S2 EP 26 - Internet Culture & Emotional Health: The Safety Dance
5/12/202636 min
Internet Culture & Emotional Health: The Safety Dance
feat. Adam Brooks, Program Coordinator from BARK Technologies for Part 3 of our Screen Time” technology series.
Today we are discussing all things safety, balancing screens with quality time, family tech planning, & opening up a family discussions re: usage and appropriate boundaries. Suzanne took a deep dive into safety and devices, finding BARK. So excited about their work, Suzanne invited BARK to discuss their research on keeping kids safe while encouraging family tech discussions & creating a device plan.
Let’s face facts: Middle schoolers are growing up in a digital world that moves faster than most adults can keep up with. Between social media pressure, group chats, cyberbullying, AI-generated content, online predators, and nonstop notifications, families are trying to navigate challenges that simply didn’t exist a generation ago.
In this episode, Suzanne sits down with Adam Brooks, Program Coordinator for BARK Technologies, to talk about emotional health, internet culture, and practical ways parents can help keep kids safer online without creating fear or constant conflict. This encourages whole family tech input, and creates trust.
Bark Technologies provides monitoring tools, parental controls, screen time management, content filtering, and affordable kid-safe phones and watches designed to help families navigate technology in a healthier and more balanced way.
Together, Adam and Suzanne discuss:
- Why middle school brains are especially vulnerable online
- The emotional impact of social media and comparison culture
- Cyberbullying, online predators, and digital safety
- How to build trust instead of power struggles around technology
- Healthy monitoring vs. invasive parenting
- Practical tools families can use right now
🎉 Special MSMP listener offer:
Use code POPPINS25 for $25 off any Bark phone model or watch (limit 2).
Learn more at:
Bark.us
Questions about Bark services or educational partnerships can also be directed to Adam Brooks at adam.b@bark.us.
Because protecting kids online starts with understanding the world they’re actually growing up in. ☂️💜
Send Suzanne a Question or Comment:
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSuzanne M. Swain· Host0:00
[upbeat music] Well, hey, everybody. It's a beautiful day to bust a few cognitive distortions. How's it going? My name is Suzanne M. Swain, EDS, LMSW, and I'd like to welcome you back to episode three in our Internet Safety and Technology series. Today, we're gonna be talking about something that is shaping almost every part of modern childhood, and that is how kids experience the internet emotionally. For many kids, it's friendship and identity, belonging, stress, emotional regulation, comparison, pressure, and social interaction that's really happening nonstop. Honestly, I think adults are only beginning to understand how intense that experience can be for a developing nervous system. I mean, research consistently keeps showing that social rejection activates many of the same pain centers in the brain as physical pain. So when kids are excluded from group chats, embarrassed online, you know, ignored socially, or caught in constant comparisons, it's like their brains can't even experience that as a real emotional threat. And unlike a lot of adults, kids today often do not get emotional recovery time. Social interaction follows them home in their pockets, and I mean, they're so worried about likes and comments and streaks and DMs and all that stuff, it's ... I mean, don't you think that's probably really emotionally exhausting for them? We also know that during adolescence,