The Impact of Growing Up Online

As a parent, it’s painful to imagine your child struggling with something you can’t see. And yet, this may be happening more than you realize. 

A 2025 study involving 4,285 young people brings that concern into focus. Those who developed increasingly addictive patterns of social media use had more than twice the risk of suicidal behaviors compared with those whose use was lower.

For your family, that means something far more frightening than another argument about putting the phone away. It means the possibility that the child you love could be hurting enough to put their own life in danger, while you’re planning dinner, reminding them about homework, and assuming they’re having an ordinary day.

You want your child to have a bright future full of friendships, discoveries, and possibilities. Protecting that future starts with understanding what they’re experiencing now, including what makes their online world so difficult to step away from.

You might notice they’ve stopped joining family activities or seem distressed when they can’t check their phone. You might ask questions only to hear “I’m fine” and wonder whether to keep asking. None of these moments alone tells you what is happening, but they can certainly leave you feeling helpless.

Your child may need more than a reminder to log off. They may need help naming what feels overwhelming, stepping away from an unhealthy pattern, or finding support they aren’t sure how to ask for.

A phone can be put in a drawer. Whatever your child is carrying emotionally may still be there. Making room for that conversation means giving them somewhere to bring the difficult parts of their digital life.

How does technology affect kids' development?

Technology is a double-edged sword for children’s development. While it can support learning, research links heavy screen use to difficulties with skills children rely on every day. These include paying attention, managing frustration, and communicating with others.

A 2025 study found that Canadian preschoolers aged 3.5-5.5 who averaged 3-6 hours of daily screen use scored significantly lower on inhibitory control and effortful control at age 5.5 than children in the group averaging less than an hour.

Inhibitory and effortful control help children:

• Resist impulses
• Direct their attention
• Regulate their behavior

These skills are essential when a child needs to wait their turn, listen to instructions, or keep working at a task after something goes wrong. If a child carries these struggles into adulthood, it may be much harder to meet deadlines, manage responsibilities, and navigate disagreements at work or in relationships.

A 2024 study of 220 Australian families also linked more screen time to fewer adult words, child vocalizations, and back-and-forth conversations. That leaves fewer opportunities for children to practice asking questions, explaining how they feel, and telling you what they need. 

As a result, children may be missing out on valuable practice in making themselves understood, which can linger into adulthood. 

Technology, attention, and independent thinking

A 2023 study tracking the smartphones of 203 U.S. children ages 11-17 found that participants got 237 notifications a day on average, and nearly 25% of those arrived during school hours. 

While kids didn’t see or answer every notification immediately, this gives you an idea of how many reasons children have to look up from studying or engaging in their lives on a daily basis.

This and the prevalence of short-form, fast-paced content like TikTok and Instagram Reels may be two reasons attention spans appear to be getting shorter. In fact, according to researcher and author of Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity, Gloria Mark, overall attention spans have decreased from 2.5 minutes to 47 seconds over the past couple of decades.

This doesn’t mean children’s brains have lost the ability to focus for longer periods. However, growing up with fast-moving technology conditions them to read hastily and “skim” text as opposed to reading and comprehending it thoroughly. And it means their brains need to work that much harder to maintain focus. 

So it makes sense that, according to the 2023 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), just 14% of 13-year-olds read for fun almost every day. That number dropped from 27% in 2012. NAEP Long-Term Trend Assessment Results: Reading and Mathematics

Alarmingly, the NAEP’s 2024 report also found that 33% of U.S. eighth graders scored below the Basic reading level–the largest share on record. 

Research has linked reading for pleasure in early life with better attention, memory, academic achievement, and fewer mental health problems in adolescence. If children can’t or won’t read, they miss out on these benefits.

Technology, social media, and children’s mental health

Your child’s emotional health may also be at stake. Numerous studies have linked social media use to higher levels of depression and poor self-perception–especially in early adolescence, when a child’s sense of self is still taking shape.

Problematic social media use can also cut into sleep time. Over time, this can make it significantly harder for a child to regulate their emotions, and may even double their risk of depression. 

