This is going to sound dramatic, but it’s almost starting to feel to me like we need to pursue a “Benedict option” (but for digital tech, not Judeo-Christian conservatism).
That’s the term coined by Christian conservative Rod Dreher in 2013 (though the concept had been floating around for decades before that) that society can’t be saved from secularism, that it’s time for a new monasticism like that of St Benedict, withdrawing into insulated communities to keep the light alive.
There’s a clear analogy to the digital situation.
I see mainstream society enthusiastically embracing AI and going ever deeper into a digital futurism where all social interactions are online; the parents aren’t trying to keep their kids out of it because they themselves are deepening into it every month. I struggle with this myself. (I can’t even do my job without using AI these days, Microsoft is forcing it incredibly aggressively down the throats of everyone who uses a Windows computer or office software for their job.) Within a couple years, teenage boys will have infinite AI-generated porn on demand on their devices. (hell, they already had it for a few months at the end of last year when Musk let xAI/Grok go wild for a few months)
At what point do people who want to raise their kids in a human environment, not a digital environment, need to withdraw into purposeful communities built around that vision?
(Aside: I think the parallel to religious communities is not just a superficial one: religion is one of the few things that makes people truly commit to a cause for multiple decades and make meaningful sacrifice to stay true to it. I think this is why Jonathan Haidt’s blog has become so religious lately. He has the same despair our host here does, and sees intentional Jewish communities as the only lasting solution for him.)
Edit: not to mention Freya India herself, who I believed moved to the U.S. last year and is becoming part of the reactionary Catholic / JD-Vance-aligned scene? I stopped following her substack so I don’t know the latest. But it felt to me in 2024-2025 that she also was seeing religion as the only antidote powerful enough for digital poison.
Thanks for what you do. These stories are really hard to read.
I have a 10-year old and it’s so tricky as we start to navigate independence. We got him a smart watch so we can easily get in touch bc he loves to ride his bike around town and to his friends homes independently. But because an Apple Watch has to be backed by an iPhone, it didn’t take long for friends to get his number and it turn into wanting the phone a lot. Now something we’re having to walk back. Someone gifted him a TinCan phone recently, so we’re trying to have him start using that instead.
We also had to take away YouTube recently. What turned into a curiosity and watching videos on specifics topics (like fishing) easily turns into a brain-rot tv watching session.
I don’t just worry for my children but also my parents. My grandma wouldn’t touch an iPad or mobile phone, my mother has embraced them. In a period of her life when she is dealing with loneliness she spends time on social media, and I worry. At the moment she has the mental dexterity to generally discern AI slop, she occasionally gets caught out as we all do, but what about in the future? As her mental abilities decline and the slop becomes slick, will I loose her to the fantasy realm held in the palm of her hand. I can step in and regulate the devices that my children have, but how do I do that with a parent?!? I’m a millennial I grew up with tech but now I resent that I’m boxed in on all sides, responsible for educating and moderating its uses by the generations above and below me. The convenience promised doesn’t seem so convenient now.
As a public school teacher, I so firmly believe that all of our children deserve an education, despite whatever baggage they carry from their home lives. I struggle against how much of their own potential they don't know they have because of the effects of screens. Some days I am so exhausted that I daydream about throwing in the towel, quit my job and homeschool my own children in a cloistered bubble with like-minded families.
In the end though, I believe that my community will be healthier if I choose to participate. We will need to have tough conversations and we will need to have them repeatedly to find our way out of this. However, they have to be that - a conversation.
I am also terrified. I try to remind myself that the best thing I can do is show up for the kids who are in front of me and walk beside them as we all try to navigate our way into a better future.
