Mark Zuckerberg has a solution for all the loneliness social media has created: AI friends. We need to hurtle forward, and the fancy new tech will fix all the problems of the bad old tech. Just trust him.
Clare Morell’s new book, The Tech Exit: A Practical Guide to Freeing Kids and Teens from Smartphones, argues the opposite. Her intuition follows what C.S. Lewis once said, “If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road.” Her prescription for kids and teens is no social media, no tablets, no smartphones, and no video games. Family movies are in, FaceTime is okay, and computer practice like coding should be highly focused and monitored.
If this sounds draconian or hysterical, it’s worth noting that Morell isn’t an uncredentialed, crunchy mama. She is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a veteran of former United States Attorney General William Barr’s Department of Justice. She has seen the harms of these technologies at a national level and the evil on these networks that would be criminal were it not for Section 230 protections.
Despite criticism of Morell and her kind as Luddites and reactionaries, it’s absurd to look at the status quo and think, “We need more of the same.” Students are cheating through college, chatbots are talking sex to kids, and AI is fueling delusions of grandeur in vulnerable users. Church, the nuclear family, and books are technologies of a sort, and to many parents, they seem far superior to the shiny digital alternatives Silicon Valley is foisting on our kids.
What Social Media Has Become
Morell’s book is a practical guide for parents who are worried about screens. For those who read Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation and were worried but unsure how to proceed, read The Tech Exit.
Young parents likely remember how social media exacerbated their adolescent fear of missing out (FOMO) — they were seeing their real friends doing something enviable in real life, and they weren’t invited. Morell says social media has now become a recommendation engine that sends endless videos of strangers, tailored to personal preferences, and maximizes time on the platform. Rather than heightening comparison and insecurity, the greater threat is that the algorithm will push kids toward sexually explicit, disorder-inducing, violent content.
The second chapter of the book details how parental controls are a “myth.” Apple took three years to fix an “X-rated loophole,” and Instagram Teen is still promoting inappropriate content. It’s clear that the business incentive for all of these companies is to maximize time on their platforms for all kids from the youngest age possible. From that perspective, a parental control that reassured parents with peace of mind while giving children minimum restriction would be ideal.
If that sounds cynical, consider the Facebook Files, which years ago showed that Facebook was fully aware of the harms Instagram inflicted on teen girls, and they did nothing to stop it. If anything, TikTok is worse. The viral app serves explicit content to minors and is even less accountable to any supervision or parental controls. That’s not even mentioning all the pedophiles who can DM minors and the predators who solicit nudes as part of a sextortion racket.
Morell proposes making one decision that forecloses a thousand future ones: a clean break rather than an endless game of whack-a-mole in trying to protect your kids.
One Is Too Many, Two Is Never Enough
More than mere protection, Morell has researched and seen firsthand how addictive these technologies are. She interviewed one doctor who was suddenly seeing kids who suffered from dry eye — something usually reserved for the elderly. It turned out these kids spent hours a day staring at screens without blinking, and the oil glands of their eyes were atrophying. This doctor is literally teaching children how to blink to save them from a lifetime of eye drops.
Morell writes that the dopamine spike these digital technologies create is not as innocent as sugar. For the developing brain of a child or teen, it’s like fentanyl. While calling digital tech “addictive” isn’t new, Morell takes the idea to its logical conclusion. Drugs that spike dopamine create immediate craving and irritability. They never satisfy, and they demand increasingly larger doses to feed the habit. That’s why there’s no such thing as fentanyl in moderation.
Likewise, the kid who only uses Instagram for 20 minutes a day or plays video games on Friday nights is mentally occupied with that habit for far longer. Just as an addict can only think about where and when they’ll get their next hit, a child can spend entire days wondering, “Who commented on my post? What have my friends posted in the meantime? Will I be able to level up before screen time ends tonight?”
Even limited screen use can keep a child mentally preoccupied throughout the day rather than engaged in reality.
How Then Shall We Live?
Unlike many books on tech, the majority of Morell’s book covers how to disentangle from technology. She has everything from an appendix, covering smartphone alternatives, to a step-by-step digital detox outline. The foundational principle is to “fast” from the digital world so children can “feast” on the real one. Total abstinence allows children to immerse themselves in hobbies, relationships, and learning without the constant pull of the online world.
Morell advises you to find like-minded families who can support your “Tech Exit” and help create a functioning subculture rather than making your kid a social pariah. In that sense, Morell’s premise is much like Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option. She’s not saying we should all run to the hills and LARP as Amish people. Instead, we should find ways to create a more humane childhood that instills human virtues and strives for human excellences in our existing communities.
Obviously, a full “Tech Exit” would not be easy. Any parent whose child is screaming, whose dinner is cooking, or whose deadline is approaching knows the temptation of a digital pacifier. But Morell would argue that habituating your kids to natural levels of stimulation is better in the long run.
A child who can tolerate boredom and entertain themselves is ultimately far more pleasant to be around than the one who constantly whines for more screen time. The self-control of a well-regulated child is the best predictor for a thriving adult.
Right now, two different visions of childhood are forming. Out in Silicon Valley, the dream is an AI tutor and friend that will make your child into a demigod. Morell’s dream is to honor our nature as humans made in the image of God. Maybe that’s too stark a contrast. Time will tell. As for me, I’ve seen enough to throw my lot in with Morell.
“The Text Exit” releases June 3, 2025.