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Veronica Sommer
Founder, Sacred Stewardship & VentureLoom | Author, Sacred Stewardship: Restoring Moral Clarity in the Digital Age
Dedicated to Protect Children, Strengthen Families & Bring God Back to the Center of Family, Culture & Country
July 3, 2025
One of the most important parenting decisions we make today isn't what school our children attend or what sport they play. It isn't even whether they earn good grades or get into the right college. One of the defining decisions of our generation is when - and whether - we place a smartphone in their hands.
For many families, it feels inevitable. Smartphones have become woven into nearly every aspect of modern life. We use them to communicate, navigate, work, bank, shop, learn, and capture memories. They are indispensable tools for adults, so it's understandable why many parents assume their children need one as well.
Yet a smartphone is no longer simply a phone.
It is a television, movie theater, gaming console, shopping mall, news source, advertising platform, artificial intelligence companion, and social media hub - all wrapped into a single device that fits in a child's pocket. It is also a gateway to pornography, cyberbullying, online predators, gambling-style game mechanics, and algorithms specifically engineered to capture attention and maximize engagement.
When we hand a child a smartphone, we are not simply giving them a way to call home. We are opening the door to an entire digital ecosystem that competes every day to shape how they think, what they value, how they see themselves, and ultimately, who they become.
That is why I believe we've been asking the wrong question.
Most parents ask, "When should I give my child a phone?"
At Sacred Stewardship, we ask a different question:
"Who will be shaping my child's mind and worldview if I do?"
That is one of the defining stewardship questions of our time.
The Pressure Every Parent Feels
Most parents don't hand their child a smartphone because they believe it's unquestionably the best decision. More often, they do so because they feel trapped by culture. Their child insists that "everyone else has one." Friends communicate through group chats. Schools increasingly rely on digital platforms. Parents worry about safety, convenience, or their child feeling left out.
I've spoken with countless parents who admitted they had reservations from the very beginning. Deep down, something didn't feel right, but they convinced themselves this was simply the world we live in now.
The reality is that cultural norms are not always healthy norms. Throughout history, societies have normalized practices that later proved harmful. As parents, our responsibility is not to follow every cultural trend but to thoughtfully discern what is best for the children God has entrusted to our care.
Smartphones Are Shaping More Than Habits
Research continues to raise serious concerns about excessive smartphone and social media use among children and adolescents. Teenagers now spend an average of approximately seven hours each day on entertainment screen media, not including schoolwork. More than half of American children own a smartphone by the age of 11, and many receive one even earlier.
These statistics matter because smartphones don't simply occupy time—they shape development.
Researchers continue to find associations between excessive smartphone and social media use and increased anxiety, depression, loneliness, poor sleep, shortened attention spans, body dissatisfaction, and declining life satisfaction among adolescents. While no single factor explains every child's experience, the evidence increasingly suggests that constant digital immersion is changing how young people learn, relate to others, and understand themselves.
At Sacred Stewardship, we often say that every technology forms us. The question is never whether we are being shaped. The question is who - or what - is doing the shaping.
What Comes With That First Smartphone?
When a child receives a smartphone, they also gain access to a digital environment that was never designed with childhood in mind.
They enter a world of endless scrolling, algorithmically curated content, influencer culture, targeted advertising, online gaming communities, artificial intelligence chatbots, anonymous messaging, and increasingly sophisticated recommendation systems that learn their interests and keep feeding them more of the same.
Alongside these conveniences come significant risks: accidental exposure to pornography, cyberbullying, sextortion scams, online predators, hypersexualized content, dangerous viral challenges, and relentless social comparison. Children are exposed to ideas, images, and worldviews that many parents would never intentionally introduce into their homes.
This isn't simply about inappropriate content.
It's about formation.
Every notification competes for attention. Every algorithm competes to influence preferences. Every platform competes to shape identity.
We cannot outsource the formation of our children to algorithms.
A Growing Movement Is Saying "Not Yet"
Thankfully, parents across the country are beginning to push back and embracing "Delay is the Way".
Much of that momentum has been fueled by Jonathan Haidt's book, The Anxious Generation, which outlines what he calls the "Four New Norms" for childhood in the digital age:
- No smartphones before high school.
- No social media before age 16.
- Phone-free schools.
- More unsupervised play and childhood independence.
These recommendations aren't rooted in fear of technology. They're rooted in an understanding of child development. They recognize that children need time to mature emotionally, socially, and spiritually before navigating platforms specifically designed to capture their attention and influence their behavior.
Perhaps most importantly, these recommendations give parents something they've desperately needed: permission to say "not yet" and confidence that they are not standing alone.
Stewarding Technology Instead of Being Ruled by It
Sacred Stewardship is not anti-technology.
Technology has transformed medicine, communication, education, accessibility, and countless aspects of modern life for the better. Smartphones themselves are remarkable tools.
The question isn't whether technology is good or bad.
The question is whether we are stewarding it wisely.
Wise stewardship begins by delaying smartphones for as long as reasonably possible, especially during the most formative years of childhood. It means delaying social media, keeping phones out of bedrooms at night, using parental controls as a support rather than a substitute for parenting, and maintaining ongoing conversations about what children are seeing and experiencing online.
Most importantly, it means remaining the primary influence in our children's lives. No filter, monitoring app, or parental control software can replace a relationship built on trust, conversation, shared values, and unconditional love.
Our Responsibility
Every generation faces defining parenting challenges. Ours happens to involve technology unlike anything the world has ever seen.
The smartphone is one of the most powerful tools ever placed into the hands of children. It has the capacity to educate, inspire, create, and connect. It also has the power to manipulate attention, distort identity, fuel addiction, normalize harmful behaviors, and quietly reshape childhood itself.
Technology doesn't just change what we do.
It changes who we become.
As parents, grandparents, educators, pastors, and communities, we have both the privilege and the responsibility to ensure that technology serves our children, not the other way around.
At Sacred Stewardship, we believe children are not products to be monetized or users to be optimized. They are image-bearers of God, entrusted to our care. Protecting them isn't about fear or resisting progress. It's about faithfully stewarding one of the greatest gifts God has ever entrusted to us.
Childhood is sacred.
And sometimes the most loving word a parent can say is simply, "Not yet."
Over to You
If you're a parent, grandparent, educator, pastor, or mentor, I'd love to hear your perspective. How are you navigating smartphones and social media with the children in your life? What boundaries have worked for your family, and what challenges have you faced?
The more we learn from one another, the stronger we become. Together, we can protect childhood, strengthen families, and restore moral clarity in the digital age.
