Is Your Child Falling Victim to Online Scams?

Welcome to Parent Pixels, a parenting newsletter filled with practical advice, news, and resources to support you and your kids in the digital age. This week:

• Smartphones might help improve mental health and social well-being — as long as your kid isn’t also using social media, according to a new study.
• Why are kids more susceptible to online scams, and what can parents do to protect them?
• A majority of parents admit their kids need a digital detox. Here’s how to do it successfully.

Digital Parenting

🙅 Smartphones can be good for kids … if they avoid social media: Initial data from a survey of more than 1,500 children suggests that smartphones can be beneficial to mental health and social well-being — unless Timmy starts using TikTok or any other social media. Researchers surveyed children ages 11–13 and found that:

• 78% of children owned a smartphone.
• Among children who owned a smartphone, 21% reported symptoms of depression and anxiety, compared with 26% of those without a device.
• Children who posted on social media were twice as likely to report sleep issues and mental health concerns.

The findings align with results from a separate study, which found that social media use is associated with a rise in loneliness, and feeling lonely can also lead to more social media use over time — creating a feedback loop that’s hard to break.

Our take: More parents are talking about delaying giving kids access to social media. But it’s important to remember that smartphones themselves can be risky, too, due to risks like texts from strangers and cyberbullies. Use those parental controls, monitor your child’s texts, and teach your child how to use their devices responsibly.

⚠️ FOMO makes young adults more susceptible to online scams: Two recent studies of Instagram users between the ages of 16–29 show that kids don’t want to miss out on a social experience, even if they end up falling for a phishing scam. Researchers found that 82.9% fell for a suspicious link in a message at least once, and particularly for those that appeared to be from a friend or a follower with a message like “Check out this private event happening tonight!” The reason: Fear of Missing Out, or FOMO — the fear of not being included in something fun with their peers.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, the lead author of both studies, Jennifer Klütsch, shared the following advice to protect young adults from phishing scams:

1. Slow down. Take an extra moment to think before clicking a link.
2. Verify messages with friends. Use a different messaging app to confirm if they actually sent a suspicious link.
3. Be aware that phishing can happen anywhere, not just emails: texts, Instagram DMs, and more.
4. Parents, talk to your kids about social media risks. Here’s our guide to common online scams targeting tweens and teens.

🤳 Most parents admit their kids need a digital detox: According to research from the Modern Family Index, a majority of parents (73%) say their kids could need to take a break from screens and devices. Broken down by age:

• 78% of parents with children ages 6–17 say their kids need a digital detox.
• 68% of parents with children under 6 years of age say the same.

A “digital detox” is a set period where a person intentionally avoids digital devices, such as smartphones or tablets, with the goal of breaking problematic behaviors and learning balance. Interested in trying out a digital detox for your child? Here are our tips on how to take a screen break successfully. (Psst: It’s even better when you do it as a family.)

---

Parent Pixels is a biweekly newsletter filled with practical advice, news, and resources to support you and your kids in the digital age. Want this newsletter delivered to your inbox a day early? Subscribe here.

---

Tech Talks With Your Child

Online scams can happen to anyone, but scammers are getting more creative — and they’re increasingly targeting kids. Parents, talk to your kids about online safety and how to stop a scammer in their tracks. Here’s how to approach the conversation.

1. “If you got a message that looked like it was from a friend but seemed…off, how would you know if it was really them?”
2. “You know how we don’t open the front door for strangers? Online links work the same way. What do you think a ‘sketchy’ link might look like?”
3. “If someone messages you saying you won a prize or are in trouble, but you didn’t do anything … what would you do first?”
4. “Let’s play detective. Can you spot what’s weird in this screenshot of a scam message?”
5. “If someone online asks for your personal info, like your phone number or password, what’s your move?”

What’s Catching Our Eye

🤷 TikTok lives again — for another 75 days, at least. President Trump has extended the deadline for ByteDance to sell its social media platform to an American buyer. Interested purchasers include Amazon, MrBeast, and Perplexity AI.

📲 Utah recently became the first state to pass a law that requires app stores to verify users’ ages and receive parental consent for minors to download applications.

🫥 “Our kids are the least flourishing generation we know of.” We’re sitting with this conversation between Ezra Klein and Jonathan Haidt, social psychologist and author of The Anxious Generation.