What’s more, in another WHO report involving Europe, central Asia, and Canada, 15% of adolescents said they had experienced cyberbullying. This may lead to higher levels of anxiety, and potentially even self-harm and suicidal thoughts or behaviors. 

Of course, this doesn’t guarantee that your child will develop depression or low-self-esteem by using technology. But it does give parents a reason to look beyond time spent online and to understand how digital experiences leave their child feeling.

Stay connected to your child’s online life

You don’t need to know every platform or read every private message to protect your child. Understanding their online habits can help you recognize when they need help and start meaningful conversations.

Permission is a Family Friendly AI app that gives parents insights into their children’s use of AI and the internet, helping families guide healthier behavior and encourage positive habits through parent-controlled rewards.

Children deserve room to explore, and someone to turn to when online life feels difficult. With a clearer picture of their digital world, you can help make sure they have both.

We've partnered with Coinbase to bring best-in-class wallet technology to our community.

Today we're updating the technology that powers your ASK wallet. Here's what's changing, what it means for you, and what stays exactly the same.

What's changing

We've moved your Permission wallet to Coinbase's platform. What that means in plain language is this: starting today, you are in full control of your ASK. When you click to send, redeem, or manage your balance, the transaction happens from your account, signed by your login. We no longer hold your wallet keys. Coinbase does, on your behalf, under your authority.

We chose Coinbase's embedded wallet specifically because it brings institutional-grade security to our users without requiring you to manage anything yourself. The infrastructure is Coinbase's. The wallet is yours.

Beyond the custody change, our users now have a wallet that can go wherever they go: exportable, cross-chain ready, and backed by a platform that serves millions of people around the world. We're proud to bring that to our community.

What it means to control your own keys

As Permission has grown, we felt strongly that your funds should be held by a platform built specifically for that purpose, with the security standards and regulatory rigor that come with it. Moving to Coinbase's embedded wallet reflects that commitment.

With today's change, Coinbase secures your private key inside their systems, and only your Permission login can authorize transactions. When you click to send or redeem ASK, the transaction is authorized by you, through your login. We are no longer part of that process.

What this means practically: your wallet operates on its own, independent of Permission. Treat your Permission login like you would a bank password. It is now the key to your wallet. If you ever want to take your wallet entirely outside of Permission, Coinbase supports key export and that option is yours.

What Coinbase sees

Because Coinbase is now part of the infrastructure, your email address, account identifier, and wallet information are shared with them for the purpose of operating the wallet. For details on how Coinbase handles this data, you can review their embedded wallet documentation and their privacy information.

For how Permission handles your data, our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy govern that relationship, as they always have.

What stays the same

Everything you experience in the app. Earning ASK, redeeming it, transferring it, viewing your balance, managing your family. None of that changes.

And, what does change, we're excited about: key export, cross-chain support, and institutional-grade security. These are capabilities that would have taken years to build in-house and that Coinbase has spent that time perfecting. We chose to partner with the best-in-class, and our product and users will be better for it.

If you have questions, support is always here.

The Permission Team 🤝

Only 15% of people globally say they trust AI systems, and 72% of parents are concerned about AI’s impact on their children.

AI is quickly becoming part of everyday family life, but Big Tech wasn’t built with families in mind. Family Friendly AI is technology intentionally designed for families, giving parents visibility into their children’s digital lives, guidance when they need it, and tools to encourage positive behavior.

5 Things That Make AI Family Friendly

1. Your family owns its data.

‍Your family’s data is never sold. It belongs to your family, and you stay in control of it.

2. Parents know what’s happening online.

‍Family Friendly AI gives parents visibility into their children’s digital lives, helping them fully understand how their children use and interact with technology.

3. It motivates children with rewards and incentives.

‍Parents can set rewards and incentives to encourage positive behaviors and help their children build better habits around technology and beyond.

4. It gives parents coaching and inspiration.

‍Parenting in a digital world comes with challenges that screen-time limits alone can’t help with. Family Friendly AI gives parents personalized AI-insights and guidance to help them navigate what their children are doing online and decide what to do next.

