Digital risks
Concepts to name and recognize the main risks children and adolescents face online.
Cyberbullying
Definition. Cyberbullying is repeated and sustained harassment over time, carried out through digital media, directed against a person who is at a disadvantage to defend themselves.
Unlike traditional bullying, cyberbullying doesn't stop when the minor gets home: it follows them on their phone 24 hours a day. The most frequent forms are offensive messages, deliberate exclusion from groups, sharing images without consent, and identity impersonation. The impact on adolescent mental health is well documented: it increases the risk of anxiety, depression, and, in severe cases, suicidal ideation.
Grooming
Definition. Grooming is the process by which an adult gains the trust of a minor on the internet for the purpose of obtaining sexual material, sexual contact, or exploitation.
Grooming is deliberately slow. The adult presents themselves as the minor's peer, builds a relationship of trust over weeks or months, isolates the minor from their environment, and then escalates requests. The most used platforms are open social networks, online video games, and messaging apps. Detecting grooming requires attention to mood changes, new secrecy, and connections the minor doesn't share with the family.
Sextortion
Definition. Sextortion is the threat to share intimate sexual content of a person in exchange for money, more material, or sexual favors.
Two growing forms appear in adolescents. The first is financial sextortion, where the attacker seeks money; the second is emotional sextortion, where the attacker seeks control. In both, the minor often gets trapped by shame and fear of telling. Knowing the word "sextortion" and naming it at home lowers the barrier for a minor to ask for help.
Sexting
Definition. Sexting is the voluntary sending of messages, photos, or videos of sexual content through digital media, generally between peers.
Sexting is not illegal between consenting adults nor inherently dangerous, but among minors it crosses the law (in many countries it is production and distribution of child abuse material even if self-generated) and the risk of non-consensual sharing. Family conversations about sexting should focus on consequences and consent, not on moral prohibition.
Phishing
Definition. Phishing is a deception attempt where an attacker impersonates a trusted entity to obtain personal data, credentials, or money.
Minors are frequent targets because they tend to have less experience distinguishing legitimate from deceptive messages. Current phishing includes fake WhatsApp messages from the bank, shortened links, fake prize notifications, and impersonation of friends' accounts. Teaching how to verify full URLs and not act under urgency is the best defense.
Catfishing
Definition. Catfishing is the creation of a false online identity with the goal of deceiving another person to establish an emotional or sexual relationship.
Catfishing goes beyond grooming because it doesn't always have sexual purposes: sometimes it seeks money, emotional manipulation, or experimentation. Minors are victims and, to a lesser extent, also perpetrators. Recognizing the signs (avoided video calls, perfect photos, inconsistent stories) is part of digital literacy.
Doxing
Definition. Doxing is the malicious publication of a person's private and personal information on the internet, with the aim of exposing or intimidating them.
Doxing can range from sharing where a minor goes to school to leaking their address, phone number, or family names. It is common in disputes within online communities such as gaming or social media. Consequences can include in-person harassment, identity theft, and prolonged psychological damage.
Digital stalking
Definition. Digital stalking is the obsessive and unwanted following of a person through digital media, monitoring their activity, location, or relationships.
In adolescents, digital stalking often appears in contexts of dating violence: a partner demands access to social media, checks the phone without permission, installs location apps, or creates fake accounts to surveil. Detecting it in time prevents more serious escalations. The normalization of controlling love on social media makes this term urgent to discuss at home.
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Technology
Tools, AI models, and technical concepts that shape children's digital lives.
Parental control
Definition. Parental control is the set of tools and techniques that allow the adult to supervise, restrict, and filter a minor's digital activity.
Traditional parental control operates through blocking and surveillance: it limits apps, filters content, monitors screen time, and tracks location. It works well for pre-teens but loses effectiveness with adolescents, where "seeing everything" tends to damage trust and push the minor to platforms the adult doesn't know. That's why alternative models like parental accompaniment have emerged.
Parental accompaniment
Definition. Parental accompaniment is a digital supervision model that prioritizes the minor's consent, content privacy, and family dialogue over surveillance.
Unlike parental control, accompaniment provides the adult with information about patterns, emotions, and possible risks without exposing literal conversations. It requires the minor to know they are being accompanied and, in many cases, their explicit consent. This is the category to which Xoul belongs.
End-to-end encryption (E2EE)
Definition. End-to-end encryption is a message protection technique where only the sender and receiver can read the content, not even the service provider.
WhatsApp, Signal, and iMessage use E2EE. This means messages cannot be intercepted in transit. Respectful parental accompaniment tools, like Xoul, operate by accessing messages on the minor's device with their consent, not by breaking the encryption.