I gave up my iPhone 2 years ago. My husband was not happy, tried to talk me out of it for months before I finally went to the AT&T store and bought a simple flip phone. It will text, but with the keypad it is difficult enough that the texts must be important to want to send or answer them. I have activated Messages on my laptop, so everyone knows you can text me on there, I just won't see it until I am at my laptop, which is at my discretion. I will never go back to the smart phone with it's incessant notifications and constant texting of every little thing that happens all day long. I can't stand it when I go somewhere and then see my picture shared or posted that I had no idea someone was taking of me. It has become a major pet peeve and makes me leery of all gatherings. My brother has recently been sued by a former girlfriend that is using pictures/videos/audio recordings of private conversations to blackmail him into giving her money. He was shocked that she had been covertly recording him for years, intending to use it all against him if they ever broke up. She used the selfies with him from Facebook in the lawsuit to prove they were a couple that presented themselves as married to their community (not true) He said the gut punch when he saw this betrayal nearly broke him. None of this was possible before cell phones.
This is a great piece. I feel this deeply. I was a preschool teacher from the early 2000s until 2021. I watched over those two decades as parents became less comfortable and capable being adults - being in charge, guiding, leading, knowing what's what, saying no, all of it. There's so many strands to the situation we're all witnessing now. But I feel much more hopeful than I did around 2016/ish, when my 12 year old stepdaughter was given an iPhone (not my choice) and I watched the utterly predictable, totally terrifying impacts of that play out. Then, it was kind of 'weird' to be the one who was trying to sound alarm bells. Now, it's much more widely understood that defaults are dangerous. Thank you for your work and for this piece.
As a new mom with an online presence, I am spending so much time thinking about this. Especially the part about sharing things that don’t belong to me, like my children’s lives. I’ve kept their likeness and off of Facebook and Instagram (and will as long as I’m able to) but as a writer who is thinking about motherhood, I am unsure how to navigate Substack as a publishing outlet without compromising their privacy. This is still a social network and feels hard to justify too, even though I recognize that writing about motherhood as a whole as a creative practice is different than sharing videos of them online, etc. But where is the line? I want to get it right for them and the fear of getting it wrong is paralyzing me. I’m missing writing, sharing, thinking and posting. Any thoughts on this dilemma?
I think this is almost impossible. Being a parent is huge part of your life when you have kids and you can't talk about parenting or this huge part of your life experience without talking about your kids and what is happening in their life. You do have the right to talk about your life as a parent and that is something your kids have to deal with - that's just part of having parents and not appearing out of the ether. The author of this article is no exception, she even shares a conversation with her son (presumably with permission). Even though his picture isn't online, his words are and anyone who cares to can read his mom's writing and know a lot about his life. I would apply the golden rule. I think if you act with respect, are considerate, and don't share details you wouldn't have wanted shared about yourself at that age you are probably fine.
Who knows, we think we're protecting their privacy by not posting, but someday they might think you're embarrassed by them because you never posted their pictures. There are many ways to interpret the same act. Everything you do, and that includes the things you choose not to do, impacts your kids. You sound loving and thoughtful, so consider that your paralysis is teaching them by example not to take a few risks and put themselves out there. Participating in life, participating in the conversation is the point. Some mistakes will be made, but where there is love and communication there is forgiveness and resilience.
Thank you for your work, Katherine, and for reminding us that we need to do everything we can to help this generation of kids who didn’t ask for any of this. Looking forward to your new book in November.
GIRLS has me really rattled, too. And your outrage is brilliantly voiced. I knew an administrator who was paid a visit by an irate mom because her daughter had been disciplined for coming to school dressed in considerably less than dress code required.
Mom was pretty much undressed in a matching outfit.
The apple not falling from the tree works both ways.
How does a broken captive in the same cell save their cellmate from breaking?
I don’t have kids yet but I volunteer with them. It’s really obvious when a parent lets a kid have unlimited internet access. They start talking like adults and it’s just bizarre. At the same time, these parents don’t make/let them do anything independently. I had to teach 9 year olds how to use a broom! 12 year olds are going through school and they’ve never been made to present a book report in front of their class!
It’s completely wild how we’re basically making our own children helpless and it makes me angry on their behalf. I was not allowed to be very independent as a child and the way I was raised is head and shoulders above what a lot of kids get nowadays. I feel like I missed out on so many things because I had this anxiety from being overprotected and these poor kids have that on steroids. Essential skills like public speaking and navigation are being pushed off over and over again and it makes it so much harder for kids to learn these skills. The justification is that some of these skills make the kids uncomfortable. As if that would get any easier after procrastinating??
