Aim. This article aims to present the meanings given by families and schools in viewing popular culture in social media and online games, and the implications for children. Important questions in this study include the relevance of educational values, concerns, fears and hopes of families and schools in viewing popular culture today. Methods. Phenomenology to explore how families and schools interpret the presence of popular culture in children's lives. Results. Families and schools agree that compared to the positive benefits, popular culture has more negative effects on children. Concerns related to children's imitation nature, such as imitating various popular content on social media and online games and practising them in the real world. Families and schools fear of negative popular content will appear algorithmically and randomly on children's social media or online game homepages. All parties hope that the Indonesian government has the firmness to limit the intensity of use and the type of content consumed by children. Conclusion. Popular culture is inseparable from children's lives today, as social media and online games have become new spaces for them. Despite knowing this, families and schools still suffer from worry and fear of the negative effects of popular culture on children. The control exercised by families and schools still provides a gap for negative popular culture to enter when children operate social media and online games. Therefore, moral teachings are needed for families and schools to ask the government to be actively involved in limiting children's consumption of popular culture.