Mobile Dev Memo Podcast Season 7, Episode 4: Protecting children from digital harms (with Karl Stillner)
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Jan 27, 2026 Karl Stillner, CEO and co-founder of Bright Canary, builds tools to help parents understand their children’s digital activity. Conversation covers which parents worry most, how COVID changed device use, the unique harms of social media, tools parents can use today, regulatory developments like Sammy’s Law, and recommended ages for phones and social networks.
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Post‑COVID Screen Time Shift
- Devices became a de facto babysitter during COVID and kids' screen time roughly doubled and never returned to prior levels.
- Parents across demographics now recognize digital harm as a core parenting problem and lack accumulated wisdom to address it.
Unexpected Early Adopter Demographics
- Bright Canary expected coastal tech workers to be early adopters but found over-indexing in faith-based and Midwest/Southern communities.
- This surprised the founders and revealed different regional parenting styles affect product adoption.
Combine Qualitative Insight With Time Limits
- Use qualitative monitoring alongside OS-level time limits to understand what kids actually do online instead of only how long they spend online.
- Rely on AI to surface worrying signals so parents don't need to read every message but can act when things go off the rails.
