10 Reasons Why Teenagers Shouldn't Have Smartphones
Think I'm crazy? Then give me 10 reasons why. I'd love to start a civil dialogue within the church.
Some of my friends are trying their best to restrict their teenagers from having Instagram, Snapchat and the like (especially moms of daughters). I think this is great. Truly. I applaud my friends who are parenting their daughters in this countercultural way, but I also push back a bit (because we are friends, ya know?). I believe, as Christian Parents, we need to not only say no to social media, but we need to say no to smartphones for kids and teenagers.
Here are 10 reasons why:
Fitting In. When I talk to teenagers and poke and prod just a bit, the main reason they want a smartphone is because their friends have one. Recently a 15 year old, who got her smartphone at age 10, told me, “I wish there was a law that nobody could have social media and it went into effect for everyone all at the same time.” When I asked if she’d get rid of her social media, she said she wants to but she can’t because that’s how she communicates with her friends and boyfriend. If kids didn’t have smartphones, this law she wants would essentially come to bear. Parents, we don’t need to wait for a law. We can make this change for our kids. When I asked a 13 year old, who doesn’t have a smartphone, if she would still want a smartphone if her friends didn’t have them, she just stared at me and didn’t have much of a response. My point is, even the kids know that smartphones aren’t doing them many favors. Especially as Christian parents, let’s teach our kids that assimilating into culture isn’t always wise.
Access to pornography. According to the most popular pornography website, over 93% of its online traffic came from smartphones. Porn is a multi-billion dollar industry and they are spending those dollars to get more users. 90% of addictions begin in the teenage years. Pornography is highly addictive and much of what’s online is violent and extremely graphic. Porn sites are marketing their product to teenagers. It would be silly to put a Playboy magazine on your coffee table and tell your kids “just look away.” Assume if you put a smartphone in their pocket, they will see porn. It’s not a matter of if, it’s when. Remember, porn is a business. They are trying to grow their marketshare. Pornography companies do not care about your teenager. They care about their profit. The majority of first time porn exposure is on accident, but pornography is being marketed and pushed to your child on YouTube, Pinterest, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), and more. When you give your child access to the world, you give the world access to your child.
Maps. I’ve heard a lot of parents say they will give their son or daughter a smartphone when they are driving so they can have a mapping app. How many times are your 16-18 year olds driving to a place they have never been? Probably not often. My 10 year old could accurately navigate us to about 80% of the places we need to go. The other 20%? Take a few extra minutes and print out or write out directions at home. If we make our kids reliant on map functions, I think we are doing them a disservice. Put a physical map in their car for emergencies. Teach them how to use it. A time may come when cellular service is out or a phone charger or battery no longer works. We need to teach our kids the necessary life skills of how to navigate from point A to B without a smartphone. During his college years, my husband met up with a few friends for New Year’s Eve. In Times Square. Literally, they were all coming from different States. They didn’t have cellphones yet they managed to find each other. They made a plan ahead of time and stuck to it. Teenagers need to know how to move through the physical world with confidence, not reliance.
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash Parental Controls are a joke. Have you ever stopped to think about what “Parental Controls” are controlling? Does Google have the same ethical and moral standards as your family? How about Apple? Or Spotify? What about TikTok or Pinterest? That ESPN app your son loves? He’s seeing advertisements for sports betting. If a parental control can be set, it can be un-set. Kids are resourceful. They will figure out how to get around parental controls. Each December my brothers and I would sneak around our house trying to find Christmas presents our parents had hidden. It kind of ruined the surprise on Christmas morning and we felt bad about it, but we were kids: we were curious and had little patience. Assume your children & teens are curious and have little patience online. Also, if you aren’t aware, each time there is an app or iOS update, parental controls are typically scrubbed as part of the update and must be reset. This can become very time consuming for a parent, to say the least.
The Jones family from church that gave their teenager a smartphone. It’s not going well for them. When we see that other parents have given smartphones, we assume it is okay. We assume these other parents have done the research, know the risks and rewards and believe a smartphone to be good for their son or daughter. More often than not, something hasn’t gone well. The time limits aren’t working, their child has seen something they can’t unsee, the drama in their house has increased. It’s been said that giving your teenager a smartphone is like giving them a snake in a box. Very few parents are willing to share their struggles and sometimes that’s because of a desire to protect the privacy and reputation of their children. I’m not faulting parents for not airing their dirty laundry! I’m just saying, don’t assume that because somebody else gave a smartphone that it’s a good idea. Over my many years of doing this, I’ve had countless Christian parents pull me aside or frantically call me with horror stories about what their kids have done or been exposed to on a screen. To the parents who have “locked down” their kid’s phone and essentially turned the smartphone into a “dumb phone,” good for you. I hope this works. I’ll admit, not every child is going to abuse the privilege. There are some super compliant children out there. BUT when other parents see an iPhone in your teenager’s hand, it falsely gives the impression that this is a good idea. Even if you feel confident in how many restrictions are on your kid’s phones, other parents may not be as tech savvy and their kids may not be as compliant.
