Recently, the world witnessed the assassination of Charlie Kirk with the gruesome video of the incident circulating online in real time. National attention quickly zeroed in on the assassin and in that process a powerful image surfaced.
The image was that of a young Tyler Robinson sitting in front of a laptop. Dressed in Avengers pajamas and surrounded by what appears to be Christmas candy, Robinson’s lips are curved in a soft smile as he clicks on the keyboard.
“Almost forgot Tyler,” Tyler’s mother captioned the photo, “He can totally avoid us now that he got all of the computer accessories he’s been wanting.”
Today, that little boy is a 22-year-old man who sits in jail awaiting trial, accused of murdering Charlie Kirk in front of the world.
As a mother, this photo broke my heart. It serves as a chilling reminder of what a truly dangerous, radicalizing, and lonely place the internet can be.
The photo of a young Tyler is indicative of the rapid rise of the internet, which has been detrimental for children’s socialization, critical thinking, and safety. Many children are substituting in-person experiences and relationships with online platforms and a manufactured “community.”
Reports indicate America’s youth are spending more time socializing on Instagram, TikTok, and Discord than in-person and that 31% of teens find conversations with AI “companions” more satisfying than conversations with real friends. This human replacement affects nearly half of American teenagers, who are online “almost constantly.”
These trends have ensured that most American teenagers are, as sociologist Sherry Turkle aptly says, “forever elsewhere” — living online instead of in the moment during their most formative, vulnerable years. Instead of learning how to think or interact in real-world scenarios, children are encountering potentially dangerous strangers and ideologies online without any meaningful guardrails. Indeed, 72% of popular gaming sites allow anonymous sign-ups and self-declaration of age, meaning that predators and other bad actors have the capability of texting, video, and audio calling minors on these sites without being easily traceable.
The consequences of this are unimaginable.
Just look at the online platform Discord, which is used by a third of teenage boys in the U.S. In 2023, Discord was allegedly involved in 35 cases of kidnapping, grooming or sexual assault. Discord also allegedly played a role in 165 cases where adults used the platform for sextortion, and to spread Child Sexual Abuse Material. In addition to sexual exploitation and grooming risks, experts have warned that Discord has been used to spread extremist or nihilistic content. Moreover, multiple suspects in “high-profile mass shooting events” used Discord to announce their plans—including Robinson, who allegedly confessed to Kirk’s murder in a Discord chat. Discord and another gaming site, Roblox, came under fire earlier this year when a mother alleged that her son committed suicide after being groomed and coerced into sending explicit pictures on the platforms.
Ideological activists often use online platforms as echo chambers for radical ideas that they push on susceptible group members. Impressionable children joining chat rooms and ‘groups’ on these sites for community are often met with mature or even dangerous ideas and content they lack the experience or maturity to understand.
For example, young girls turning to platforms like Reddit and Tumblr for acceptance or support with eating disorders have been told by online “friends” that they must be transgender, some even pressured into permanent life-altering surgeries as minors. Similarly, a 17-year-old boy with no prior confusion about his gender was manipulated online into thinking he was ‘pansexual,’ and ‘gender-fluid.’ Children may also be encouraged to adopt violent rhetoric due to popular online streamers that openly call for violence against political figures or perform dangerous stunts on platforms like Twitch.
The real-world impacts of these virtual interactions are destabilizing our culture today. Children are more depressed, anxious and risk-averse than ever before. Too many online interactions and not enough in-person socialization are undoubtedly fueling this crisis. In the absence of meaningful guard rails or outright internet abstinence, parents may never know what their children are doing online, who they are interacting with, or whether their children number among the many casualties of online grooming, exploitation, and radicalization. In the absence of learned, real-world consequences and healthy civil discourse, many children are growing up reliant on what social psychologist Jonathan Haidt calls “experience blockers“—digital devices or platforms and the insufficient or negative habits they teach them.
Compounding the loss of real-world experience and socialization, children are encountering a whole host of radical ideas, extremist or inappropriate content in online echo chambers that lack nuance or counterbalance. They train children to hide behind screens, enjoying the comfort of anonymity as they shamelessly engage in extreme or heated conversations they would likely not have the courage to engage in face-to-face.
As parents, it’s our duty to ensure that online platforms are used carefully with proper guardrails (or not at all), and not as an excuse for children to “totally avoid” meaningful relationships in their lives. Among the most meaningful skills we can equip our children with is their ability to respond to adversity and live in, engage with, and enjoy the real world. The first step to this is removing the screens.
We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.
