Digital Safeguarding
In the past 3 months, multiple nations have made steps to ban social media for children under the age of 16. It began with Australia in December of 2025. These bans are a result of the rising research on the negative impacts of social media and other technology on young users. Books like The Anxious Generation and Stolen Focus are shining a light on how social media and other technologies are shaping the minds of those who use them. Limiting social media outside of the classroom has not limited the access that students have to technology that could potentially damage their minds in other ways. Many educational tools and websites are using Artificial Intelligence unnoticed by passive users.
With the rise of Artificial Intelligence around the world, it is important for us as Christian educators to think about the way that God designed us. The students who sit in your classrooms are looking to you for their education. We often look at the direct harm people can cause children, but it is not often we talk about how our changing technologies can harm their minds.
As educators, we want to simplify the learning process for both students and teachers. Technology has created a way for us to access information at speeds that were impossible 30 years ago. We rely on search engines, AI summaries, and other tools to accomplish tasks efficiently. Perhaps we are missing the emerging research that shows AI and other apps are decreasing the neural pathways that promote learning. In the USA students as young as 4 are using computers for learning as well as to track their learning. This style of learning loses the value of each written word that creates neural pathways to promote memory as well as fine motor skills and creativity.
Dependance on technology removes our dependence on Christ. In Genesis 3 God gave humanity charge over the earth, a task that had the body and mind working together. Science repeatedly shows that mental health and learning benefit from the way God designed us. He designed us to be in a community, to learn from one another, to physically do things with our whole bodies. These are things that technology, when used incorrectly, can steal from us.
As social media, educational apps, and AI tools continue to grow in use and popularity around the world, we must carefully consider the role they play in the lives of the children entrusted to us. As Christian educators and parents, we are called not only to prepare students academically, but also to guide them toward a way of learning and living that reflects God’s design for human flourishing. 2 Corinthians 5:10 encourages us to “take every thought captive to obey Christ”, we can only do this when we intentionally limit device use, encourage deeper thinking and embodied learning, and remind students that wisdom, understanding, and true growth ultimately come not from technology, but from God. Are the tools we are using, and the time we spend on them, truly promoting the long-term wellbeing of a child?
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