Left To Their Own Devices

When she was 12 years old, Ava Smithing spiralled down a social media rabbit hole that nearly cost her life. A decade later, she discovered she wasn't alone: Big Tech had hijacked childhood and adolescence for an entire generation. 

In this ten-part investigative podcast, Ava crosses the continent to uncover a hidden digital world. She'll meet teens with millions of followers, young girls wrestling with co...

Algorithms are the invisible engines that drive every scroll, swipe or click. And, in the last few years, it's become clear that they can devastate young lives. But Ava discovers they might also be capable of saving them. 

She speaks with two teens with radically different stories. When 12-year-old CeCe Neltner went online to find workout tips, her social media feeds devolved into a torrent of eating disor...

You'd be hard-pressed to find a young person who uses Facebook regularly. But to understand why social media has had such a profound, and sometimes devastating, effect on kids, you need to understand Facebook's origin story first.

Ava tracks down two of Silicon Valley's most prominent insiders: Roger McNamee and Frances Haugen. Together, they trace Facebook's rise into a global behemoth and reveal how decisions made i...

Are screens rewiring kids' brains and creating a generation of depressed teens? After Jonathan Haidt published his mega-bestseller The Anxious Generation, a lot of parents became convinced that they were. But the science tells a more complicated story.

Ava interviews several scientists studying technology's impact on our brains, then takes matters into her own hands. She meets up with Dr. Emma Duerden, Can...

Like a lot of lonely teenagers, Sarah found refuge on social media. In her lowest moments, she'd reach for her phone, connecting with strangers on Snapchat and Wizz – an app that's been called "Tinder for kids." But those digital friendships quickly became something more sinister. A torrent of older male users solicited her, and then, when she spurned their advances, blackmailed her.

For years, Sarah's life was in tur...

The West African cybercriminals who call themselves the Yahoo Boys have perfected dozens of cons – including the infamous Nigerian Prince email scam. But recently, they've discovered something far more lucrative: the extortion of teenage boys.

In just two years, sextortion cases targeting teens have exploded by 18,000 percent. The Yahoo Boys have made millions. And they've left a trail of devastation in th...

In the absence of meaningful regulation, thousands of young people are now looking to the justice system to hold Big Tech accountable. In this episode, we go inside three landmark lawsuits that could finally force social media companies to answer for the damage they've done.

New Mexico's Attorney General, Raul Torrez, has seen the darkest corners of the internet. After twenty years prosecuting child sex crimes, he kno...

When Ghyslain Raza – aka the "Star Wars Kid" – became the internet's first viral sensation, it nearly destroyed him. More than twenty years later, many young people today are desperate for that kind of fame – even if it means making their most embarrassing moments available for public consumption. 

According to one recent poll, more than half of all Gen Zs want to be influencers – online creators who turn ...

The numbers are staggering. In the US, 71% of teenagers say they've watched porn in the last week. In Canada, 88% of boys have seen it by the age of fourteen. And in the UK, one in four kids have been exposed to pornography by the time they turn eleven. Even more alarming: this early consumption has been linked to rising rates of domestic violence among teens.

In this episode, Ava meets Harrison and Nat – two young pe...

On December 10, 2025, Australia will be the first country in the world to ban social media for kids. It's a radical step, and lawmakers around the world are taking notice. In the U.S., eight states have proposed similar legislation. In Canada, Quebec and Nova Scotia are reportedly considering bans of their own. These policies are popular, but they're also controversial – and some experts worry they could isolate a generation of chi...