Smartphones make terrible babysitters. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street with the Point.

A horrifying new survey found that the number of pre-adolescent children who say they have shared nude images of themselves more than doubled in the U.S. last year.

14% of kids, ages 9 to 12, say they shared inappropriate pictures of themselves.

That's up from 6% in 2019. And of that number, over a third

said they shared those images with someone they thought was 18 or older. As World notes,

this spike and dangerous behavior coincides with the pandemic, which for many folks meant

increased screen time. An obvious takeaway here is that preteens are not mature enough to handle

all that comes with unsupervised

smartphone use. The more time they spend alone with their devices, the more opportunity for

pornography and for predators. At the very least, we have to take active roles in our kids' use

of technology. Quarantining with screens is more dangerous for kids than COVID ever was.

May keep a virus at bay, but for children especially, it led in things far worse.

For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street.