At least these parents are trying the bare minimum. We have a no screens rule at our meetings and it’s largely followed by the kids and parents without much nagging. But we have to constantly tell them to stop carrying gear and packing bags for their children.
These stories are shocking. I wasn't prepared for this - like Lord of the Flies. The depravity of these acts goes way beyond smart phones and screen time. I read a nutrition article once that said the problem with the American diet wasn't what we were eating (junk), but what we weren't eating (legumes, nuts, seeds). Basically, the junk wasn't the problem; what it was replacing and was now being left out was the problem. I'm beginning to think screens are much the same. The screen itself isn't necessarily the problem. The absence of role models establishing social norms of decent and ethical behavior, the time not being spent on learning to think (or parenting for the adult phone addicts), and something else I can't even imagine that would lead to lighting someone on fire or committing rape is just much bigger than phones. Especially to post those acts online with no shame and no sense of consequences. Not to say that getting rid of the phones isn't essential to solving the problem, just that this is so much bigger.
The adults are guilty in this too. I've spent all summer watching the planet burn on the news, thinking so many of us chose the perception of convenience, indulgence of consumption, and money over our health and safety and our kids' futures. Adults act powerless and cowardly in the face of constant assaults on decency. Kids can see this - the utter lack of compassion, concern and accountability being modeled by adults. If the kids lack a moral compass, it's because we've failed to give them one. Perhaps the real issue is adults with phones, the cult of individualism that says we owe nothing to anyone but ourselves, and the complete lack of accountability - socially, environmentally, and politically. As long as someone makes a dollar or saves 5 minutes, we must accept the technology consequences be damned.
I've reached my breaking point, but when I looked around for a culture or community that hasn't fallen to the idea "all profit is progress no matter what," I couldn't find one anywhere, just some that haven't quite caught all the way up. My hope is that the source of all this is a relatively small percentage of society, and that when people realize they don't get a share of the profits, they'll stop being complicit.
Thank you for this article. Your stories are hard to stomach, but necessary, I sense. I was just on family vacation with my extended family. My niece, 15, stayed a few extras days with us without her mom and dad and flew home with my husband, my toddler and I. She was continually on her phone at meal times. (We all sat together outside under the trees.) My first instinct was to kindly ask her to put away her phone. And then I considered that she was probably homesick and wanting to text her mom and dad so I said nothing. I wish now that I HAD said something; something kind yet firm, about "No phones during gathering times please." I feel like I missed a golden opportunity to hold her tenderly (though love?) while letting her feel homesick. (Heck, I spent summer away from my parents starting at age 12 when I went to Europe to spend a month with my best friend. No cell phones then!) I'm at a loss for words now and wish I had had the courage to speak up.
Well, I was raised by parents who didn't get a tv until I was 26 (it was my grandmother's tv). I asked my father why we didn't have a tv when I was eight years old (in 1958) and he said he didn't see much use in them. My husband was dyslexic and didn't learn to read until he was 29, so tv was very useful to him--news, and shows were his books, so I was fine with it. Now that he's dead, I only watch it for rugby or maybe football. I read. I've always read. I've never had a cell phone. If you grew up in Berkeley in the Sixties, with J. Edgar Hoover looking over your shoulder, you wouldn't want a device that could track you anywhere. But everyone thinks everyone has a cell phone and I constantly have to tell people I have a landline and no, you can't text me. Get rid of your cell phones and don't give your kids one. And keep them off computers until they have to use them for school. There's a lot to be said for growing up in the Fifties. Try life with a family, talking, playing games, building blocks (we didn't have Legos then, but oh, I loved to build Legos with my son), tinker toys, Lincoln Logs, painting on an easel, homemade play dough. Trust me, it's fun.
Thank you for what you do. I sometimes feel like a crazy person when I look around and see the nonchalance about this issue from many (most?) parents. I am doing my best to protect my own kids, but it's heartbreaking to think what their peers are experiencing, and how that will inevitably affect my children as well.
Your first book was such a help to me, in both encouragement and practical tips. I pre-ordered the second this morning.
