The Horror Stories are Real. Don’t Give Your Children a Smartphone

For parents who wish to rescue their children from the cyber-jungle or spare them the pain that is engulfing millions, there are a number of answers. But for today, I just want to push one: Don’t give your children smartphones.

After spending four days at the Coalition to End Sexual Exploitation Summit in Houston, Texas, my brain is very tired. We heard lectures on neuroscience, human trafficking, sexual abuse, child exploitation, and so much more. And we heard many, many lectures on the poison that is seeping in everywhere, fueling sexual abuse, destroying relationships, breaking down the ability of men to function, and obliterating childhood: pornography.

I’ll be writing a lot more about what I’ve learned (read my reports from the conference here, here, and here) but for now I’d like to make one simple plea to parents, something nearly every speaker and every lecturer advised: don’t give your children smartphones.

It’s crazy to think that a decade ago, smartphones were uncommon. Many people didn’t even own a cell phone. Now, as we heard from Vanity Fair journalist and author ofAmerican Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers Nancy Jo Sales, nearly every social interaction – and sexual interaction – of teenagers is shaped by the tiny, always-throbbing devices they carry with them wherever they go. This has given rise to cyber-bullying and a spate of suicides, sexting and sexual exploitation of teens by teens, and the nearly non-stop viewing and amateur production of pornography. Teenagers – and children – are pulled into the social webs woven from Facebook to Instagram, from Snapchat to a half-dozen other underground cyber-settings, the interactions and content curated only by the children who populate them, free of parental or adult supervision.

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