The Devil Lives in Our Phones and is Wreaking Havoc on Our Children

The Devil Lives in Our Phones and is Wreaking Havoc on Our Children

Parents are wondering how to handle screen time with their children. We all know that screens, whether they be computers, smart phones, iPads, or televisions are highly addictive. We know they are taking us away from real live interaction with others. Who knows what the long term impact of them will be?

From an article in The New York Times entitled A Dark Consensus About Screens:

“Athena Chavarria, who worked as an executive assistant at Facebook and is now at Mark Zuckerberg’s philanthropic arm, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, said: ‘I am convinced the devil lives in our phones and is wreaking havoc on our children.’ Ms. Chavarria did not let her children have cellphones until high school, and even now bans phone use in the car and severely limits it at home…’On the scale between candy and crack cocaine, it’s closer to crack cocaine,’ Mr. Anderson (the former editor of Wired and now the chief executive of a robotics and drone company) said of screens.

“Tim Cook, the C.E.O. of Apple, said earlier this year that he would not let his nephew join social networks. Bill Gates banned cellphones until his children were teenagers, and Melinda Gates wrote that she wished they had waited even longer. Steve Jobs would not let his young children near iPads. But in the last year, a fleet of high-profile Silicon Valley defectors have been sounding alarms in increasingly dire terms about what these gadgets do to the human brain. Suddenly rank-and-file Silicon Valley workers are obsessed. No-tech homes are cropping up across the region. Nannies are being asked to sign no-phone contracts.”

What is all of this technology doing to our brains? These are questions that need to be answered. There were no smart phones when my children were in high school and I am thankful. They came out the year after my youngest graduated high school. My sister said that her two oldest children, who were close in age to my children, would come to her home with their friends and would sit around laughing and talking for hours. By the time her youngest was a senior in high school, almost all of the kids had smart phones. When his friends would come to her home, they would all sit around looking at their phones.

Do you know how much easier it is for your children to be exposed to porn and all types of evil with smart phones? If they go to school, any child with a smart phone can easily show your children this perversion. Many parents aren’t putting Covenant Eyes or some other filter on their phones and computers. This makes another important reason to homeschool your children, mothers. They need your protection from this wicked and adulterous generation which is only growing darker. Satan’s goal is to kill, steal, and destroy and he can easily use the smart phone to accomplish his goals.

Recently, I watched a YouTube of a mother who has eleven children. She is a wise woman and many of you would love learning from her. They don’t have a television nor do her children get to watch any type of screens. They play, learn, and work! My children mostly played, read, and worked. Yes, we had a television but I didn’t let them watch it much. I didn’t like how mesmerized they would become while watching it. I knew it couldn’t be good for them!

Mothers ask me how they can entertain their children without a television. Mothers, you don’t need to be responsible for entertaining your children! Let them use their imaginations and creativity. My children were often making up plays, dances, played with balls, puzzles, games, and always found something to do. Teach them to work along with you as soon as they are able. Let them play outside as much as possible. I go outside in the front yard with my grandchildren often and soon many of the neighborhood children come outside and play, too. They have a great time riding bikes, playing with balls, and making up games. Let your children color, read to them, and play with blocks. Teach them to make their bed after they wake up, clean up after themselves, and work hard. Make sure they develop a love for reading by reading good books to them.

Think twice about allowing your children to have screen time. Don’t let it be a convenient way for you to have your children babysat by a screen. Don’t model to them an addiction to it. It’s heartbreaking to see teenagers and younger children walking around the park near us in a group with other children and all of their heads are buried in their phones.

Is the Devil in your phone? Does it keep you away from real life with your children, your husband, and others? Does it control you? Does it show you inappropriate and even evil images? Can you walk away from it and enjoy life without thinking about it? Is it stealing time away from the LORD and His Word, prayer, and from keeping your home clean and tidy?

Don’t allow Satan to be in your phone or anywhere else in your home. Discipline yourself for the purposes of godliness and you can because God’s Holy Spirit lives and works mightily within you if you are a believer in Jesus Christ. You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you! Don’t allow it to control you and keep you from real life. Raise your children without the addiction of screen time. It will not only benefit their mind, but it will benefit their overall health and relationships. There is an all out war for the souls of your children, women. Put on the full armor of God every day and stand steadfast in the faith.