This is going to sound dramatic, but it’s almost starting to feel to me like we need to pursue a “Benedict option” (but for digital tech, not Judeo-Christian conservatism).
That’s the term coined by Christian conservative Rod Dreher in 2013 (though the concept had been floating around for decades before that) that society can’t be saved from secularism, that it’s time for a new monasticism like that of St Benedict, withdrawing into insulated communities to keep the light alive.
There’s a clear analogy to the digital situation.
I see mainstream society enthusiastically embracing AI and going ever deeper into a digital futurism where all social interactions are online; the parents aren’t trying to keep their kids out of it because they themselves are deepening into it every month. I struggle with this myself. (I can’t even do my job without using AI these days, Microsoft is forcing it incredibly aggressively down the throats of everyone who uses a Windows computer or office software for their job.) Within a couple years, teenage boys will have infinite AI-generated porn on demand on their devices. (hell, they already had it for a few months at the end of last year when Musk let xAI/Grok go wild for a few months)
At what point do people who want to raise their kids in a human environment, not a digital environment, need to withdraw into purposeful communities built around that vision?
(Aside: I think the parallel to religious communities is not just a superficial one: religion is one of the few things that makes people truly commit to a cause for multiple decades and make meaningful sacrifice to stay true to it. I think this is why Jonathan Haidt’s blog has become so religious lately. He has the same despair our host here does, and sees intentional Jewish communities as the only lasting solution for him.)
Edit: not to mention Freya India herself, who I believed moved to the U.S. last year and is becoming part of the reactionary Catholic / JD-Vance-aligned scene? I stopped following her substack so I don’t know the latest. But it felt to me in 2024-2025 that she also was seeing religion as the only antidote powerful enough for digital poison.
Thanks for what you do. These stories are really hard to read.
I have a 10-year old and it’s so tricky as we start to navigate independence. We got him a smart watch so we can easily get in touch bc he loves to ride his bike around town and to his friends homes independently. But because an Apple Watch has to be backed by an iPhone, it didn’t take long for friends to get his number and it turn into wanting the phone a lot. Now something we’re having to walk back. Someone gifted him a TinCan phone recently, so we’re trying to have him start using that instead.
We also had to take away YouTube recently. What turned into a curiosity and watching videos on specifics topics (like fishing) easily turns into a brain-rot tv watching session.
I don’t just worry for my children but also my parents. My grandma wouldn’t touch an iPad or mobile phone, my mother has embraced them. In a period of her life when she is dealing with loneliness she spends time on social media, and I worry. At the moment she has the mental dexterity to generally discern AI slop, she occasionally gets caught out as we all do, but what about in the future? As her mental abilities decline and the slop becomes slick, will I loose her to the fantasy realm held in the palm of her hand. I can step in and regulate the devices that my children have, but how do I do that with a parent?!? I’m a millennial I grew up with tech but now I resent that I’m boxed in on all sides, responsible for educating and moderating its uses by the generations above and below me. The convenience promised doesn’t seem so convenient now.
As a public school teacher, I so firmly believe that all of our children deserve an education, despite whatever baggage they carry from their home lives. I struggle against how much of their own potential they don't know they have because of the effects of screens. Some days I am so exhausted that I daydream about throwing in the towel, quit my job and homeschool my own children in a cloistered bubble with like-minded families.
In the end though, I believe that my community will be healthier if I choose to participate. We will need to have tough conversations and we will need to have them repeatedly to find our way out of this. However, they have to be that - a conversation.
I am also terrified. I try to remind myself that the best thing I can do is show up for the kids who are in front of me and walk beside them as we all try to navigate our way into a better future.
I gave up my iPhone 2 years ago. My husband was not happy, tried to talk me out of it for months before I finally went to the AT&T store and bought a simple flip phone. It will text, but with the keypad it is difficult enough that the texts must be important to want to send or answer them. I have activated Messages on my laptop, so everyone knows you can text me on there, I just won't see it until I am at my laptop, which is at my discretion. I will never go back to the smart phone with it's incessant notifications and constant texting of every little thing that happens all day long. I can't stand it when I go somewhere and then see my picture shared or posted that I had no idea someone was taking of me. It has become a major pet peeve and makes me leery of all gatherings. My brother has recently been sued by a former girlfriend that is using pictures/videos/audio recordings of private conversations to blackmail him into giving her money. He was shocked that she had been covertly recording him for years, intending to use it all against him if they ever broke up. She used the selfies with him from Facebook in the lawsuit to prove they were a couple that presented themselves as married to their community (not true) He said the gut punch when he saw this betrayal nearly broke him. None of this was possible before cell phones.
