Fall 2025
The Tech Exit
By Clare Morell, Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center
Parents instinctively know that smartphones aren’t ideal for children. They read the news stories about horrifying cases of children being exploited, hear tech CEOs testify before Congress, or engage with Jonathan Haidt’s or Jean Twenge’s work, and they see for themselves the evidence that social media and smartphones are harmful to children.
Yet, it remains extremely difficult for concerned parents to stand against the strong current of screens in childhood. Giving a smartphone to a teen often feels like an inevitability: All their friends have them, and schools and extracurricular activities increasingly require certain apps. No parent wants their child to be ostracized or disadvantaged. This is a classic collective action problem – no parent wants their child to be the one left out.
However, there is good news: Parents working together can provide the collective solutions needed to change the culture around kids and smartphones. Legal reform is one tool that can help shift the culture in the right direction, but legislative change can often be slow. It is possible to beat the digital tech crisis ourselves by creating countercommunities that resist screens altogether. Schools and policymakers play a critical role in supporting these efforts as well. Before diving further, it’s important to understand why a tech-free childhood is necessary. Can’t parents simply put screen time limits and parental controls in place?
At first glance, the moderate approach may sound the most appealing. It seems like families can have it all: Parents can allow their children to use screens and also ensure their kids are protected from any detriments. In reality, however, it is a lose-lose scenario. The tools are exhausting and inadequate, so kids are not effectively shielded from the screens’ negative impacts, and parents struggle to maintain some semblance of control. In short, they get the worst of both worlds.
Our culture has treated screens like sugar — something that is harmful in large amounts but can be enjoyed in moderation. Yet, brain research increasingly shows us that the impact of social media and smartphones on developing brains is much more serious than that of a highly addictive drug.
Between the ages of 10 and 12, children’s dopamine receptors in the brain are multiplying. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter – specifically, it gives the brain a burst of pleasure when we do something that makes us happy or gives us satisfaction. We can get that from eating sugar — or in the case of social media and smartphones, from social approval, feedback, or rewards. However, dopamine does not produce lasting satisfaction or fulfillment; instead, it creates craving. As soon as the brain experiences that little spike of dopamine, it actually goes into a dopamine deficit; it wants you to do that thing again.
Dopamine receptors naturally multiply in young tweens’ brains to start turning them outward from their immediate families and seek dopamine boosts from forming connections with their peers. But when tweens get their first smartphones or access to social media, this natural process is hijacked by artificially high levels of dopamine. It is literally rewiring kids’ brains and causing addiction.
This is why I explain to parents that time limits are never enough. As soon as children log off, their brains crave the next chance to get back online. Additionally, the impact of the virtual world lasts long after their limited screen time on an app, especially for teen girls. The constant comparison with others on apps can breed hours of obsessive thought and worry long after they have stopped using the platform.
Over time, this cumulative impact causes the brain to become desensitized to the pleasures of the real world. Normal life activities – like watching a sunset, going for a walk with a family member, or reading a book – start to feel boring and mundane.
Parental controls are also largely a myth. Social media companies have worked very hard to convince parents that if you enable parental controls, your children will be safe. But in all cases, the teen must accept the parents’ restrictions, and they can easily bypass or disable them at any time. In what sense is that genuine parental control?
Even the supervision that parents are given is extremely limited. It mainly lets them set daily time limits and manage some of the privacy settings on the account; it does not let them see what is in their child’s feed or the content of direct messages received on the app. Parents also have absolutely no control over the algorithm, which ultimately determines what their child will continue to see in the app. In this system, the companies and their algorithms are in control, not the parents.
Some of the most common places where the most egregious content is shared are platforms like Snapchat and TikTok. These apps block third-party controls that parents could purchase if they were dissatisfied with the app’s existing built-in supervision tools.
In essence, there is no real parental oversight. No parental consent is required to make a social media account or download an app. Parents have been entirely boxed out of the equation, while tech companies and their algorithms maintain complete control. Our children are being thrust into a highly adult online world without any adults to look out for them. The great digital paradox is that our children are now being exposed to sexual adult content more than ever before in human history – and they carry it with them in their pockets 24/7.
Because of the extremely addictive effects of technology on the brain, children have never been less prepared to handle its demands. Living in this phase of constant instant gratification in the brain stunts the development of our prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for our self-control and our impulse regulation, thus also stunting their ability to actually develop into fully mature adults.
