]

Good.

[B]

And so I developed my own rubric. I have like 147 requirements.

[A]

Of course you do.

[B]

Myself of like, what a system should have. If I were to build a system from scratch, what would it do? What do parents need? What do kids need? What should the system function like? Is it. Does it respect privacy? All this kind of stuff. And then I go through and I. And I have certain ones that are critical. Like, some are nice to have, some are must have. So bark meets all the must haves. And it actually functions in a way so that a system is useless if parents can't use it themselves, if parents can't figure it out. And so my thing I look for first is what's the experience of the parents? And is it high friction or low friction? So the bark product is a low friction product that is accessible cross platform. So regardless of the type of the device that the parents have, the kid can have a bark phone because the bark phone is an Android phone. Typically you have to stay within the same ecosystem as a family.

[A]

Right.

[B]

If the parents have Android, the kid gets Android. If the parents have iPhone, the kid gets iPhone because the parental controls are ecosystem specific, but bark is not ecosystem specific for the parents. And so like, I have an iPhone, but I was able to test the product and install the parental control suite on my iPhone and then manage the bark Android phone.

[A]

That's amazing.

[B]

And I think I have come to grips with the fact, if you had asked me two years ago would I want a monitoring system surveilling my kids activity and communications online? I'd have a really hard time. I'd have to really think and I'm not sure what I would say fair now. Now that I know the actual objective status of the dangers and that suicide is the second leading cause of death for kids and that mental health is rampant, mental health problems are rampant. The state of affairs is so bad that I think you should have a monitoring and a surveillance system for your kids. But then when you do that, monitoring and surveillance is very time consuming to the effect that if you have a full blown spy system where you can see everything they do, you're actually not going to see any of it. Because after the first couple of days you'll go like, this is too much.

[A]

So overwhelmed.

[B]

What am I going? I can barely read all my own text messages. They've got 145 text messages about Pokemon. I can't read all that. So I like how Bark uses AI and it's ironic in the context of talking about AI, but there's ways to use it for good. This is one of the ways to say, hey parents, of all the thousand text messages, this one message should catch your attention that you might want to look at. And it just shows you the one or two messages that are relevant so that it's privacy respecting while also alerting you to the most important things. And that the filters are effective and most importantly, they're tamper proof. So the tamper proof thing is not common, but the mechanism that Bark phones use is such, where it embeds itself deeper in the system. Which is one of the reasons why you guys sell it as a device. Exactly, because you have the app, which is powerful but not as tamper proof as when you buy the device because it's baked into the device 100%.

[A]

That was such an amazing day when we launched the Bark phone because we knew how many more children would be protected in a comprehensive way without the hair pulling that came with Apple and Bark app. And

[B]

the right way to do it is when the kid tries to make a change on the phone, it does not allow the change. It asks for a passcode. And the passcode is randomly generated on the parent's phone so that the kid can't memorize or steal the passcode because it changes every time. And the parents have to generate it on their phone, which is the correct way to do it.

[A]

We need to get you in a room with our engineers. There would be so many wonderful conversations. They're an amazing, amazing team that built tech for their own kids.

[B]

I mean I used to look after the largest BlackBerry deployment in the world when I worked for Northrop. We were their biggest customer. And then I went to work for BlackBerry and so I understand what it means to control devices and to monitor devices and to facilitate tamper proof high security controls. BlackBerry's at the time were used like President Obama used a BlackBerry. Yeah, so I understand what it means to have tamper proof controls and which mechanisms are required and Bark has the correct mechanisms so that the kid can't override it because kids are smarter than we are, you know. And so it is an effective tool in a very dangerous world. And you must, if you're going to give your kid a device that has Internet access, you should take a white list approach and you must use tamper proof controls. If you do not do those things, they will encounter stuff that they shouldn't encounter and it might end up hurting them.

[A]

Mic drop. Mic drop. Ben, is there anything else that we did not cover that you wish we had covered today or want to want to close with?

[B]

I'd like to close on the importance of self responsibility.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

That is how we address this. The industry is not going to fix itself. Our quarterly financial cycles are not going to change. This stuff is going to keep getting worse. I'm not trying to be doom and gloom, this is a lot of dark stuff here. But the fact of the matter is that it is getting worse and it's not going to stop. The only true answer is self responsibility for ourselves as parents and teaching our kids the skills of self responsibility so that they can navigate this on their own when the time comes. Because we can have rules. Because remember like laws and all this stuff, those are rules, those aren't skills. Rules don't work. Skills work. So we have to develop the skills ourselves by practicing separating ourselves from the technology, by practicing stillness, by practicing focusing inwards and letting the outside world be ignored. Because at the end of the day they are less important than you are and they are less important than your kids are. They is all the social media people and all that stuff and everybody on YouTube. Self responsibility is the deepest answer. So we must focus on ourselves. Tell our kids what we're doing with ourselves. Hey kid, look at my screen time. I'm going to try to reduce that next week. Let me show you whether I did or not. And if you don't, that's okay. Try it again. Show your kids that failure is normal. Try again. Bring them on the journey with you so that when they leave the house, they've seen it before, they know that it can be done, and that they have the skills that they need to survive and to be set up for success.

[A]

It's amazing. I look forward to watching more content from you, especially on even more tips on helping to develop that sense of self guided self responsibility in your children. Because that's a skill set that I think every parent is craving. So I'll keep an eye out for that. BenGillenwater familyitguy.com amazing URL everybody go check him out. Follow him. Thank you so much for being here.

[B]

Thank you for having me.