All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any…But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.
1 Corinthians 6:12 and 9:27

15 thoughts on “The Devil Lives in Our Phones and is Wreaking Havoc on Our Children

  1. Screens are a tool like any other. Yes they are additive, but isn’t everything when overindulged on? Too much junk food, and you become fat. Too much money, you become greedy, too much free time you get lazy when you have to work etc… We need to teach our children and everyone really, that instant gratification and doing whatever feels good in the moment isn’t always the best option. If the internet and screens literally take up time and prevent interaction in the real world with real friends and impede one’s obligations, work, school etc… then yes, it’s addictive and you need to take a big step back! However, there can be a healthy balance. The internet has many evils within it, but also many good and wonderful resources. TV is the same, although many liberal messages are annoying to watch for anyone. It’s not just our kids who are at risk though. It’s our entire population being brainwashed to think liberal values are and should be normalized such as hook up culture, broken families, open borders, etc…etc… We ALL must watch the messages we are consuming and be aware of the effects of technology on our lives. We must raise informed kids and be informed ourselves to be responsible consumers. Like we can drink responsibly, we can watch responsibly 😉

  2. Excellent! your words are perfect timing for me as usual…right before I entered your website in to my browser I was on a site about phone addiction haha. thank you, I will be switching back to my old flip phone today so I can lead my children by example! 🙂

  3. I admire mothers who don’t let their children have electronic devices. Besides the exposure of porn there is also the potential for cyberbullying and that’s a whole other issue.

    Mothers, do whatever you can to protect your blessings from the snare of Satan. Just because other Christian parents let their children do something doesn’t mean you have to do the same.

    Remember what our parents use to say? “Just because your friends are jumping off cliffs, does that mean you should too?”

  4. It’s not just kids. On Sat., my husband and I were out running errands and there was a mom with her face glued to her phone in a crowded parking lot….with her toddler walking about 6 ft. behind her and stopping to pick something up. This baby could’ve easily been run over and mom was apparently doing something she felt was more important than watching him. “Oh, well. If I lose this one, I can always make another!” seems to be the attitude with a lot of young moms these days.

    I’ve watched moms careening over the yellow lines on their phones with their kids in the backseat, I’ve watched them run stone cold red lights while distracted (good thing I stopped on my green light or it would’ve been ugly), and watched a child pee in the store aisle while desperately trying to tell her mom she had to go, all the while mom saying, “shhhh….mommy’s on the phone.” It’s all rather sickening to me and no surprise at all while kids can’t control themselves….their parents are setting terrible examples.

    As for me, I’m still using only my 2nd cell phone in my life since I got one in about 2004. A basic Tracphone. The only reason I changed from the first one is because it became obsolete!! This one is a flip & my husband is the only one with the number because it’s for emergencies. I’ve yet to need to talk to anyone while driving in traffic, peeing at Target, or playing with my pooch at the dog park.

  5. Agreed, I hate seeing kids’ faces buried in screens mindlessly for hours!
    I will have to advocate for screens in one situation though- as a former Special Education teacher, smartphones/tablets have made it more possible than ever before for special needs children to communicate. They can do puzzles on the screens to help with dexterity (some children can’t hold puzzle pieces), they can touch letters to form words if they’re nonverbal, the can watch ebooks or alphabet/counting videos while the teacher is busy working with another student. They learn to order groceries online, turn lights, heat, and washing machines on and off with the touch of a button, and even “play” instruments on a touch screen if they don’t have the muscle control or mental capability to learn on a real one.
    Schools used to have basic communication pads or flash cards that allowed these types of children to communicate, but now we’re finding that these children are so much more intelligent than we ever thought, and it’s thanks to this new technology.
    It’s amazing for educational purposes, but agree it shouldn’t be used as a babysitter!

  6. Profound article.

    I recommend no child under 18 be given access to the internet that is not directly supervised, and they never be given a cell phone, for any reason, at all. It’s simply too risky. The human brain is fully formed at age 25, and is not capable of being able to determine right and wrong before then, as the prefrontal cortex, which determines both right and wrong, is the last part of the brain to form.

    It’s irresponsible for a society to allow cell phones to be accessed by children when 94% of 14 year olds have already been exposed to porn. It’s a massive catastrophe because not only have 200 million American babies been wiped out by contraception and abortion since a lawless SCOTUS legalized contraception and abortion illicitly, in 1965, and 1973 respectively, but the few children we do have are being corrupted on a wide scale, on a level that exceeds anything that American children prior to 1950 were exposed to.

    Keep in mind that all American wars, combined, have killed 2 million of our soldiers. So, American men and women, via contraception and abortion have killed 100 times more of our people than all our enemies combined.

    That is a national tragedy, and where will we find salvation and redemption from this horrific bloodshed and this death culture?

    ‘Ask and it shall be given you; seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you’
    Jesus

  7. This is so true!
    My 3 oldest children all have laptops (which they need for school) phones and/or tablets. Screen time is limited, but it’s so easy to see how addicting they are.
    If they weren’t needed for school, I don’t think we would even have them.

