Jenny Snarski
Catholic Herald Staff
Writer’s note: This is the second of a two-part series on smartphones. The first, focusing on adult detachment from overuse, was published Aug. 27. This piece focuses on practical advice for guiding children.
In early May, Chris Hurtubise hosted author and research fellow Clare Morell at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
Hurtubise encountered Morell’s book, “The Tech Exit,” during a personal process of discernment about how to better use technology, both as a personal tool and in his ministry leading the Diocese of Superior’s Office of Evangelization and Missionary Discipleship.
“The Tech Exit” was published in 2025 as a practical guide to freeing kids from smartphones. Morell notes much of her book is a nod to Jonathan Haidt’s work, which he published in the March 2024 book, “The Anxious Generation.”
Working in the public policy sphere, Morell’s work is an attempt to assist families and, ideally, communities in living countercultural relationships with digital technology.
When Hurtubise was studying Haidt’s work, Morell’s perspective took his “digital detox” one step further. In comments to the Catholic Herald, Hurtubise recognized, “It’s really inconvenient to have a dumbed-down smartphone in our society, so you have to be ready,” but his conviction was strengthened from engaging with Morell’s work.
As the saying goes, “You are what you eat … When it comes to our hearts, our minds and our character, the saying applies just as well,” he said. “What we watch, read and listen to forms who we are.”
He emphasized, “Being a disciple of Jesus while having a world of entertainment and stimuli in our pockets is a huge challenge.”
Referencing the resource he recently published for the diocese, “How to be Saints with Smartphones,” Hurtubise added, “The guide we put together is designed to help us be proactive in putting Christ at the center of our lives in place of our smartphones.”
Engaging with ‘The Tech Exit’
In the May conversation with Morell, Hurtubise noted, “We’re all aware that smartphones are ubiquitous in our society and have a very, very big influence in how we’re living our lives.”. Referring our roles as parents and educators, he acknowledged we are not always aware of what aspects of technology we are content with, and which ones concern us.
Hurtubise read the book with his wife, Stephanie, and said they were “trying to implement to the best of our ability” the limitations—and subsequent liberty—Morell advocates for in her research-backed book.
Morell is connected with the nonprofit Ethics and Public Policy Center (eppc.org), a conservative think tank that operates within a Judeo-Christian worldview with the goals of conducting and sharing research and advocacy with lawmakers. For the past five years, her focus has been state and federal laws that better protect kids online and support parents in doing the same.
Face-to-face with these harms—particularly, though not limited to, pornography—she wrote the book in response to countless parents asking for guidance. Morell had become convinced that the built-in screen time limits and parental controls were frustrating for parents and not adequately effective. A mother of three, she was also passionate about the topic as a parent.
Hurtubise said thinking about technology use for his children was a “mirror” for his own technology use.
Morell agreed, although she noted that children are particularly vulnerable during the development stages of childhood and adolescence, “but adults and our brains are not immune to these addictive effects.
“Instead, a total opt-out was needed,” she told Hurtubise, but admitted she wasn’t sure practically what that might look like and how to enact it. She interviewed dozens of families who were successfully raising their kids without technology and distilled the practices and principles they had in common.
“The whole point of my book was to help parents, but also to change the culture,” Morell stated. While she is still working on the public policy side of the issue, “parents are on the front lines” and need help directly. Writing the book was a self-reflective exercise and convicted her of the need to be, first and foremost, a model of what a healthy relationship with technology should look like.
The fellow and author admitted giving up her own smartphone two years ago and said it has helped her to be “a better mom and more engaged parent … I just don’t feel like I’m having to constantly fight the addictive pull towards the distraction of my phone.”
She said there, now more than ever, better alternatives for both teens and adults like the “Wisephone” she now uses that features tools like GPS without internet or social media.
Hurtubise asked her to highlight important statistics. She noted the drastic increase in mental health struggles among young people (anxiety, depression, self-harm, eating disorders and suicide) and the alarming amount of exposure to sexual content.
“When we realize that the average age of first smartphone use is 10 or 11 years old, and that 95% of teens in the U.S. use social media with one in three saying that they are on it constantly,” Morell reported. About one-third of a teenager’s day is spent on a smartphone. This is affecting teens’ ability to focus, comprehend complexities and think deeply.
Researchers are finding that the younger a child’s first exposure is to smartphone use, the worse are the effects they experience, “so there is a cumulative impact as well,” Morell said.
