Rikki Schlott: Parents have had a wake-up call about kids and tech. Here's advice from a Gen Z-er

The callousness of Silicon Valley and the dangers of technology are no longer a mystery. Parents have more data and a clearer picture of the challenge at hand.

As I come of age, I feel a moral imperative to speak up before more children get sucked into the virtual vortex. My lived experience may help shed light on what it’s like growing up under the pressures of the digital age.   Insecurity and the pursuit of social acceptance are hallmarks of adolescence, but they’ve been inflamed by social media. 

With unprecedented technologies come unprecedented consequences. Numerous studies and meta-analyses have uncovered associations between social media use and spikes in depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicide among adolescents. 

It’s obvious that we have a societal obligation to protect our children but many parents feel helpless in doing so. "Very rarely do we have one of these generational shifts where the generation that leads… has such a different set of experiences that they don’t have the context to support their children," Haugen testified.