Generative AI
Definition. Generative artificial intelligence is a technology capable of creating original text, images, audio, or video based on human instructions.
For a family, generative AI changes the digital landscape of minors on three fronts: as a learning tool (ChatGPT, Claude), as a risk (deepfakes, non-consensual sexual content generated with AI), and as a protective technology (detection of emotional patterns and risk in conversations).
Human-in-the-loop
Definition. Human-in-the-loop is an artificial intelligence training model where human experts review, correct, and iterate on the model's decisions to continuously improve it.
"An AI decides" is not the same as "an AI decides with expert human supervision." In tools that detect emotions or risks in minors, human-in-the-loop is what prevents catastrophic false positives and allows the system to improve over time. It is the training model used by the Xoul clinical team.
Recommendation algorithm
Definition. A recommendation algorithm is the system that decides what content is shown to a user on a digital platform, based on their previous behavior and that of similar users.
TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and almost every social network use recommendation algorithms. For minors, this means the content they see is not neutral: it is optimized for retention. This generates dynamics known as bubbles or rabbit holes that can lead from an innocent interest to extremist or harmful content in just a few steps.
Restricted mode or Kids mode
Definition. Restricted mode is a setting available in many apps that filters content potentially inappropriate for minors.
YouTube has Restricted Mode, TikTok has Family Mode, Roblox has parental controls. These settings are useful but not infallible: they filter by keywords and metadata, not by context. It's best to combine them with dialogue and accompaniment, never use them as the sole strategy.
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Parenting and family bonds
Concepts to think about the digital dimension of parenting and family bonds.
Digital parenting
Definition. Digital parenting is the set of practices, decisions, and values with which families accompany their children in the digital world.
It is not a practice separate from general parenting: it is another dimension. Decisions about when to give the first phone, what social networks are allowed, how to regulate screen time, how to talk about sexting or pornography, are part of digital parenting. Each family builds their own according to values, age, and context.
Generational digital gap
Definition. The generational digital gap is the difference in skills, habits, and cultural references between different generations in the use of technology.
Children manage platforms that parents barely know. This asymmetry generates two dangers: that the adult overestimates their ability to understand what the minor is experiencing, or that they abandon the role of accompaniment because they feel lost. Closing the gap doesn't require becoming an expert, just maintaining curiosity and dialogue.
Sharenting
Definition. Sharenting is the practice of parents sharing information, photos, and videos of their minor children on social networks.
Sharenting is legal and normalized, but it generates consequences that are often invisible. It creates a digital footprint of the minor before they can consent, exposes their image to algorithms and eventually to third parties, and models a relationship with privacy that the minor later replicates. The adult conversation about sharenting is part of responsible digital modeling.
Technoference
Definition. Technoference is the interference that the use of cell phones and other screens generates in moments of face-to-face interaction within the family.
Research shows that children and adolescents perceive when an adult is partially present, looking at the phone. This impacts the bond, emotional regulation, and the minor's sense of importance in the family. Technoference also happens the other way: a minor eating while looking at the phone is also absent. It is bidirectional.
Family technology agreement
Definition. A family technology agreement is an explicit pact between adults and minors about the rules, expectations, and limits of screen use at home.
It works best when built together, not when imposed. It defines screen-free hours, which apps are allowed, what to do if something happens, and reviews the agreement periodically as the minor evolves. It reduces daily conflicts and reinforces the sense of predictability.
Digital diet
Definition. Digital diet is the practice of consciously choosing what type of content and how much time is spent on screens, similar to how food choices are made.
The focus is not only on how many hours are spent in front of a screen, but on what is done with that time. Thirty minutes creating educational content is not equivalent to thirty minutes of passive scrolling on TikTok. Thinking of digital time as a diet helps families discuss quality, not just quantity.
Attention span
Definition. Attention span is the period of time during which a person can concentrate on a single task before needing a change or a break.
Intensive use of screens with fast stimuli (TikTok, Reels, Shorts) is documented as a factor that trains the brain to operate with increasingly shorter attention spans. In minors, this can impact study capacity, patience, and emotional regulation. It is not deterministic, but it is a trend worth knowing about.
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Legal framework
Rights, laws, and obligations that regulate the digital lives of minors.
Parental authority
Definition. Parental authority is the set of rights and duties that the law recognizes for parents over their minor children, including care, education, and supervision.
Parental authority is what legally backs adults supervising their minor children's digital lives. This includes reviewing the phone, using parental control tools, or accompaniment applications. Supervision is legal in most countries, which does not mean it is always ethically optimal.