“If we can just protect that critical period of development as long as possible… I think we’ll see enormous benefits in our children, their development and their health,” she affirmed.
Hurtubise recognized that when smartphones were released around 2007, “we didn’t know what the implications would be.” He expressed the belief that parents still want what’s best for their children, but challenged that now, having data to confront they have to choose to respond to it, or to not respond.
He also acknowledged the cultural trends that, even if children and teens don’t have their own device, they likely have access to a smartphone or tablet as an established norm.
“What are some of the roadblocks parents are going to run into if they decide to purse a different path for their families?” he asked.
Morell addressed the first and biggest one she has seen, “that their child will be socially isolated or struggle to have friendships because so much of social life for teens is mediated” through smartphones and social apps. She doesn’t dismiss parents’ concerns about wanting their children to have good friendships, “but I don’t think the answer is giving them a smartphone.
“I think the answer, unfortunately, is that it just takes more intentionality and work on our part as parents to help them pursue those friendships in real life.” When they say their child might be left out, she responds that real friends will find ways to include each other and that, in the long run, they’ll be better off.
“They will actually find their real friends faster,” the author stated. She commented that smartphone and social media harms have collective consequences, and vice versa. For a young person to have even one or two other friends whose parents are also choosing this countercultural approach is “incredibly helpful in buffering negative group dynamics.”
Morell acknowledged the real commitment this asks of parents, where they need to find workarounds for app-based requirements at school, work or among friends. Besides other “better options” for a teen’s first phone—Wisephone, Pinwheel, Bark and Gabb—she iterated that parents need to be willing, and hopefully find others to band together with, to stand against the “tyranny” of digital connectedness.
In summary, no child absolutely “needs” a smartphone, and she encourages parents to delay any personal cell phone for as long as possible.
Addressing parents’ concern that their children won’t know how to navigate the tech age without smartphones and social media, Morell responds that teaching use of the internet “as a tool” on a family home computer, they can learn computer science and coding skills. She counters that most of the research shows that the primary things learned through smartphone and social media usage is “how to be distracted, how to be entertained, how to scroll their time away … It’s not giving kids real tech skills to be successful.
“Your child’s not going to be missing out or (g)et behind … They’ll be smarter, better critical thinkers and better problem-solvers for not having a smartphone.”
Hurtubise said his main takeaway from the book wasn’t to reject technology; “The goal is to reclaim childhood for our children.”
Morell responded that her research focuses on the specific technologies that are “designed to be addictive and that actually undermine our real flourishing and the ability to develop our human capabilities and capacities to their fullest potential. So, saying ‘no’ to a smartphone is really saying ‘yes’ to so much more in real life and in the real world.”
She explained further the addictive qualities designed intentionally into these devices and applications as “the hinge point” for why they are so dangerous.
“Even if they’re on an app for only 15 minutes, they’re getting these constant dopamine hits, an artificial high that’s higher than the kind of dopamine released from real-life experiences,” she explained. The devices and tech are designed to produce a craving for more and more of it, but in a more compulsive way than even time limits can control.
“The child is continuing to crave that online virtual world hours after they leave it… Over time, their brains become habituated to these high levels of dopamine hits through the screen and they become desensitized to pleasures in the real world.” Things like reading a book, going for a bike ride or seeing natural beauty feel mundane and boring in comparison.
One parent described it to her as standing between her child’s developing brain and a drug-dispensing machine. This is not anecdotal but backed by brain imaging studies that compare social media users to those using heavy drugs. It’s revealed by the practices of tech billionaires who choose tech-free schools and don’t allow their own children to use them at home.
“My pitch to parents is just to understand that it’s designed to be addictive. You’re not failing as the parent. This technology is meant to addict your child, which is why you see the compulsive behavior and constant draw towards the screen.”
Clarifying “it’s never too late to reverse course,” Morell said that her book is designed particularly for that reality. She distinguished between interactive screens and televisions as passive because the user isn’t receiving continuous feedback.
“One of the biggest I try to encourage families to do is to just start with a detox… If you’re skeptical doing this over the long term, try giving up these screens for 30 days to test out this type of lifestyle for yourself and your family to see firsthand what the benefits can be.”
In addition to limiting personal and private interactive screen use, teaching children technology skills with accountability and transparency is also countercultural, the author noted. “It’s really important for the sake of our children that any kind of access they have to internet or a computer is always public and purposeful.”
