The Silent Emergency: How Digital Life is Harming Our Children
Updated
It is essential to recognize the profound impact of our technological landscape on today’s children. As concerned stewards of the AI-driven future rapidly emerging before us and as fierce advocates for the well-being of today’s youth, we must sound an alarming wake-up call, because the health of our children is being silently dismantled. This breakdown is not being caused by disease or by war (although these are both concerns), but by the very technologies we’ve handed to them. The digital environment into which today’s youth have been thrust is neither neutral nor benign. Instead, it is a field of distortion and fragmentation that pulls their developing psyche away from its inherent memory, rhythm, and genuine connection to the essence of who they are.
A beneficial childhood depends on a healthy balance between external and internal consistency. Yet—as is glaringly apparent—the young humans of tomorrow are now immersed in fields of constant disruption. Every single swipe, every ping, and every scroll fractures their attention and fragments their nervous systems. Memory, which was once grounded in lived experience, is now outsourced to an artificial platform. Completely detached from breath, nature, silence, and the practice of being present, today’s young are now strung out across a thousand timelines and tabs. Recent reports show that today’s children interact with content encouraging violence or sexual themes, often through AI-driven platforms. Without question, these interactions replace the nurturing presence of adults and supportive relationships, leaving children to navigate complex emotional landscapes without proper guidance.
We’ve written about this horrific subject numerous times, with new data reinforcing the need for action. A recent report from 2025 “State of the Youth” reinforces a chilling picture. Shockingly, children as young as 11 are engaging in AI-generated violent or sexually explicit roleplay. Specifically, the report documents that 44% of AI chats among 11-year-olds involve violence, and 63% of 13-year-olds engage in sexual or romantic dialogue with AI companions. To be clear, they are engaging with something that is not real, generated by AI. This is not simply mischief or curiosity. No indeed. It indicates a reality where children are mentored and manipulated by algorithms rather than by adults, and in which synthetic conversations replace the steadying presence of parents, elders, and genuine friendships. The study highlights the hidden cost of being connected, reporting:
“What is Digital Stress? It’s the everyday pressure kids feel from comparing themselves online, managing social drama, interacting with AI, and using apps built to keep them engaged, driven by five key pressures: approval anxiety, availability stress, connection overload, FOMO, and online vigilance. Together, the constant connectivity can impact mood, focus, and overall sense of self.”
This unfortunate attack on our children is incredibly concerning because what a child gives their attention to shapes who they become. The obvious question is what happens when that attention is hijacked by noise, intentionally designed not to help them flourish, but instead to capture them? What happens when reality itself is curated to reward impulsivity, envy, comparison, and emotional volatility? Quite literally, the answer is visible all around us. Anxiety disorders are on the rise, self-worth is crumbling, and younger generations are increasingly unsure of how to sit with the stillness of silence or with the critical peace of self.
We are all guilty in this frightening scenario because we have allowed an entire generation to become test subjects in an unregulated, increasingly sinister experiment. The report points out that in 2025, 59 percent of kids have already seen violent videos online—most frequently through YouTube and TikTok. Likewise, preteens who use social media report 40 percent more digital stress than their peers, and girls, who are more likely to use AI platforms, experience greater emotional disruption than boys. And these are not isolated effects. They are synthesized injuries that persist and deepen layer by layer, and are profoundly formative.
Don’t be fooled—none of this derailing of our children is accidental. Infinite scrolling is designed and built to be bottomless and never-ending. Non-stop notifications are engineered to constantly interrupt our children. The power of these technologies is not just a tool; they are behavioral environments shaping the biology, identity, and spirit of today’s children. Most of what passes as “connection” online is stimulus without a valuable return. In other words, it is high input and low integration.
Let’s pause here for a second to say that, despite the current destruction of our children, the internet doesn’t have to be the enemy. But the way we’ve surrendered to it—without discernment, without a healthy rhythm, and without boundaries—especially with our kids—presents a very real and urgent crisis. Again, when children are left in digital spaces with no oversight or filters, they lose their God-given inner signal. Put another way, their inner compass becomes scrambled. Think about that for a moment, because it means they’ve forgotten the peace that comes from stillness. Instead, kids begin to correlate their worth with metrics, their emotions with algorithms, and their sense of safety with how much and how well they function online.
What can we do? First, we must restore natural rhythm within our youth. No child can develop in wholeness without daily doses of quiet, unscheduled time. Children need to experience both boredom and the joy of playing in the dirt and splashing in a rain puddle. We need to protect the sanctuaries of childhood, including nature, imaginative play, and face-to-face conversations. Second, we need to teach kids how to sense themselves. Not just internet safety, but also their nervous systems. Specifically, we must show our children how to discern when their attention is scattered and ask them if they notice when they feel centered or off-track. This kind of self-awareness must be foundational.
And above all, we must stop pretending that digital life is harmless. It is quite powerful and incredibly formative—and it is currently shaping a generation in ways that dramatically undermine their health, their confidence, and their true potential. To ignore this is to abdicate our role as parents, elders, and guides. To face it with courage and direct communication, we reclaim our role.
Importantly, what we expose children to shapes the vibration and frequency of their inner life. If we genuinely care for them—not just as achievers or avatars of success, but as the whole, radiant beings that they are—then we must create environments worthy of their trust. Not staring at the damaging blue light of a screen. Their environment must be full of tangible goods, including breath, the concept of inner beauty, and meaning on a human scale. We must redirect and give our youth what cannot be obtained or uploaded from a device. It doesn’t mean censoring. It means we must recalibrate, not fear, our fast-evolving digital world, while ensuring that we rapidly equip our youth with the all-important skills of presence, coherence, and self-care. It is our responsibility, and we must answer that call.