Minor's consent
Definition. The minor's consent is the express acceptance by a child or adolescent of a practice that involves them, given with sufficient information to understand it.
Although adults have legal right to supervise, the minor's consent is ethically decisive. An accompaniment tool used with consent strengthens trust; used in secret, it tends to accelerate migration to less safe spaces when discovered. The capacity to consent grows with age and maturation.
LOPDGDD (Spain)
Definition. LOPDGDD is the Organic Law on the Protection of Personal Data and Guarantee of Digital Rights in Spain, which regulates personal data processing and rights in digital environments.
It establishes that minors under 14 cannot consent on their own to the processing of their data on social networks and digital platforms. It also guarantees rights such as rectification, opposition, and deletion of data. It is one of the most comprehensive Spanish-speaking laws on children's digital rights.
COPPA (United States)
Definition. COPPA is the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, a US federal law that regulates the collection of personal information from minors under 13 on the internet.
COPPA requires platforms to obtain verifiable parental consent before collecting data from minors under 13. It is the reason many apps require users to be 13 or older to register. Although it is a US law, its influence is global because large platforms operate worldwide.
Convention on the Rights of the Child
Definition. The Convention on the Rights of the Child is an international treaty adopted by the UN in 1989 that establishes the civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights of all minors under 18.
Three articles are central to digital life. Article 5 recognizes parental authority. Article 16 recognizes the minor's right to privacy. Article 19 obliges the State to protect the minor from abuse. The balance between these three rights defines the ethical debate on digital supervision of children.
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Mental health and digital wellbeing
Concepts to understand the emotional and cognitive impact of intensive technology use.
Digital anxiety
Definition. Digital anxiety is the emotional distress generated by the intensive use of screens, social networks, or the constant feeling of being connected.
It manifests as a compulsive need to check the phone, irritability when there's no connection, difficulty sleeping due to nighttime use, and constant comparison with others on social media. In adolescents, digital anxiety is documented as a factor in mental health deterioration when combined with other stressors. It is one of the patterns that systems like Xoul detect through emotional analysis of conversations.
FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out)
Definition. FOMO is the persistent feeling of missing out on experiences that others are living, intensified by continuous exposure to social media.
Social networks show the edited lives of peers: trips, parties, achievements. This activates accelerated social comparison in adolescents. FOMO affects self-esteem, life plans, daily decisions. It is one of the mechanisms by which social media is associated with increases in adolescent anxiety and depression.
Digital burnout
Definition. Digital burnout is the physical, emotional, and cognitive exhaustion caused by excessive and sustained use of technology.
In adolescents, it manifests as a drop in school performance, irritability, sleep problems, and disinterest in activities outside the screen. It is not the same as phone addiction: it is exhaustion. The response is not always to forbid, but to design pauses and moments of genuine disconnection.
Emotional regulation
Definition. Emotional regulation is the ability to identify, understand, and manage one's own emotions in a way appropriate to the context.
In adolescents, emotional regulation is still developing. Screens can help (meditation apps, educational content about emotions) or hinder (constant stimulation that doesn't allow processing). Respectful parental accompaniment in digital life includes supporting the development of emotional regulation, not replacing it.
Digital resilience
Definition. Digital resilience is a minor's ability to navigate online risks, recover from negative experiences, and learn from them.
The goal of accompaniment is not to avoid all possible harm (impossible), but to form minors who know how to recognize risks, ask for help when something goes wrong, and move forward afterward. This is built by combining digital literacy, family dialogue, and accompanied experiences, not absolute prohibitions.
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Apps and platforms
Specific technologies that come up in family conversations about digital life.
WhatsApp Web
Definition. WhatsApp Web is the version of WhatsApp that allows accessing conversations from a browser or desktop application, linking the user's main device via a QR code.
WhatsApp Web is the technical foundation that allows tools like Xoul to work without installing anything on the minor's device: the minor links their account as they would with any browser, maintaining control of the connection. If the minor unlinks, the connection ends.
VPN
Definition. A VPN is a virtual private network that encrypts a device's internet traffic and allows simulating a connection from another geographic location.
VPNs have legitimate uses (privacy, access to legally geo-restricted content) but can also be used by minors to bypass parental blocks or access platforms restricted in their country. Knowing what a VPN is helps to understand why some parental controls lose effectiveness if the minor activates one.
Screen time
Definition. Screen time is the total amount of time a person spends interacting with digital devices in a given day or period.
Recommendations vary by age: the American Academy of Pediatrics suggests zero screens for children under 18 months (except video calls), a maximum of one supervised hour between ages 2-5, and consistency with reasonable limits for older children. But "how much" is only part of it: what is done and with whom matters.
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