She doesn’t encourage snooping or helicopter parenting but rather distinguishes between surveillance and accountability. “Most families said it was the expectation of accountability that was itself the protection. They’re not spending hours reading through their children’s messages … It’s more that if there’s a concern or something gets noticed,” the parent has the right and responsibility to access what’s needed to keep their child safe and proceed with necessary conversations and action plans.
Even when they do receive a first phone, be clear it’s on loan and be clear about expectations. Parents do not need to ask their child’s permission to check emails and text messages, and having access is not going against their privacy – it’s responsible parenting.
Internet filters can be a reliable help, but Morell advised, “they can’t replace the kind of family relationship of accountability and transparency.
This often ends up leading to children themselves volunteering information and discerning out loud where something felt inappropriate or concerning. Parents are then allowed to shepherd their children through these scenarios rather than the child being tempted to hide it or feel embarrassed.
“The other thing to do” in this countercultural lifestyle choice “is to trade screens for real life responsibilities and pursuits… Let them take on chores and even adult-like tasks at home and serving in their communities. Those things actually help kids progress towards adulthood, whereas smartphones stunt that development.
“Filling your children’s time with those positive, real-world goods also makes the kind of appeal that screens offer be seen as the cheap substitutes they are to real responsibility, freedom, friendship and healthy pleasures.”
Hurtubise pointed out the irony of parents’ laxity with screen-use compared to their increasing concern for their safety in the real world: “The real world maybe isn’t as dangerous as we make it out to be, whereas the digital world is an incredibly dangerous place” to let our children loose.
Morell encourages digital restrictions be mitigated with an increase in freedoms allowed in the real world, “not by constantly tethering them to the house,” but allowing them to ride their bike to a friend’s house or to go do some activity on their own. She even called parents’ desire to track their child’s location all the time a “temptation” and not always healthy for the relationship.
“We want to be growing in trust and allowing them more freedom with the expectation of accountability. … We need to trust them to reach out if they need help or get into a difficult situation without parents being the ones constantly surveilling.”
She clarified the focus of the book is on accountability and collaboration as a family and reframing both as positive goods and helpful protections. Hurtubise followed with his experience of spouses and adults having accountability as well.
Returning to the “digital detox” concept, a family would commit to no smartphones, tablets, social media and video games for 30 days, and ideally limit television use as well. She stated it is most effective when children are involved in the discussion and “rules of the road,” explaining they why behind it and coming up with what alternatives. The purpose of the detox, she said, “is to actually start enjoying real life again… You will see your children’s creativity, imagination and ability to play independently come back.”
Morell gave parents one final encouragement to push through the “initial pain point—the first seven to 10 days… Like breaking any bad, addictive habit, it will feel like going through withdrawal. You keep going and then the ability to entertain themselves come back, but it does require planning on the part of parents.”
It requires extra commitment of time, attention and relationality initially, but a new normal will surface, she assured. “I really believe anyone can commit to 30 days. And when they get to end of that and see all the benefits, they wonder why they didn’t do it sooner and don’t want to go back.” This launches some into a more complete and long-term tech exit, others to at least maintain a much healthier relationship with technology.
Lastly, she encouraged parents to find other families with whom to build a tech-free community: “It’s a lot harder to be the only one; and it is harder for your kids if they genuinely have no friends who also aren’t on smartphones… Finding at least one or two families to do this with you is crucial to success, especially long term.”
Resources
Morell recommends Catherine Price’s book, “How to Break Up with Your Phone,” which offers additional content about how to either give up smartphones or make them less addictive. For anyone wanting a deep dive, she suggested Haidt’s “The Anxious Generation.”
“Good Pictures, Bad Pictures” was recommended for parents to start a conversation about how to respond if inappropriate content is accessed online. Also, Melanie Hempe’s books about kids’ brains and screens and her ScreenStrong.com community and resources are useful.
“How to Reset Your Child’s Brain” by medical doctor Victoria Dunley was offered for parents of children who struggle with emotional dysregulation and screen-induced behavior symptoms.
In May, Morell released two new resources for school on digital technology: a toolkit with five key actions schools can take to protect students from digital harms, and a letter template that schools can personalize and send to parents educating and encouraging them to delay smartphones and social media use for kids.
These and other resources are online at https://eppc.org/forschools/.