This is a great piece. I feel this deeply. I was a preschool teacher from the early 2000s until 2021. I watched over those two decades as parents became less comfortable and capable being adults - being in charge, guiding, leading, knowing what's what, saying no, all of it. There's so many strands to the situation we're all witnessing now. But I feel much more hopeful than I did around 2016/ish, when my 12 year old stepdaughter was given an iPhone (not my choice) and I watched the utterly predictable, totally terrifying impacts of that play out. Then, it was kind of 'weird' to be the one who was trying to sound alarm bells. Now, it's much more widely understood that defaults are dangerous. Thank you for your work and for this piece.
As a new mom with an online presence, I am spending so much time thinking about this. Especially the part about sharing things that don’t belong to me, like my children’s lives. I’ve kept their likeness and off of Facebook and Instagram (and will as long as I’m able to) but as a writer who is thinking about motherhood, I am unsure how to navigate Substack as a publishing outlet without compromising their privacy. This is still a social network and feels hard to justify too, even though I recognize that writing about motherhood as a whole as a creative practice is different than sharing videos of them online, etc. But where is the line? I want to get it right for them and the fear of getting it wrong is paralyzing me. I’m missing writing, sharing, thinking and posting. Any thoughts on this dilemma?
I think this is almost impossible. Being a parent is huge part of your life when you have kids and you can't talk about parenting or this huge part of your life experience without talking about your kids and what is happening in their life. You do have the right to talk about your life as a parent and that is something your kids have to deal with - that's just part of having parents and not appearing out of the ether. The author of this article is no exception, she even shares a conversation with her son (presumably with permission). Even though his picture isn't online, his words are and anyone who cares to can read his mom's writing and know a lot about his life. I would apply the golden rule. I think if you act with respect, are considerate, and don't share details you wouldn't have wanted shared about yourself at that age you are probably fine.
Who knows, we think we're protecting their privacy by not posting, but someday they might think you're embarrassed by them because you never posted their pictures. There are many ways to interpret the same act. Everything you do, and that includes the things you choose not to do, impacts your kids. You sound loving and thoughtful, so consider that your paralysis is teaching them by example not to take a few risks and put themselves out there. Participating in life, participating in the conversation is the point. Some mistakes will be made, but where there is love and communication there is forgiveness and resilience.
This is so thoughtfully said, and I needed to hear it! ❤️ thank you
Thank you for your work, Katherine, and for reminding us that we need to do everything we can to help this generation of kids who didn’t ask for any of this. Looking forward to your new book in November.
GIRLS has me really rattled, too. And your outrage is brilliantly voiced. I knew an administrator who was paid a visit by an irate mom because her daughter had been disciplined for coming to school dressed in considerably less than dress code required.
Mom was pretty much undressed in a matching outfit.
The apple not falling from the tree works both ways.
How does a broken captive in the same cell save their cellmate from breaking?
I don’t have kids yet but I volunteer with them. It’s really obvious when a parent lets a kid have unlimited internet access. They start talking like adults and it’s just bizarre. At the same time, these parents don’t make/let them do anything independently. I had to teach 9 year olds how to use a broom! 12 year olds are going through school and they’ve never been made to present a book report in front of their class!
It’s completely wild how we’re basically making our own children helpless and it makes me angry on their behalf. I was not allowed to be very independent as a child and the way I was raised is head and shoulders above what a lot of kids get nowadays. I feel like I missed out on so many things because I had this anxiety from being overprotected and these poor kids have that on steroids. Essential skills like public speaking and navigation are being pushed off over and over again and it makes it so much harder for kids to learn these skills. The justification is that some of these skills make the kids uncomfortable. As if that would get any easier after procrastinating??
