{"id":34615,"date":"2024-10-14T14:51:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-14T14:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/is-your-childs-phone-problem\/"},"modified":"2024-10-14T14:51:00","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T14:51:00","slug":"is-your-childs-phone-problem","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/is-your-childs-phone-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Your Child\u2019s Phone a Problem?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist who believes that your child&rsquo;s smartphone is a threat to mental well-being. His book, <em>The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness<\/em>, hit the No. 1 spot on the <em>New York Times&rsquo;<\/em> best-seller list. This book has struck a chord with parents who have watched their kids sit slack-jawed and stock still for hours, lost in a welter of TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitch, Facebook, and more. He says:<\/p>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>I do a little demonstration. I ask people, suppose a demon came to us in the nineties with three magical boxes. And he said, &ldquo;You can open as many as you want, but if you open a box, it&rsquo;s going to take fifteen hours a week from you.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>The first box is the Internet. You get this amazing thing, but it&rsquo;s going to take fifteen hours a week from you. Would you open it? Are you glad we have the Internet? Everyone is glad we opened that box. We think that time is worth it.<\/p>\n<p>The next box is the smartphone. You open it up. It&rsquo;s this incredible digital Swiss Army knife (of apps and functions). It&rsquo;s going to take another fifteen hours a week. So now you&rsquo;re up to thirty hours a week on this. Do you want it? Are you glad we have smartphones? At that point, most hands go up. The great majority of adults say, &ldquo;Yeah, I&rsquo;m glad we opened that box.&rdquo; Now you&rsquo;re at thirty hours a week.<\/p>\n<p>Next there&rsquo;s a third box: social media &ndash; Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr, TikTok. It&rsquo;s going to be another fifteen hours a week. So now you&rsquo;re up to forty-five hours a week. What do you think? Are you glad we opened that?<\/p>\n<p>The great majority of people say, &ldquo;I wish we hadn&rsquo;t opened that one.&rdquo; I&rsquo;m not talking about keeping kids off the Internet. I&rsquo;m talking about not allowing them &hellip; to give away their data, and some rights, to a company that does not have their interests at heart. That is using them as the product to sell to their customers who are the advertisers. That&rsquo;s what I don&rsquo;t want done to eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen-year-old kids.<\/p>\n<p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[411],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[433],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3380,3390,3453,3569,3808,4112,4272,4320,5009,5012,5013,5080,5129,5130,5157,5159,5160,5302,5313],"tax_ctp_topics":[400],"class_list":["post-34615","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-addiction","tax_ctp_tags-advertising","tax_ctp_tags-attention","tax_ctp_tags-children","tax_ctp_tags-distractions","tax_ctp_tags-habits","tax_ctp_tags-internet","tax_ctp_tags-kids","tax_ctp_tags-social-impact","tax_ctp_tags-social-media","tax_ctp_tags-social-trends","tax_ctp_tags-stewardship-of-time","tax_ctp_tags-technology","tax_ctp_tags-teens","tax_ctp_tags-thoughts","tax_ctp_tags-time","tax_ctp_tags-time-management","tax_ctp_tags-worldliness","tax_ctp_tags-young-people"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Is Your Child\u2019s Phone a Problem? - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/is-your-childs-phone-problem\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is Your Child\u2019s Phone a Problem? - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist who believes that your child&rsquo;s smartphone is a threat to mental well-being. His book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, hit the No. 1 spot on the New York Times&rsquo; best-seller list. This book has struck a chord with Read more...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/is-your-childs-phone-problem\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CTPastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/12\/ogimage.png?resize=1200,628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@CTpastors\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/is-your-childs-phone-problem\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/is-your-childs-phone-problem\/\",\"name\":\"Is Your Child\u2019s Phone a Problem? - CT Pastors\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2024-10-14T14:51:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-10-14T14:51:00+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/is-your-childs-phone-problem\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/is-your-childs-phone-problem\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/is-your-childs-phone-problem\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Is Your Child\u2019s Phone a Problem?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\",\"name\":\"CT Pastors\",\"description\":\"Timeless wisdom for pastors with forward-thinking solutions\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Christianity Today\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/08\/logo_ctpastors_black.svg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/08\/logo_ctpastors_black.svg\",\"caption\":\"Christianity Today\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CTPastors\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/CTpastors\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Is Your Child\u2019s Phone a Problem? - CT Pastors","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/is-your-childs-phone-problem\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Is Your Child\u2019s Phone a Problem? - CT Pastors","og_description":"Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist who believes that your child&rsquo;s smartphone is a threat to mental well-being. 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