Empowering Parents...to be Rebels
The new fight for digital sanity pits parents against Big Tech—and themselves
Please pardon the recent radio silence here at Commonwealth Dispatches as I’ve been settling in to my new digs and duties at American Compass. It’s been a blast, but left little time for reading, writing, and ruminating.
Still, ruminating is what I do best, and this week, and lately I’ve been pondering what it actually means to “empower parents” to resist a digital culture that many of them have themselves helped to foster.
This week marked a significant milestone in the history of the internet—or at least the smartphone—as Utah became the first state to pass the App Store Accountability Act. Until now, Apple and Google’s mobile app stores have been something of a Wild West, with precious few regulations on what apps can say and do, and who can access them. Indeed, even though federal law prevents apps from collecting data on under-13s, most get around this by just telling users that if they want to open an account, they need to enter a birthdate that’s at least 4,745 days ago (yeah, that’s 13 years, if math ain’t your strong suit). The result is a world where 31% of second-graders are using social media apps, cooking their brains and putting them in the path of sex predators and all manner of bad actors.
The ASAA, which is rapidly getting traction in other states and even garnering interest in the US Congress, is a robust effort to fix all this, requiring app stores to verify whether users are 18+, and if they are not, to request explicit parental consent for every single app download and every in-app purchase. A lot of friends and collaborators have been involved in this landmark effort, and it was particularly gratifying when Apple, which had spent years denying such age verification was even possible, suddenly reversed course last week and announced it was implementing precisely such measures in a desperate bid to avoid regulation.
But I’m not here to talk about the law—my friends at IFS offered a great run-down on it yesterday if you’re interested. I’m here to talk about the broader conversation around this law and many other such measures that have been gaining momentum in recent months. Proponents of these laws frame them as efforts to “empower parents” and hold Big Tech accountable for years of reckless exploitation of kids. For instance, the IFS summary says, “apps and app stores face effectively no liability for how adults behave on their platforms, leaving kids vulnerable to countless harms. ASAA corrects these problems by requiring app stores to put parents back in the driver’s seat when it comes to app use by their kids. ASAA empowers parents to better monitor their child’s digital diet by requiring app stores to get parental permission for every app download, purchase, and in-app purchase that a minor makes.”
Now, no one is going to say No to “empowering parents”—at least, no one except a few wacky lefty loonies who think that children must be fully empowered to make their own decisions exactly the same as adults do. And bashing Big Tech for their exploitation feels cathartic. In one state hearing for an ASAA bill, the NetChoice lobbyist said, “These companies do a great job. There’s been a breakdown in this country involving tech and children, and that breakdown primarily has been parents.” Parents’ advocates went ballistic—and rightly so: for many of these companies, systematically exploiting kids has been an integral part of their business model; at best, protecting kids has been such a low priority that they dared not let it eat into their staggering profit margins. Big Tech has managed to make last century’s Big Tobacco companies look benevolent by comparison. That said, I do think we need to be careful not to get carried away.
The same day that Apple announced its new age verification measures, Jonathan Haidt tweeted an astounding new report from Common Sense Media on young child (0-8) screen use. By their own reports (which one imagines are underestimates), parents responded that 5-8 year-olds spent 3.5 hrs. of screen time per day on average (and I don’t believe that includes screentime at school), that 20% of 8-year-olds have their own smartphone, and—get ready for it—that 40% of 2-year-olds have their own tablet. Only 17% of parents supervise their kids while they’re using TikTok. Nearly every stat in the report is sobering, but perhaps the most striking feature of it is the confusion parents seem to feel. 75 to 80 percent of parents shared that they were concerned about the effects of excessive screen use and inappropriate content on kids, while similar numbers reported being enthusiastic about their kids’ ability to learn new things or connect with people through screen media.
These stats echo my own experience—there are few parents I talk to who don’t seem concerned at some level about what digital tech is doing to kids, and yet very few seem willing to buck the general cultural trends. We do have to be honest with ourselves about what these new laws “empowering parents” to give positive consent can achieve. In a world where many parents don’t blink before giving a 2-year-old an iPad, do we really think that most parents won’t click “Accept” when their 15-year-old needs them to consent to downloading Instagram? Perhaps there has been some level of breakdown involving parents. Why might this be?
I want to suggest five reasons:
Drinking the Kool-aid: These companies may not do a great job of protecting kids, but they sure as heck do a great job of marketing—both to kids, and to their parents. This marketing goes far beyond just advertisements on TV or billboards, but has been, for two decades now, a full-court press across the whole spectrum of culture. The consistent message has been: digital technology is exciting, digital technology is empowering, digital technology offers connection, digital technology prepares your children for success in the world. And of course, some forms of digital technology are indeed all these things; it requires great wisdom and discrimination to separate the empowering from the exploitative. But these companies do their best to keep consumers in a state of perpetual befuddlement, not careful discrimination. Thus many parents, as the Common Sense Media survey shows, have become convinced that more tech really is better for their kids, at least on some level—a belief that manages to co-exist with sincere worries that more tech is also bad for them.
