Dear De La Salle Families,
De La Salle and Carondelet have been working with Kim Karr, co-founder of Digital4Good, to better understand the current digital landscape and how students can navigate social media safely. As part of this effort, the two schools will host a special Parent Ed Night on March 11, as well as an assembly for all De La Salle and Carondelet students.
Navigating social media is a lot more complicated than it seems. Posting, commenting, reacting, and sending messages are easy enough—but what happens when we run into problems like AI deepfakes, toxic group chats, cyberbullying, doxxing, and suicide baiting? Not to mention comparison culture and unspoken social media “rules,” like maintaining your follower-to-following ratio. These challenges can contribute to anxiety, low self-esteem, depression, and other mental health issues.
For the joint school assemblies, Kim Karr will present a keynote address entitled “Connecting the Real and Digital You” to juniors and seniors in the DLS Hofmann Center. Kim has also trained a dedicated group of De La Salle and Carondelet student leaders to give the same presentation to freshmen and sophomore students at Carondelet: freshmen in the Garaventa and sophomores in the gym. The assemblies are designed to help students navigate the digital space safely, manage their well-being, and redefine expectations of what the digital world can be.
Our Parent Ed Night will be an interactive presentation and Q&A session with Kim Karr. We encourage all De La Salle and Carondelet parents and guardians to attend – either alone or with their student. The event will be held at the Br. Celestine Cormier, FSC Theatre at De La Salle, on March 11. It will begin at 6:30 pm. Please RSVP to let us know you are coming.
Preparing our students for the changing digital space upholds and develops both De La Salle and Carondelet's missions to form young adults who seek to protect the dignity of all people, engage in healthy relationships, and have a positive impact on their community.
For additional information and resources on teens and social media, the digital space, and, more recently, Generative AI and AI Companions, Common Sense Media is a good source to visit.
