Ponder this: The return of "dumb phones"

Question: Can clergy grasp the moral implications of kids having the Internet in their pockets?

So I was talking with a young Millennial parent the other day, a dad with a baby on one arm, and he made an interesting comment linked to the most recent “Crossroads” podcast — “Why can't churches face the smartphone crisis?”

Why the silence? Simply stated: The topic is too hot for religious leaders to touch, because it linked to so many hot-button moral issues in modern life.

Methinks this is related to the punchy phrase I have used for decades when discussing why seminaries avoid mass media and popular culture issues in core classes for future pastors: Too many busy religious leaders appear to be committed to the “separation of church and life.” Here is the opening of an “On Religion” column I wrote on that a few years ago:

If Daniel Weiss has learned anything about the small towns of east-central Wisconsin, it's that folks in the region he calls home care about what they eat.

Say buzzwords like "organic," "natural" and "superfoods" and — snap — people will organize fairs, farmers markets, farm-to-table workshops and debates about whether local free-range chickens have healthy social lives.

"You can talk about fresh veggies and how important food issues are for their families," said Weiss, leader of the Brushfires Foundation, a sexual-integrity ministry based in Omro, Wisc. "People in a secular society will bond together to talk about food and good health. That's real. That's safe. …

"It's totally different — even in our churches — if you try to get people to talk about pornography, smartphones, videogame addiction and all the stuff that's filling up their hearts and minds."

When asked about these issues, many pastors say things like, "I don't want to be negative," "That's a parents thing," "Tech issues are so complex" or "I'm afraid to offend people and run them off." Many pastors think silence is the safest option.

That's a naive attitude in modern America, according to Barna Group research commissioned by Brushfires, and supported by 24 national and state groups, such as Focus on the Family and Enough is Enough.

OK, why did I bring that up?

For several years now, I have been asking clergy to consider holding a church event — perhaps a one-day forum for parents and even grandparents — in which they discuss issues linked to screen culture and mental health. As part of this, representatives of one or more local telecommunications stores would be invited to display their “dumb phone” options.

What is a “dumb phone”? Believe it or not, they still exist and, in fact, low-tech mobile phones are making a comeback. See this USA Today headline from just the other day: “Flip phone sales are surging as folks seek connection without distraction.” This is a long first-person think piece by Jennifer Jolly, who is identified as “an Emmy Award-winning consumer tech columnist and on-air correspondent.”

I know that I have used one long block quote in this post, but here is another.

Flip phones are having a moment.

It’s true: People are snatching up those basic clamshell throwbacks of the early 2000s faster than a bag of discounted Reese’s the day after Halloween.

The reasons are simple: We’re burned out on our smartphones, social media, and passively allowing years of our lives to melt away mindlessly stuck on screens. 

According to the latest statistics, the average person spends nearly five hours a day on their smartphone, which equals six days a month and a mind-boggling 12 yearsover a lifetime. 

Our human willpower and Band-Aid fixes like built-in social media app limits don’t help. 

“If you took an alcoholic who had a problem with alcohol and couldn't control that, then the best thing to do is get the alcohol out of the house, right? So that was sort of how I looked at it,” tech entrepreneur Wil Brawley, 49, said from his home office in Waxhaw, North Carolina. 

Some people, because of workplace realities, are now using TWO PHONES. One is the smartphone that the world requires of them and the other is a “dumb phone” — no unlocked door into the Internet — that they carry at home and on weekends.

The goal is simply to SLOW DOWN the smartphone tsunami, since it’s impossible to control it.

There’s an interesting moral and even theological question here: Is it impossible for ordinary young people and adults to control the degree to which they are tethered to smartphones? I am, at this point, assuming that a cultural consensus is emerging that it’s dangerous to put the Internet in the pockets of children, tweens and even teens under, let’s say, the age of 16.

What is the real issue here? Believe it or not, Jolly ends up talking to a pastor. Here comes another long, but essential, quote:

The subreddit r/Dumbphones is in the top 2% of most engaged communities on the platform, with nearly 60,000 members. It’s hands-down the best place to research “dumbphones” online. 

The moderator, 28-year-old church pastor Jose Briones, took over that role in early 2020 after switching to a Lightphone — a simple E-ink screen phone to call and text — in 2019. Before that change, Briones logged “12 or 13 hours of screen time a day — just pretty much every waking hour I was just spending online,” he said. “And I didn't want to do that, you know. I didn’t want to change how I interact with the world, with all online (activity, and miss out on) so many more rich real-life experiences.” 

Briones also has created a helpful tool called the Dumbphone Finder to help people figure out how much they can — and cannot — live without. 

You take a short quiz with questions and options such as “Do you want smart apps?” and “Choose your preferred style” (flip phone, candybar, touchscreen), and it might recommend the Cat S22 Flip or TCL Flip 2. 

Since taking the helm at r/Dumbphones, Briones says he’s surprised by how widespread this problem of people feeling addicted to their smartphones. “Most people think it’s a device problem, but it’s a lifestyle problem,” he says. “The tech is designed to amplify our vulnerabilities and get all of our attention − the most it possibly can. I want to choose what I pay attention to. I don’t want a device to dictate that.”

This is a long, long essay with lots of news-you-can-use links to information.

Yes, the term “doomscrolling” comes into play. Here is the Jolly finale:

Bottom line? You don’t need to spend a big wad of cash to save you from yourself. One more perk of pairing down is that it saves money — about $3,000 over two years. 

Now, why is this such a hot-button topic for many parents?

The Axios online newsletter specializes in quick blasts of information backed with URLS for those who want to keep reading.

So, here is a recent piece that — I believe — is directly linked to the reluctance of many parents, pastors, teachers and counselors to openly address the smartphones issue.

The headline: “1 big thing: Tracked generation.”

Yes, we are talking about the flip side of the addiction equation. There are high-tech versions of “helicopter parents” who are convinced that they need their children, even college students, to have tech in their pockets that allow them to be tracked at all times. (Can “dumb phones” do that? I honestly do not know.)

Check this out, via this short Axios feature:

Zoom in: One parent wrote in to an advice column in The Washington Post to say they feel anxious about their college-bound kid refusing tracking.

* The same parent said they have friends who track their 24-year-old married daughter.

The stakes: What starts as parents holding onto teens' location for peace of mind can devolve into parents scolding them for staying out late on a Saturday or calling them every morning to wake them up for class.

* "You're providing your child with training wheels," says Pamela Rutledge, director of the Media Psychology Research Center, an independent research organization. "They're going to have to come off."

See how many layers there are in this digital onion?

Thus, I will end where I started: Should the leaders of religious congregations offer events — maybe one a year — that helps parents and grandparents wrestle with “screens culture” puzzles? Should this be discussed in sermons, as well as in Christian education?

Why or why not?