FOMO: Perhaps the biggest factor driving parental tech adoption, though, is good old-fashioned fear of missing out. Now, this happens among the kids themselves for sure—they’re convinced that if they don’t have access to all the devices and platforms their peers have, they will miss out on something essential. And they lobby their parents to the point of exhaustion: parenting can be an eighteen-year-long war of attrition, and even the best parents learn to pick their battles and cut their losses. If they’re fighting a battle every single day against a teen who needs Instagram to keep in touch with her peers, they will probably cave. But it’s important to note that it’s not just the kids—the parents are also terrified of their kid missing out, whether that’s missing out on some crucial learning or development opportunity (see the Kool-aid above), or simply missing out on relationships and experiences. These are not irrational fears—even if they are often indulged to an irrational extent. Social media really does pose collective action problems because it is, well, social. It is extremely hard for one kid or one family to opt out of what every other family is using as the default mode of learning and connection.
The Helicopter Mindset: In debates over getting phones out of schools, the biggest pushback has been from parents, and one of the constant refrains has been “but I need to stay in touch with my kids.” And indeed, this is often the most-cited justification for parents buying their kids their first phone. In an age where 24/7 connection is possible, we come to think of it as essential. A moment’s self-examination will show how readily we fall prey to this mindset—how often have you, unable to reach a friend or a spouse after even a couple hours of texting or calling them, become either frustrated or freaked out that something terrible happened to them? Once upon a time, it was normal to let kids roam the neighborhood for hours without supervision, and of course to send them off to school in the morning with no expectation of being able to communicate (except in case of emergency) until 8 hours later. But supplements have a way of becoming substitutes, and in a culture of more generalized helicopter parenting, it will take real work to peel most parents away from this compulsion. (Although I should add that for parents for whom this is the real concern, a simple dumb-phone or at least a Bark/Gabb/Troomi phone would be perfectly adequate.)
Punch-drunk from innovation: In my recent talk at AEI on families and technology, I used the phrase “punch-drunk from the pace of innovation.” In fact, I used it in our “Stop Hacking Humans” essay as well. What can I say? It’s a good metaphor. If someone is struck in the head multiple times in quick succession, they become dazed, disoriented, and benumbed, unable to think or act clearly. This is how so many of today’s parents feel from the sheer pace at which new technologies are thrown at them. Every time they try to adjust to a new device or faddish app, there’s an upgrade, a new “must-have” product or app, or a confusing software update that makes a mess of all their carefully-calibrated parental controls. They might start off being careful, attentive, and trying to make smart decisions about what to allow and what not to, but such resolve simply breaks down eventually. A couple months ago, I talked to a social worker who specializes in cases of child-on-child sexual abuse, most precipitated by digital tech. In most cases, she says, the parents were well-intentioned, but had reached a point of numbness or paralysis after one too many downloads and just had no idea anymore what their kids were up to.
It’s Just Easier: While parents are clearly outmatched and deserve our sympathy, these are humans we’re talking about, and humans are, well, lazy and selfish. I know that as a parent, most of the time I’d rather be left alone to pursue my priorities, than take time to actually engage my kids with what they need—especially if they’re being odious, as kids often are. Nothing can shut a whining child up quite so quickly as a screen, and if the silencer is ready to hand, it talks real self-discipline not to reach for it. Add to this the fact that many parents have been taught to think it’s too dangerous to send their kids outside to play or bike, and the fact that more and more households are dual-income, with little time for childcare, and it’s no wonder that we’ve reached for screens as parenting substitutes, for 15-year-olds and 15-month-olds alike.
Now, in saying all this I am not trying to take the onus off of companies that profit off of hooking our kids on digital fentanyl so they can sell their data to advertisers. History, I am confident, will judge them harshly, and will wonder how they were allowed to get away with it for so long. But we live in an age of lazy finger-pointing, in which we think that as soon as we’ve identified one villain, all that’s left is to burn them in effigy. The reality is that, in this fallen world, there is always plenty of blame to go around. And until we reckon with that fact, we’re unlikely to see lasting solutions.
Legislation that “empowers parents” to make informed decisions about their kids’ digital access is a critical start. But many parents, let’s be honest, will buckle under the weight of the responsibility thus thrust upon them. A truly robust legal regime of protecting kids will involve: (1) identifying content that is so dangerous for children that it should simply be banned outright for minors (such as porn, as Clare and I have argued), (2) identifying exploitative design features or business practices that companies are banned from implementing, (3) identifying a remaining area of risky but debatable technologies where different parents may have different judgments, and empowering parents to make those decisions; (4) creating space for collective action that reduces the “fear of missing out” that cripples so much parental decision-making (e.g., school phone bans).