5. It earns families' trust.

‍Technology for families should have a higher bar. The companies building it should stand behind it with an unconditional, no-questions-asked money-back guarantee.

It’s time for AI, crypto, and the technology shaping our children’s lives to meet the family-friendly standard.

The floodgates are open.

Thousands of lawsuits are moving forward. States are writing new rules for kids online. And lawmakers are beginning to tell AI companies what they can and cannot do when children use their products.

And you don't have to look far to see it happening...

The courts: 3,000+ lawsuits get the green light

On August 10, the Ninth Circuit allowed more than 3,000 lawsuits against Meta, Google/YouTube, TikTok and Snap to move forward.

The cases allege that the companies deliberately designed features of their platforms to be addictive, particularly for young users.

The tech companies had argued that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protected them from the claims. The court rejected their attempt to use Section 230 to stop the litigation at this stage, finding that it provides a defense rather than immunity from being sued.

At their core, these cases are allegations about the platforms themselves: how they were designed, how they kept people engaged, and what responsibility the companies bear for the consequences.

The companies will still have the opportunity to defend themselves against those allegations.

But with more than 3,000 cases now getting the chance to be heard, this is getting harder to argue away.

New Jersey: families get a way to enforce the rules

One day later, New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill signed the New Jersey Kids Code Act into law.

The law establishes new design and privacy requirements for covered online services likely to be accessed by minors. Among other provisions, it requires high privacy settings by default, restricts certain push notifications, prohibits dark patterns for minors, limits how children's personal data can be used and retained, and places restrictions on targeted advertising.

But one provision in particular changes the accountability equation: a private right of action.

An individual under 18 who is injured by a violation can bring a claim under the law, with statutory damages of $5,000 per violation. Parents may also bring an action on a minor's behalf.

Which is legal language for something pretty simple: families don't have to wait around for a regulator to act. They can take companies to court themselves.

Colorado: AI safety starts becoming a legal requirement

Then there's Colorado.

Earlier this year, Governor Jared Polis signed Colorado HB 26-1263, establishing specific requirements for operators of conversational AI services.

And this one is worth paying attention to because the law doesn't simply tell AI companies to "keep kids safe." It starts defining what that actually means.

Operators must estimate users' ages. When dealing with minors, the law requires recurring disclosures that they are interacting with AI rather than a person and establishes protections around sexually explicit interactions.

It also addresses one of the most unsettling questions surrounding companion-style AI: emotional dependence.

The law requires safeguards designed to prevent conversational AI from producing statements that simulate emotional dependence. It also requires protocols for responding to suicidal ideation and self-harm, privacy and account-management tools for minors and parents or guardians, and reporting requirements intended to help regulators evaluate whether those safeguards are actually working.

The law takes effect January 1, 2027.

For companies building conversational AI, that's a meaningful shift. Child safety is moving beyond a set of voluntary guardrails companies write for themselves. In Colorado, some of those guardrails are becoming law.

It's no coincidence that this is all happening at once.

Big Tobacco didn't wake up one morning and discover the world had changed its mind. The reckoning came piece by piece, until lawsuits became regulation and an industry that had spent decades setting its own standards was finally forced to take responsibility for the harm its products caused.

We're watching that shift happen again.

For years, the responsibility for keeping kids safe online has fallen on parents.

Set the parental controls. Check the privacy settings. Watch the screen time. Know which apps they're using. Figure out who they're talking to. Keep up with every new platform, algorithm and now AI chatbot entering their lives.

All while the technology on the other side of the screen gets more sophisticated by the month.

Now courts and lawmakers are starting to ask the companies building that technology a much more uncomfortable question:

If children are using your products, what are you doing to keep them safe?

For families, that's the shift that matters most.

This isn't another round of false promises to "do better."

This is legislation. These are lawsuits. This is accountability beginning to have teeth.

Parents will always have the role of protecting their children online. We happen to believe they should have far more visibility and control over the technology entering their families' lives, not less.

But parents cannot be the entire safety system.

The law is making clear that the companies designing the products, writing the algorithms and building the AI our kids interact with have a responsibility, too.

And when they fail to meet it, they'll finally be held accountable.