The Whole World in Her Pocket

Do you mind?

I am standing in a T-mobile store, neon pink light reflecting off shiny white tables, trying to buy a phone for my fourteen-year-old.

“Do you mind telling me why you don’t want her to have internet access?”

The young sales clerk looks at me with pity, this mother who doesn’t understand the world or teenagers or the internet.

I wonder how to answer. There are so many ways to answer…

-

I do not mind telling you that I want my teenage daughter to be (and stay) alive.

Do you know teen suicides are up 62% since 2007? Do you know the iPhone was introduced in 2007?

I do not mind telling you that my teenage girl is already bearing the weight of beauty expectations fueled by TikTok explainer videos. Follow the tips. Buy the $70 face cream. You have no excuse if you’re getting it wrong.

Do you know that 78% of seventeen-year-old girls are unhappy with their bodies? Or that 40% of teens blame social media for their low self image?

I do not mind telling you what a friend told me over pancakes: “When I checked the chat inside her game, there were all these messages, obviously from an adult. They were asking about her relationship with her parents, were they strict, did she like her mom… And my daughter was actually replying, having a whole conversation.” This mom is shaking, wondering what might have happened if she hadn’t discovered the messages.

Do you know that in the United States, 40% of sex trafficking victims are recruited online?

I don’t mind telling you that I’m concerned about porn. So easy to see. So impossible to unsee. So utterly addictive. A slavery on both sides.

Do you know 70 percent of girls report having seen or encountered pornographic material online? Do you know that 45% of teens said they felt online pornography gives “helpful" information about sex?

I don’t mind telling you that I do not want my daughter to be a slave.

I also don’t mind telling you that I am concerned about the dying of curiosity.

Do you know even technology advocates worry that knowledge-at-our-fingertips may be changing our capacity for problem solving? That there’s real evidence of a universal devolution in memory function and critical thinking?

And then there’s the way ever-available information prevents us from asking one another questions, the way we turn away from one another to know things we previously could only know together. And the way online relationships translate into in person relationships, the way someone can know so much about you without ever looking in your eyes so that when it’s time for looking there’s no expectation of something new to see.

I am concerned about the way the Internet moves us so quickly from one thing to another, everything linked, knowledge unspooling before we’ve properly processed it, like food un-chewed. Somehow this all feels gluttonous.

An expert says, “What the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. Whether I’m online or not, my mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.”*

I am concerned about her being connected to everything and everyone all the time. It seems unnatural to know about tsunamis in South Asia and bombs in Jordan and polluted water in Michigan and floods in California. Too heavy for small shoulders.

I don’t mind telling you that all of this seems, well, bad.

Can I tell you what it was like to grow up without the internet in my pocket? You are young and can’t know. I don’t mind telling you about riding bikes with friends, untethered, innocence and childhood spilling into teenage years. About waiting for my mom after school alone with my thoughts, pondering, reflecting, wondering because there was no way to eject myself from the quiet, no exit from the moment. I don’t mind telling you about walking to a friend’s house to ask a question. About learning from my great grandmother about the invention of cars, her 99 and still sharp, giggling about the moment she first saw one barreling down the road. About prayer requests shared in person and heard in person, embodied voices, embodied prayers.

I do not mind telling you that at fourteen I still climbed trees. Would you like to climb trees? I would like my daughter to climb trees.

Do you know that my daughter prays? She does. On walks. As she writes songs. In the morning when she wakes. She reads the Bible, too. Undistracted. I, on the other hand, have the internet in my pocket and just knowing it’s there is enough to haunt me and taunt me; my attention, a bucking Bronco, my prayers and walks and mornings on the porch all exercises in self control.

Did you see that ad? Was it T-mobile? The poster in the window said, “Unlimited data. Unlimited freedom.”

I do not feel so free.

I don’t mind telling you I want to give her the gift of freedom.

-

“Do you mind telling me why you don’t want her to have internet access?”

I don’t know what to say. There’s too much to say. So I say,

“Because she’s fourteen.”

Because surely 14 is too young to carry the whole world in your pocket.

-JL

*Nicholas Carr, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains

P.S.

I know, I know. There are good reasons to let your children spend time on the internet. Both my kids have Pinterest accounts. London has an Instagram account for her art. They get an hour’s worth of YouTube time on Fridays. They take math classes through Khan Academy. The internet is a gift to our family in many, many ways. But the internet is a wild thing. It’s not tame. It can’t be left off its leash. And so for us, that means seriously limiting access. Not because we’re afraid of the big bad internet. Not because we don’t trust our kids. But because, well, I like the way Corrie ten Boom puts it…

“Seated next to my father in the train compartment, I suddenly asked [a question].
He turned to look at me, as he always did when answering a question, but to my surprise he said nothing. At last he stood up, lifted his traveling case off the floor and set it on the floor.
'Will you carry it off the train, Corrie?’ he said.
I stood up and tugged at it. It was crammed with the watches and spare parts he had purchased that morning.
‘It's too heavy,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘and it would be a pretty poor father who would ask his little girl to carry such a load. It's the same way, Corrie, with knowledge. Some knowledge is too heavy for children. When you are older and stronger, you can bear it. For now you must trust me to carry it for you.’

When it comes to my daughters, I want to try to carry the suitcase for a little while longer.

P.P.S. We went with a $40 flip phone off Amazon. It’s working great.

P.P.P.S. The New York Times says we don’t capitalize internet anymore.

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Coming in March

I’d love for you to join me in Memphis on March 1st and 2nd. Friday night we’ll gather for a time of inspiration, praise, conversation, and hope. I’ll teach from one of my top-five-favorite Scriptures, and we may even convince my daughter to lead us in worship. On Saturday you’re invited to drop in on Park Avenue Church of Christ’s ladies day where I’ll be sharing on the topic, Unveiled Faces: How Seeing God Changes Everything, rooted in the book of Exodus.

If you want to join us, reserve your spot with a $20 gift toward my work here: https://paypal.me/JJGerhardt

If you've already donated toward making this weekend happen, thank you!

Reservations are required. Be sure to send a message or leave a comment if you plan to attend. Hope to see you soon!