And such a legal regime, although a very helpful starting point, and potentially powerful in shaping the “choice architecture” within which parents and children think about their technologies, will have to be complemented by a broader cultural shift from the ground up, one built on courageous acts of rebellion led by churches, schools, and community leaders, who can give parents permission to resist. As Neil Postman concludes his The Disappearance of Childhood:
“Resistance entails conceiving of parenting as an act of rebellion against American culture….[T]o insist that one’s children learn the discipline of delayed gratification, or modesty in their sexuality, or self-restraint in manners, language, and style is to place oneself in opposition to almost every social trend. Even further, to ensure that one’s children work hard at becoming literate is extraordinarily time-consuming and even expensive. But most rebellious of all is the attempt to control the media’s access to one’s children….
Nonetheless, there are parents who are committed to doing all of these things, who are in effect defying the directives of their culture. Such parents are not only helping their children to have a childhood but are, at the same time, creating a sort of intellectual elite….Those parents who resist the spirit of the age will contribute to what might be called the Monastery Effect, for they will help to keep alive a humane tradition. It is not conceivable that our culture will forget that it needs children. But it is halfway toward forgetting that children need childhood. Those who insist on remembering shall perform a noble service.”
Recently Published
“An America-First Agenda for AI” (WORLD Opinions): My thoughts on the Vance AI Action Summit speech: if America needs to win the AI race for national security reasons, let’s go for it, but let’s do it with taxpayer dollars, not with the brains of taxpayers’ children.
“The Web of Narcissus” (American Affairs): ICYMI, my comprehensive review essay of Anton Barba-Kay’s A Web of Our Own Making, laying out the key elements of his critique of digital culture, and what we can do about it.
“Will the Truth Set You Free?” (FusionAIER): I sat down with Fusion editor Sam Goldman to discuss my new book, Called to Freedom: Retrieving Christian Liberty in an Age of License, what it has to say to secular audiences, and whether a new fusionism can get freedom right this time.
“Dignity and Dynamism: The Future of Conservative Tech Policy” (Event at AEI): Watch the full video of my panel discussion with Robert Bellafiore (FAI), Clare Morell (EPPC) and Leah Libresco Sargeant (Niskanen Center).
“Christian Liberty vs. Modern License: True Freedom in a Digital Age” (The Aaron Renn show): I’ve done almost two dozen podcast interviews about my book so far, but I was particularly honored by the opportunity to discuss it with Aaron Renn, profiled this week as one of the most influential evangelical commentators. (It was about the fifth interview I’d filmed that week, so my brain was starting to glaze over, but Aaron tells me that I still said some intelligent things.)
See also the reviews of my book, Called to Freedom, recently published by James Wood in WORLD and by Nathanael Blake in The Federalist. Very grateful to both authors for their careful reading and generous engagement!
Coming down the Pipe
“Shining a Light on the Sextortion Crisis” (forthcoming op-ed for WORLD Opinions)
“App Store Accountability At Last?” (forthcoming op-ed for WORLD Opinions)
“Post-liberalism in Conversation: Why is liberalism becoming illiberal?” (forthcoming event Elliott School of International Affairs, GWU, 3/20): I’ll be arguing that the contemporary crisis of liberalism is in large part the result of the failure to sustain the Protestant soil that nurtured it.
“Family Formation and the Future: The Geopolitical, Cultural, and Legal Dimensions of Demographic Change” (forthcoming event at the Danube Institute in Budapest, 4/1): I will be speaking on how parents are mobilizing to defeat the porn industry.
Recommended Reads"
“One Word Describes Trump” (Jonathan Rauch, The Atlantic): “Patrimonialism is less a form of government than a style of governing. It is not defined by institutions or rules; rather, it can infect all forms of government by replacing impersonal, formal lines of authority with personalized, informal ones. Based on individual loyalty and connections, and on rewarding friends and punishing enemies (real or perceived), it can be found not just in states but also among tribes, street gangs, and criminal organizations.”
“The New Control Society” (Jon Askonas, The New Atlantis): I’ll confess I’ve started reading this mammoth essay twice and only gotten halfway through, but what I’ve read so far is enough to confirm the chatter that this is probably one of the most important essays on technology in recent years.
“Unmanly Anti-Semitism” (James Wood, First Things): “For these people to be obsessed with the ‘Jewish Problem’ reveals an irony: While claiming to lead a resurgence of Christian masculinity, they have embraced a posture that is un-Christian and, frankly, unmanly. Instead of calling men to rise above hardship with courage and faith, they wallow in grievance, blame-shifting, and victimhood. It is a perverse mirror image of the very ‘wokeism’ they so loudly decry.”
“The Christian Logic of the Postwar Consensus” (John Ehrett, Ad Fontes/Commonwealth): “This is a stark thesis. And it invites equally stark questions: if it was so fundamentally wrongheaded from the start, why has the postwar consensus been defended so vigorously? And how can the larger critique be squared with the fact that so many of the people involved with this consensus understood it as a Christian project? Was this consensus really an alien interpolation into a tradition of Western political thought, or a logical development?”
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