Pictures. Sending pictures, receiving pictures, taking pictures. Not every moment of our teenage years ought to be cataloged. Even deleting pictures doesn’t really delete pictures as a recent bug in Apple’s photo software proved. There are studies showing that when we take photos, we don’t remember the moment as well. We’ve “offloaded” our memory. Let’s not forget selfies. The nature of being a teenager is to be pretty focused on what we look like, giving our kids an ever present mirror in their pocket has the potential to do a lot more harm than good. And, let’s be real: If I stood outside a gym locker room or the high school bathroom and handed everyone a camera, we’d all be creeped out. Giving teenagers the ability to take a photo at virtually any moment in time is a disaster waiting to happen. (And a disaster that does happen, especially with the rise of AI and deepfakes.) When I was in high school, I took pictures on film. This means that any photo I took, another human being was going to see it before I did. That small act of accountability, or potential embarrassment, was a good learning tool as a teenager.
Photo by Cristina Zaragoza on Unsplash Instant gratification. I was sitting in the library waiting for my son’s club meeting to wrap up. Close by, a student was working on homework. After finishing the assignment, the student pulled out a smartphone and started googling the answers. It wasn’t exactly cheating per se, but it wasn’t doing this student any favors either. Learning to wait is a necessary skill in life. When kids and teens have quick access to information, they don’t learn to take the time to slow down and think. We’ve become so accustomed to getting information and answers quickly that we don’t always consider if the source is trustworthy or accurate. If the student had pulled out a textbook to check the answers to the homework, we would have called this studying. The student would have been doing the work of looking for and determining the correct answer, not allowing google to tell the student the answer. What happens when Google is wrong? What happens when AI leads us astray?
Teenagers aren’t wise. Ever do anything as a teenager your parents told you not to do? Ever do anything really stupid as a teenager that you wish you could take back? Yeah, me too. When we put the internet in our teenagers’ pockets, let’s assume they are going to do dumb, dangerous things we told them not to do. They are going to do dumb, dangerous things in the physical world and the online world. Let’s at least give our kids the benefit of not having every stupid decision forever cataloged in the digital world. Job 12:12 tells us that wisdom comes from age. Giving our teenagers more time to develop wisdom before they have a smartphone will only serve them well.
Teenagers need their parents. I have told my children that I will always tell them the truth and answer any question they have. (That doesn’t mean I will always give them all of the details.) Explaining the Israeli- Hamas war to a 10 year old is different than how we explain it to a 12 year old or a 16 year old. Telling your older teenager that a beheading has occurred is vastly different than them seeing it in an online video. Recently I was asked, “Mom, what is the F-word and what does it mean?” If we want our kids coming to us, not the internet, with their questions, we have to allow time and space for it. Smartphones are full of notifications, pings, bright colors and new, exciting opportunities. By comparison, adults look pretty lame. When our kids are more connected to their phones than they are to us, we miss out on important, character-shaping conversations.
A sense of wonder. Recently, my youngest son and I were standing in the yard watching bumblebees. They were busy pollinating flowers. (There are no birds in this story. This is G-rated.) We could see on each bee how they stored pollen on their hind legs, how fast their wings were flapping and how hard they were working. We had the opportunity to marvel at God’s creation. I believe one of the biggest problems facing the church is that we don’t have a right view of who God is. As J.I. Packer wrote, “Knowing about God is crucially important for the living of our lives.” One of the ways we teach our children about God is through what he wrote to us in the Bible. Another way is through His creation. Romans 1:20, “For his invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what he has made. As a result, people are without excuse.” When we hand our children a smartphone, they become navel gazers, not creation observers.
Take some time to watch teenagers over the next few weeks. For most of them, their phones are clutched their hands, like their lives depend on it. Dear Christian Parent, Jesus says in John 10 that he came to give us life and life to the full. I believe he was talking about something far better than what a smartphone can offer us. Let’s give our children the gift of adolescence without a smartphone. The time will likely come when having a smartphone for work or “adulting” will be more of a requirement than an option. Let’s give our children and teenagers time to enjoy the freedom of not being constantly connected while we still can.
If you really think your teenager needs a phone, get them a non-internet connected phone. Be on the lookout for a future post with some recommendations. Until then, you can listen to the Screen Strong Families podcast #198 I hosted with two teenagers who grew up smartphone free.
Have 10 reasons why I’m wrong and teenagers should have smartphones? I’d love to hear them. Please, comment below!
Two perspectives on smartphones for kids. One from an atheist comedian, one from a Christian thought leader. The differences are alarming.
Russell Moore & Bill Maher
Shortly after reading Jonathan Haidt’s new book “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness” I put down my pencil and picked up my headphones. I had marked up my copy of the book pretty heavily but was ready to listen to Haidt speak about what he had written. (A full book review is forthcoming.)
There’s only one reason teenagers shouldn’t have cellphones: They Have Parents.
Very well written. Agree 100!