Hey friends, 

Is anyone else in full-blown post-Olympics grief? Like… one minute we’re yelling at the TV over curling and the next minute we’re staring at a random Tuesday like: what are we supposed to cheer for now? Our brains got used to the daily excitement. The storylines. The underdogs. The nailbiting adrenaline.

And honestly… that’s kind of the point of today’s newsletter. Because when your brain gets used to a steady drip of excitement? It starts craving the next hit.

And guess what tech is exceptionally good at delivering? Yep. Let’s get into it.

Instagram Reels “Auto-Scroll” is here

So Instagram has been quietly rolling out an Auto-scroll feature for Reels (no big announcement, just a sneaky surprise). It started mid 2025 in international markets, and now it’s showing up more broadly in feeds, including for teen accounts.

Here’s what we don’t love. Scrolling is a physical pause point. It’s the tiny moment where your brain has the chance to go, “Ok wait… do I actually want another one?” Auto-scroll removes that moment.

So instead of: watch → decide → scroll.
It becomes: watch → watch → watch → watch → suddenly it’s been 56 minutes and you don’t even know your own name.

And for kids (whose brains are still building impulse control + reward regulation), that endless stream of new content & new dopamine hits is… a lot. The more effortless it becomes, the harder it is to stop.

Our recommendation: don’t turn this on. For now it’s off by default. But who knows if that will change.

Pew just dropped new data on teens + AI and parents are not on the same page

Pew Research released fresh findings this week on what parents think about their teens using AI chatbots and the biggest takeaway is that there’s a gap. A big one. 51% of parents say their teen uses chatbots but 64% of teens say they use them. So a lot of parents are basically like, “Not my kid 😊” …and the kids are like: “Lol yes your kid.”

Pew also found:

• About 3 in 10 parents aren’t sure whether their teen uses AI at all.

• Roughly 4 in 10 parents say they’ve never talked with their teen about chatbots.

• Parents are mostly okay with AI for info (about 8 in 10) and generally more okay with it for fun/creative stuff (around two-thirds), but they get way less comfortable when it becomes personal.

• Only 18% of parents say they’d be okay with their teen using AI for emotional support or advice — and that’s the one category where a majority of parents say “no.”

So what does this tell us?

Parents aren’t ignoring AI, they’re just trying to understand a moving target while also making dinner and battling regular screen time. But the gap matters because when we don’t know how our kids are using AI, we can’t guide it. And AI isn’t just homework help anymore. It’s friendship-ish, advice-ish, identity-ish… and that gets complicated fast.

Which brings us to something we’re really excited about…

Our new Screen Sense AI Guide is officially here!

It’s built for real-life parenting and it covers:

• how teens are actually using AI (school, social, emotional, curiosity, chaos)

• what boundaries make sense at different ages

• how to talk about cheating, accuracy, privacy, and “don’t tell the bot your entire life story”

• family rules that don’t require you to become a robot engineer

Grab it here!

If AI has entered your house (and it has), this guide will help you feel less like you’re guessing in the dark and more like you’ve got a flashlight and a plan.

We don’t know about you, but the world feels heavy right now. And as parents, it’s not just our worries…we carry the weight of our kids’ worries too. Their fears, their questions, their anxiety, their “what if” thoughts that show up at bedtime when you’re already running on fumes.

So here’s what we want to say: You don’t have to carry it alone. You don’t have to have all the answers. You don’t have to fix what’s happening around us to be a good parent. Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is simply be a soft place to land, showing up with kindness, understanding, and love.

That will always win. We’re in this together.

—Cat & Nat