  8. Hi Lori, thanks for this. I need to wean myself off of my phone. Totally agree with this post.

  9. Perhaps you women may not know this, but any son who accesses the internet will instantly be exposed to the most horrific and disgusting porn you can imagine. I won’t describe it here but you cannot imagine. It overflows at every site. You can’t prevent it with any known technology (and I tried for years).

    6 and 7 year old boys can easily see this stuff, and while they may not react to it at first, they will never forget the images.

    I’m not a prude…I grew up on a farm so I learned how animals breed. But it’s different when boys see the degradation and hate stamped on the faces of people in these sites.

  10. This is is exactly. I even have relatives who beg to visit and when they do, they are more worried about their recent and newest text message than what my child is doing in real life …. it’s incredible to watch the adults addicted. It’s heart breaking, as well. I am so against cell phones in all ways. I limit my computer time until the children are in bed and husband does not need me or is at work at night. I try to put it away and only have it available for school research, etc.
    Continue to be different, mothers! If we fit in, we are not probably in the right group.

  11. A question then… I have daughters who do not use the internet, but I have two sons who are babies still … in time, what do I do to protect them, seeing as they are boys …? I have seen many of my friend’s son wrecked by early exposure to images that should have never been seen.

  12. Gigi – Relax!! I promise you, this whole internet porn thing is not as dire as Jim Thomas makes it sound!! This sentence here: “any son who accesses the internet will instantly be exposed to the most horrific and disgusting porn you can imagine” needs to be re-written to: any child who accesses the internet unsupervised can potentially be exposed to porn.

    ANY child. Boy or girl. Boys are NOT more susceptible to porn just because they’re boys – girls are every bit as vulnerable. And unless someone in the house is using the computer to look at porn regularly, it’s not just randomly going to “pop up” and corrupt our children, just like that, the way Jim Thomas makes it sound. I promise you, it’s not. Internet sites use cookies and other data trackers to find out what interests you have online, and ads are targeted specifically to that computer, according to your interests. So sure, if someone watches porn a lot, it’s going to come up all by itself. But if nobody ever watches it, you’ll actually have to search for it. It’s easy enough to find, but if it’s not been searched for before, it’s not just going to pop up all of a sudden and corrupt anyone.

    Both the high school and intermediate schools 3 of my children attend have recently hosted a seminar by a world-leading expert on keeping our kids safe on the internet. Every topic imaginable was covered, from preventing them accessing porn, to cyber bullying, hacking, scams, meeting strangers, how to recognise “groomers” (sexual predators) and just how to be safe online in general – so I do know what I’m talking about. We were all given up-to-date, first-rate information that is used all over the world.

    Realistically, there are ways to keep your children safe while allowing them internet access. You can put a family filter on your computer or you can even get your internet provider to put a block directly on the internet to all adult content. These are fairly reliable. And, of course, supervise them! Don’t allow them to use the internet in another room, have it in the living room where the family are gathered. Have strict rules about what sites are allowed to be accessed. Teach them how to google things safely (using the right keywords etc. so they don’t accidentally stumble across something because a word can have two meanings or something). Put time limits in place. Don’t allow them to use chatrooms. Especially don’t let them use social media, as there is so much potential for bullying! Use the internet with your children. Teach them to use it safely. It’s a fantastic tool, very necessary for education, and has so much potential if used wisely.

  13. Gigi — I’m a computer expert. That’s my business. Trust me when I say, there is no anti-porn tracker or filter in the world that can’t be bypassed. I’ve tried em all.

    Every site that your kids frequent, including cartoon sites and video gaming sites, will be full of other teenage boys who are happy to share their “discoveries”.

    You’ll think it’s all ok — until you find out, years later, that your son/daughter has been surfing porn all along and you had no idea.

    There is a HUGE movement in Silicon Valley right now by the CEOs of the big tech firms, to prevent their own kids from accessing the internet. Bill Gates, 2nd richest computer guy in the world, didn’t let his kids have a cell phone till high school. Steve Jobs invented the iPad but he wouldn’t let his own kids have one. Hey don’t listen to me, listen to the people who invented the technology. Here’s an article but if you search “screen time” you’ll see a dozen more.

    https://www.businessinsider.com/silicon-valley-nannies-monitor-kids-screen-time-2018-10

  14. The changes in personality in people who are attached to their cell-phones is markedly noticeable. I know a young lady who is intelligent, energetic and friendly but once she turns her phone on, she becomes someone else. It makes me sad and kind of angry sometimes that this device is the hallmark of the Millennial lifestyle.

    My 17-year-old daughter recently got her cell-phone for Christmas and refuses to use it unless she messages me or her father. Our 24-year-old son is the same way. It’s nicer to talk face-to-face, than be mesmerized by a small screen. I’m afraid to think of what will be the ‘in-thing’ in a decade.

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