{bonus fan fave} The Cell Phone Monitoring Episode

What if every moment of your adolescence could be captured in a snap? What if every thought you had as a teenager could be sent in a few thumb taps? What if as a pre-teen you'd had 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week access to send a message to every single person you did or did not like in school? With smartphones in hand, kids today are experiencing a level of constant connectedness the world has never known. Unfortunately, many experts say it's causing never before seen levels of anxiety and depression and blazing an unintended trail of life-altering digital permanence. What's a parent to do? Is occasional cell phone monitoring too much? Or not enough? In today's episode, I'm interviewing Titania Jordan -- nationally-recognized social media, tech expert and CPO of The Bark App (affiliate link). In this episode we discuss: How electronic & social media usage stimulates the same part of the brain as commonly known addictive compounds and why that's a risk for our children The concept of digital permanence and why children need to understand its ramifications at an early age Options for parents who don't want to give their kids a smartphone at an early age Why it's important for parents to be aware of communications on their children's phone that relate to signs of anxiety, depression, suicide, predatory grooming, etc. The reality of "sexting" and how the receiving OR forwarding of related images could be life-changing Why a cell phone monitoring option like Bark.us may be a better approach than simply spot-checking your child's phone I close out this show with a recap of what the This Unmillennial Life Facebook group listed as their most memorable moments from this season of the podcast. As always, I hope you find this show helpful. If you do, be sure to share it with a friend. If you have a show idea you'd like to hear about, let me know and submit a show idea here! Or connect with me via Instagram, Tweet Me @ReganJonesRD, leave me a voicemail, email me regan[at]thisunmillenniallife[dot]com or join the This Unmillennial Life Facebook Group. Thank you for listening and for subscribing. If you enjoy the show, please leave a 5 star review! And if you've been listening to the show for a while or are a new listener and have thoughts about what you like/don't like, I'd love for you to share them with me through this very brief LISTENER SURVEY. Thanks for your feedback!  Until next time, ~Regan This week's episode is brought to you by Audible, who is offering a free trial and free audiobook download to This Unmillennial Life listeners who visit audibletrial.com/unmillennial. This Unmillennial Life is available each week via iTunes, NPROne, Libsyn, and Spotify.