346: Internet Safety: Teaching Critical Thinking to Teenagers

Internet safety: Teaching Critical Thinking to Teenagers

If a stranger walked up to your teenager on the street and tried to manipulate what they believed, you’d step in instantly. But it’s happening every single day, completely undetected, right through their screens.

In this eye-opening episode of The Impactful Parent, host Kristina Campos welcomes Dr. Mari Davies, a senior lecturer in education and author of Teaching Critical Thinking to Teenagers. Together, they pull back the curtain on the multi-billion-dollar algorithms engineered to capture your teen’s developing brain. While tracking apps and screen limits offer temporary fixes, the real secret to long-term internet safety is building ”cognitive immunity” through critical thinking.

In this episode, Kristina and Dr. Davies break down:

The Algorithm Advantage: What parents are truly up against when a teen opens TikTok or Instagram, and how these apps weaponize personal demographics [02:43].

The Teenage Brain on Social Media: Why a natural dip in adolescent dopamine makes teenagers uniquely vulnerable to online risks and the ”imaginary audience” [05:27].

The Street Smarts Model: A deep dive into the 4 core pillars—Respect for Self, Reasons, Difference, and Change—and how they apply to a scrolling feed [11:55].

Spotting AI and Fake News: Dr. Davies’ number one rule of thumb for handling outrageous influencer content and advanced voice/image deepfakes [19:17].

The Power of Healthy Arguing: Why teaching your kids (especially girls!) to respectfully debate and voice their opinions at home keeps them safe from real-world predators [24:07].

Stick around until the end, where Dr. Davies shares a single, effortless question you can ask your teen today to immediately trigger their critical thinking muscles [32:17]!

You don’t have to be a tech genius to give your child a fighting chance against the digital noise. Hit that subscribe button, join our community, and let’s help our teens become street-smart online!

✨ Connect with Dr. Mari Davies: