About multimedia
DO YOU STILL BELIEVE… THAT “SEEING IS BELIEVING”? YOU DON’T NEED TO STICK YOUR HEAD IN THE SAND TO FIND THE HIDDEN MESSAGE … JUST READ ON AND YOU WILL FIND IT ON THE NEXT PAGES!
Youngsters don’t realize that certain Social Media programs, such as Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube can create an addiction which can disturb and cause psychological problems which in some cases can incite to suicidal tendencies and even death as reported several European TV-stations and the International Press. The BBC reported about a remarkable Media addiction trial:
On March 25th 2026, a California jury delivered a landmark verdict finding that Meta (parent company of Instagram and Facebook) and Google (owner of YouTube) designed addictive platforms that caused mental health harm to a young user, making them liable for damages.
The Los Angeles jury found that Meta and Google acted with negligence, failing to warn users of the dangers of their platforms and intentionally engineering addictive features—such as infinite scroll and algorithmic recommendations—that exploited the developing brains of children.
But speaking to BBC Breakfast, Ellen Roome, who is herself suing TikTok after the death of her son, said the case was an "enough was enough" moment.
"How many more children are going to be harmed and potentially die from these platforms?" she asked."It's been proved it's not safe - and social media companies need to fix it." Meta has been hit with successive losses in court over how its platforms have targeted and harmed young users, but a jury trial set to begin on Tuesday may pose the biggest threat yet to its operations.
The trial stems from a lawsuit filed in 2023 by 29 US states, including California and New York, in which they claim numerous violations of federal and state privacy laws for children. On Aug 26 2026 Meta reaches $17 billion settlement with states in landmark trial over teen social media addiction. Maybe the EEC will also bring the matter to court, soon ?
About the use of Artificial Intelligence by teenagers.
(BBC)New surveys asked teens how they use “Ai”. Parents have no idea what’s going on, from home-work to emotional support.
AI plays a large role among teenage students at school. They use it every day, says this 17 year old 11th grade student girl in New York City. It is used for homework, AI helps her decide where to eat and provides inspiration for her poetry. Sometimes, she even turns to it with questions about issues in her personal life.
Joseph illustrates a larger trend. There's a wide gap between how parents and teenagers feel about AI in the lives of children, according to a new pair of studies from the “Pew Research Center” and “Common Sense Media”, a children's advocacy group. But there's a far more startling statistic in the details. The studies show a huge number of parents have no idea what their kids are doing with AI. Some uses are mundane, but some teens use AI in ways their families will find alarming.
One thing is clear: parents need to ask a lot more questions around the dinner table about how their children use chatbots.
There's a serious lack of communication about AI within families, says Monica Anderson, managing director at the Pew Research Center. "This is not a conversation that is happening with a large swath of parents," she says. Pew surveyed 1,458 American teens aged 13-17 and their parents. "We found a gap between what parents believe is happening with AI and what teens tell us that they're actually doing," says Anderson.
When Pew asked parents if their children use AI, only 51% said yes. The truth is 64% of teenagers said they use chatbots. Common Sense Media found similarly radical differences. Millions of parents are in the dark about what happens on their kids' screens.
That makes sense, because according to Pew, four out of 10 parents said they have never had a conversation with their children about AI.
Red Flags
According to the American Psychological Association, the signs of problematic AI use in teens may include:
• They describe AI as their "best friend" or primary confidant• They fall apart when they can't access it• School, sleep or real friendships are slipping• They're using AI to dodge hard conversations• Noticeable changes in mood, behaviour or thinking
Seek help immediately if someone is using AI to discuss self-harm, serious depression or mental health crises.
Another important question which we wish to ask is, how much time do youngsters spend on their screens? So here are some surprising data:
Teen Screen Time Statistics
The average teen spends 7 hours and 22 minutes looking at screens each day!US teens spend 4.8 hours per day on social media aloneAmerican teens’ screen time has increased by around 2 hours since 201558% of US parents limit their teens' screen timeAmong teenagers and young adults, females average 2 hours and 45 minutes more screen time per week than malesTeenagers spend more than 3 hours per day watching TV/videos
Pros: Why is social media good?
Social media and technology offer us greater convenience and connectivity:
staying connected with family and friends worldwide via email, text, FaceTime, etc.
quick access to information and research
banking and bill pay at our fingertips
online learning, job skills, content discovery (YouTube)
involvement in civic engagement (fundraising, social awareness, provides a voice)
great marketing tools
opportunities for remote employment
Social media can be a good thing, but if teens ever feel uncomfortable about something they see or read on social, they should trust their own feelings and talk to someone – a parent, a teacher, or another trusted adult. Bullying, threats and cruelty on social media are all signs that the person doing those things needs help.
Cons: Why is social media bad?
Along with the good comes the bad. With all of its benefits, the nature of social media presents a range of potential issues.
Online vs Reality. Social media itself is not the problem. It is the way people use it in place of actual communication and in-person socializing. “Friends” on social media may not actually be friends, and may even be strangers.
Increased usage. The more time spent on social media can lead to cyberbullying, social anxiety, depression, and exposure to content that is not age appropriate.
Social Media is addicting. When you’re playing a game or accomplishing a task, you seek to do it as well as you can. Once you succeed, your brain will give you a dose of dopamine and other happiness hormones, making you happy. The same mechanism functions when you post a picture to Instagram or Facebook. Once you see all the notifications for likes and positive comments popping up on your screen, you’ll subconsciously register it as a reward. But that’s not all, social media is full of mood-modifying experiences.
Fear of Missing Out. FOMO has become a common theme, and often leads to continual checking of social media sites. The idea that you might miss out on something if you’re not online can affect your mental health.
Self-image issues. Social media sites provide tools that allow people to earn others’ approval for their appearance and the possibility to compare themselves to others. It can be associated with body image concerns. The “selfieholics” and people who spend most of their time posting and scrolling are the ones most vulnerable to this. In fact, most college girls who use Facebook at least five times a day are likely to link their self-worth to their looks. That doesn’t mean that the main problem is social media; it only provides a medium for it, which further elevates the problem. It also promotes the same sort of behavior to others.
BLUE LIGHT EMMISSION FROM MULTI-MEDIA SCREENS I have spent the last few weeks strapping on a pair of special orange safety goggles three hours before bed. They're made of thick, uncomfortable plastic that casts the world in a dull amber glow, making it hard to see anything blue. But I don't stop there. I cover the windows with blackout curtains and switch off all my lamps, one by one. In their place, I exclusively light my apartment with candles. My sleep routine is deranged, but it's for an experiment. I found out what happens when you banish blue light.
The world has grown increasingly panicked about this photochromatic fiend over the past 10 years. We're told that our phones, TVs, computers, tablets and LED light bulbs expose us to a perverse amount of blue light. Supposedly, this ruins our sleep by disrupting the natural rhythms of daylight that influence our internal body clock. There's science to back some of this up, but recent studies and analysis suggests that things are a lot more complicated. In fact, chances are good that you've fallen for some serious misconceptions on this subject. Experts tell me it's unlikely that light from your phone is ruining your sleep.
The research is mixed. Those features designed to dial down blue light on your phone at bedtime, for example, are probably doing very little to improve your sleep. But the lighting of modern life really can have a huge effect on your sleep. What would it take to make a change?
I wanted the truth. So, I called the experts and dove into the science.
And to see if I could spot the difference, I've plunged myself into the most extreme, blue-free evenings I could muster. I landed on practical advice that you can use – no dorky tinted goggles required. It could be the secret to a good night's sleep.
The blue screen of death?
The public freakout about blue light started with a study in 2014. Half of the 12 participants read on an iPad before bed. The rest read physical books. The iPad users took longer to fall asleep, felt groggier the next day and produced less melatonin. The researchers said the culprit was the glow emitted from the iPad's LED screen, which produces a disproportionate amount of light in the upper, bluer end of the spectrum. Under specific circumstances, blue-enriched light disrupts the daily circadian rhythm – our body's natural pacemaker – that uses daylight to help determine when we start to feel tired. Subsequent research seemed to support the findings. Sounds simple, right? It's not.
"This was an incredibly deceptive piece of work," says Jamie Zeitzer, a professor of psychiatry and behavioural sciences at Stanford University, who studies the effect of light on the circadian system. The science wasn't bad, he says, the problem is it brought people to bad conclusions.
It's true that our screens are bluer. Modern screens and lightbulbs use LEDs, which cannot produce pure white light. Instead, they use blue LEDs and cover some of them with a chemical called yellow phosphor. The blue and yellow mix together and trick your brain into seeing white, but extra blue always leaks out.
And blue light really can influence your sleep. Zeitzer says that's mostly because you have a light-sensitive protein in your eyes called melanopsin which plays a key role in your sleep system. "And melanopsin is a blue sensitive protein, which basically means that it is most sensitive to blue light," he says. Melanopsin reacts to other colours of light too, the effect of blue is just a bit stronger.
"But the amount of light emitted from our screens is really inconsequential," says Zeitzer. Your life doesn't match the conditions of many blue light studies. "We bring someone into the laboratory, and they are exposed to very dim light all day long. And then they are given a bright light stimulus," he says. Under those circumstances, blue light makes people go haywire, but it doesn't reflect typical experience of human life.
After years warnings and millions of people flipping on the blue light filters built into their phones, the latest science suggests screens are not the main culprit here after all. For example, a recent review of 11 different studies and found that the light from screens only delayed sleep by about nine minutes, at worst. Not zero, but not life altering, either.
The amount of blue light emitted by the screens of phones, laptops and tablets has also been shown to be tiny compared to the blue light we receive from the Sun – 24 hours-worth of blue light from digital devices totted up to less than one minute spent outdoors, according to one study. Other studies have shown it's not enough to affect levels of the hormones that control our sleep.
So why am I so tired all the time? Zeitzer and others told me there are lots of other ways that light, blue and otherwise, could be ruining my bedtime. If I really wanted to tackle the blue monster, it was going to take a serious lifestyle change.
Kind of blue
I was out for dinner as the Sun went down on day one of my experiment. Around 20:30, I said I needed to head home. It was time to hide from the light. Based on the advice I was getting from sleep specialists, my extreme bedtime prepping started long before I get under the covers.
My routine starts with an absurd pair of glasses. If you wear normal glasses, you've probably been offered special clear coatings that promise to filter blue light. Studies suggest they don't do much. Real blue-blocking glasses aren't sexy. Frankly, they aren't a realistic solution for most people, either.
The good ones have deep orange, red or amber lenses that wrap all the way around your eyes so light can't get in from the sides. Serious manufacturers offer a spectrum report that shows how much blue light gets in. "You shouldn't be able to see much blue," says Håvard Kallestad, director of the sleep and chronobiology research group at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
The special blue-light googles I have were made for people who work with lasers that need eye protection. I put them on and looked out the window. There's a store with a blue neon sign down the street. With my glasses on, the light from the sign vanished. Bullseye.
Keeping Tabs
Thomas Germain is a senior technology journalist at the BBC. He writes the column Keeping Tabs and co-hosts the podcast The Interface. His work uncovers the hidden systems that run your digital life, and how you can live better inside them.
I sat down on the couch, thinking about the sacrifices I make for journalism. I scrolled through Instagram. It looked… orange. The whole point of what I'm doing is to see how light affects my sleep, so I didn't change anything about my phone, TV or computer habits. But the glasses are just the beginning.
"I think you need to turn your apartment into a cave," Kallestad says. "Just block light from entering and use candlelight." Modern LED lights produce a ton of blue light. Old school incandescent bulbs make much less, but candles are almost blue-free.
It's never really dark where I live in New York. So I covered my windows with blackout curtains, with only my phone and a couple of flickering candles standing between me and the inky darkness. I wasn't sleepy yet. It was going to be a long couple of weeks.
How to un-blue yourself
Experts agree that what really matters is the dose of light of light you're getting through the day. For optimal sleep, you want lots of light in the morning and much less at night. Blue light counts more, but it's your total exposure that makes the real difference.
It turns out the solution starts the moment you wake up. Every morning during my test, I sat in front of a lamp that looks like a prop from a 1980s science fiction movie. It blasts bright light straight into my face while I drink my coffee. The lamp is small, so Kallestad says I need to sit as close to it as possible. It was not fun. The lamp is designed to treat seasonal depression, and the clinical temperature of the light is especially blue, which has been shown to increase alertness when you get it earlier in the day. But it's also priming my eyes to fend off the blue later that night.
The Roman Empire had gladiators. The Soviet Union had Pravda. Today’s battle for the mind is fought on a 6-inch screen.
We live in an age of competing authorities, and the stakes could not be higher. TikTok, YouTube, and artificial intelligence are not merely entertainment platforms — they are rival worldviews, each making a claim on how reality should be understood. And they are winning converts by the millions, especially among the young. AI can now alter images and video so convincingly that what is false looks true and what is true looks false. The prophet Isaiah saw this coming: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light, and light for darkness” (Isaiah 5:20).
This is not a culture war. It is a civilizational one.
I have noticed a pattern over the years that I do not think is coincidental. The further a society drifts from a Biblical worldview, the more it turns against the people of the Bible. Antisemitism does not arise in a vacuum — it rides on the back of a prior rejection of Scripture. You can trace this in socialism, in communism, in every modern ideology that has sought to replace the God of Abraham with a god of its own making. Hate the Book long enough, and you will come to hate the people who live by it.
So the question before us is not whether there is a war for our minds. The question is whether we are equipped to fight it.
The IRS trains its agents to detect counterfeit currency by immersing them in the genuine article. Agents spend hours, even days, studying real bills, memorizing every detail, every texture, every design element. When a fake comes across their desk, they know it immediately, not because they are experts in fraud, but because they are experts in truth. They never study the counterfeit. They study what is real.
This is exactly the strategy the Bible prescribes. “How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to Your word” (Psalm 119:9). The answer is not to map every deception on TikTok, not to catalog every manipulation of the social media algorithm. The answer is immersion in what is true. A mind soaked in Scripture does not need a fact-checker. It knows.
On twenty-five trips to Israel over the years, I have seen what this looks like in the flesh. On the buses of Jerusalem, I do not see teenagers hunched over video games. I see young men and women, many of them barely past high school age, carrying rifles on one shoulder and reading from devotional books with the other hand. On Shabbat, phones go dark. Families gather. Fathers and mothers sit with their children, open Scripture together, and make their way to synagogue.
What that produces is not merely discipline. It produces clarity.
I once watched a young soldier board a bus in Jerusalem. She could not have been older than eighteen, and the backpack she carried looked nearly as large as she was. Rifle on her left shoulder, scripture in her right hand. I sat there thinking: her nation’s safety rides on those small shoulders. And I believe it does — not because she is armed, but because she knows what she is defending and why. That knowledge came from her home. It was forged there, long before she ever put on a uniform.
“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6).
The influencers of our age have built enormous wealth from followers who click a button and subscribe.
I do not begrudge them their audience. But I know what that subscription costs. It costs your children’s ability to distinguish light from darkness. It costs the Biblical framework that, for centuries, has been the only reliable check against the worst impulses of human civilization. And when that framework collapses, what rises in its place is never neutral. It is always hostile — to Scripture, to Israel, to the God who stands behind both.
The Lord does not leave us without a response. He promises through Isaiah: “The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your soul in drought, and strengthen your bones; and you shall be like a watered garden, and a spring of water, whose waters do not fail” (Isaiah 58:11).
The choice in front of every believer today is not complicated, even if it is costly. We can follow the influencers of this age, subscribe to their version of reality, and see where that train takes us. Or we can pick up the Book, sit with our children, and build the kind of homes that produce young people who carry their rifle in one hand and their scripture in the other — because they know exactly what they are fighting for.
“Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path” (Psalm 119:105).
That lamp has not gone out. The question is whether we will carry it.