While there are very real mental health concerns, these are also only symptoms of a much greater spiritual disease afflicting our culture. The nature of these technologies and the virtual world they create is a threat to the very core of our humanity and flourishing. Screens habituate children toward an inhumane way of life. Character traits incentivized in the online world are often maladaptive for the real world. Screen technologies create dependence and addiction instead of independence and freedom. They reward and celebrate self-focus and self-expression over responsibility and service to others. It’s an entire online world built on metrics – likes, shares, and superficial connections – rather than friendship, trust, and meaningful conversation. It wires us to consume rather than produce, skim and switch between tasks instead of focus, read deeply, or think complexly. It trains us to be mindlessly entertained rather than fostering our own creativity and problem-solving abilities.
These results are also directly opposed to what is best for us as a nation. The endurance of a self-governing republic depends on a virtuous, flourishing citizenry. History and experience teach us that virtuous citizens are formed by families and the relationships of love and mutual responsibility they create. What parents want for their children is also what is best for the nation: free and virtuous men and women who contribute to society, make their country a better place, and are qualified to serve as leaders.
Big Tech, however, is working to form a different kind of person. They want our children to hand over as much of their time, attention, and data as possible. Smartphones and social media are not designed to be used responsibly. They are designed to overpower our own self-control and turn users into unthinking, dopamine-addicted consumers.
Whoever wins this competition for the minds of our children will determine what kinds of people are formed, as well as what the next generation of pastors, entrepreneurs, and community leaders will look like. The souls of our children — and ultimately the soul of our nation — are at stake. What must we all do to win this fight? The very short answer is also very simple: We should opt out entirely.
Dr. Victoria Dunley has reported an increase in parents bringing their children into her practice over concerns of ADHD or autism. They reported that their children were showing symptoms of irritability, struggling to focus, having tantrums, and exhibiting other concerning behaviors. Before treating them, Dunley had the children do a 30-day digital detox. For children without underlying conditions, the detox cut their symptoms in half. She has termed this condition “Electronic Screen Syndrome.”
This is the very definition of the need for a “tech exit.” No smartphones, no social media, no tablets, and no video games during childhood. The tech exit starts with walking your children through a complete digital detox from interactive screens. This is the best way for you to see the results for yourself and the difference it can make in your family.
Many of the families I’ve spoken with said that they initially thought it would be impossible to get rid of the smartphones or the tablets. But nearly all also said they had reached rock bottom. The screen limits they were trying to impose created numerous daily battles with their kids. They thought that giving in and allowing a smartphone would help their relationship with their child, but it only made things worse. That frustration pushed them to try the detox – and it worked.
It wasn’t always easy. Giving up any addiction or bad habit is hard at first. But these families persevered through the 30 days, and they could not believe the changes they saw in their children. That is the good news: Kids’ habits can be reshaped and reformed. Their brains can recalibrate to a normal homeostasis of dopamine. Real-life activities start to feel more enjoyable and pleasurable to them again.
There are also collective solutions that are gaining popularity, which will, in turn, enact cultural change. Currently, 18 states, including the District of Columbia, have enacted statewide bell-to-bell phone bans in schools. The results of these policies are incredible — improved camaraderie among students, greater respect for teachers, reduced discipline problems, and higher academic outcomes. Studies have shown that students’ test scores and GPAs all improved after a ban on phone use, especially among the lowest-achieving students.
These bans also allow students to test drive what a phone-free life can look like during the school day. Staying off their phones for several hours can help young brains recalibrate, so the pull of screens and apps is less powerful during after-school hours. Despite the increased push over the last decade to get every student a laptop or tablet, students’ math, reading, and science scores have continually declined since 2012. This past May, educational neuroscientists at Columbia University’s Teachers College, found evidence that children’s brains process written texts more deeply when they are presented in print rather than on a digital screen. We shouldn’t be afraid to reverse course when the data clearly tells us that screen-based learning isn’t working.
We should also consider laws that provide collective solutions to require age verification or parental consent for social media access and app store purchases. Parents must be returned to the driver’s seat when it comes to how their children engage online. Children are always being formed by something. Whether that influence is family, peers, teachers, or media, it is our job as parents to consider what forms our children and what they are being formed into.
Every time we hand our children a screen, technology answers that question for us. By their nature, screens form children into self-focused consumers who believe that life is about entertainment and instant gratification. The problem our culture faces is much deeper than the teen mental health crisis; it is a crisis of the soul.
We need to help kids re-enter the real world. If we want our children to be happy and successful — reaching their highest potential to serve God and country — then the most important thing we can do is change the culture by replacing screens with responsibility. The Tech Exit is not the end goal in itself; it is merely a means to pursue a truly prosperous culture, one ultimately found in a relationship with God and others. This is our highest calling and is the only path toward reclaiming true human flourishing, raising up the next generation of Americans to become the leaders that our country needs