At least these parents are trying the bare minimum. We have a no screens rule at our meetings and it’s largely followed by the kids and parents without much nagging. But we have to constantly tell them to stop carrying gear and packing bags for their children.
These stories are shocking. I wasn't prepared for this - like Lord of the Flies. The depravity of these acts goes way beyond smart phones and screen time. I read a nutrition article once that said the problem with the American diet wasn't what we were eating (junk), but what we weren't eating (legumes, nuts, seeds). Basically, the junk wasn't the problem; what it was replacing and was now being left out was the problem. I'm beginning to think screens are much the same. The screen itself isn't necessarily the problem. The absence of role models establishing social norms of decent and ethical behavior, the time not being spent on learning to think (or parenting for the adult phone addicts), and something else I can't even imagine that would lead to lighting someone on fire or committing rape is just much bigger than phones. Especially to post those acts online with no shame and no sense of consequences. Not to say that getting rid of the phones isn't essential to solving the problem, just that this is so much bigger.
The adults are guilty in this too. I've spent all summer watching the planet burn on the news, thinking so many of us chose the perception of convenience, indulgence of consumption, and money over our health and safety and our kids' futures. Adults act powerless and cowardly in the face of constant assaults on decency. Kids can see this - the utter lack of compassion, concern and accountability being modeled by adults. If the kids lack a moral compass, it's because we've failed to give them one. Perhaps the real issue is adults with phones, the cult of individualism that says we owe nothing to anyone but ourselves, and the complete lack of accountability - socially, environmentally, and politically. As long as someone makes a dollar or saves 5 minutes, we must accept the technology consequences be damned.
I've reached my breaking point, but when I looked around for a culture or community that hasn't fallen to the idea "all profit is progress no matter what," I couldn't find one anywhere, just some that haven't quite caught all the way up. My hope is that the source of all this is a relatively small percentage of society, and that when people realize they don't get a share of the profits, they'll stop being complicit.
Thank you for this article. Your stories are hard to stomach, but necessary, I sense. I was just on family vacation with my extended family. My niece, 15, stayed a few extras days with us without her mom and dad and flew home with my husband, my toddler and I. She was continually on her phone at meal times. (We all sat together outside under the trees.) My first instinct was to kindly ask her to put away her phone. And then I considered that she was probably homesick and wanting to text her mom and dad so I said nothing. I wish now that I HAD said something; something kind yet firm, about "No phones during gathering times please." I feel like I missed a golden opportunity to hold her tenderly (though love?) while letting her feel homesick. (Heck, I spent summer away from my parents starting at age 12 when I went to Europe to spend a month with my best friend. No cell phones then!) I'm at a loss for words now and wish I had had the courage to speak up.
Preach
Well, I was raised by parents who didn't get a tv until I was 26 (it was my grandmother's tv). I asked my father why we didn't have a tv when I was eight years old (in 1958) and he said he didn't see much use in them. My husband was dyslexic and didn't learn to read until he was 29, so tv was very useful to him--news, and shows were his books, so I was fine with it. Now that he's dead, I only watch it for rugby or maybe football. I read. I've always read. I've never had a cell phone. If you grew up in Berkeley in the Sixties, with J. Edgar Hoover looking over your shoulder, you wouldn't want a device that could track you anywhere. But everyone thinks everyone has a cell phone and I constantly have to tell people I have a landline and no, you can't text me. Get rid of your cell phones and don't give your kids one. And keep them off computers until they have to use them for school. There's a lot to be said for growing up in the Fifties. Try life with a family, talking, playing games, building blocks (we didn't have Legos then, but oh, I loved to build Legos with my son), tinker toys, Lincoln Logs, painting on an easel, homemade play dough. Trust me, it's fun.
This was so convicting. I needed to read this. Thank you!
Thank you for what you do. I sometimes feel like a crazy person when I look around and see the nonchalance about this issue from many (most?) parents. I am doing my best to protect my own kids, but it's heartbreaking to think what their peers are experiencing, and how that will inevitably affect my children as well.
Your first book was such a help to me, in both encouragement and practical tips. I pre-ordered the second this morning.