We need a plan. Our families are currently facing the pressures of constant technological connection and a tsunami of digital information. We can react to each new situation as it comes up, but there is a much greater chance of success if we intentionally do something that moves us toward our goal.

But what is our goal? Our goal should be to train young people to use technology responsibly, not because they want to avoid punishment, but because they desire to serve and glorify God in all areas of their lives. Such young people can then become conscientious church members who bring their vision for godliness to the homes they will build one day.

Discipleship and Training

The first line of defense to help keep us and our young people on the narrow path is discipleship and training. If a driver wants to stay in the middle of his lane, then a guardrail is there only in case of an accident. Warnings about the dangers of the Internet are good and helpful, but even more valuable is training our desires so we don’t even want to move toward danger. It is easy for us to leave our children’s training to the school or the church, but discipleship and training should primarily happen at home. 

Discipleship

Much of this training is taken from the example of adults who model an intentional, godly use of devices and the Internet. Can we expect our young people to do better than we do?

Do you sit around scrolling on your phone for hours a day? Do you ignore your children and your spouse because you can’t set down your device to interact with them? Do you ever find your children trying to get your attention, but you are so absorbed in your phone that you can hardly hear or see them?

These questions likely hit much closer home than we’d like to admit. Modeling a measured and godly use of your phone and the Internet at all times is the first step toward showing your family how to safely navigate treacherous paths.

Modeling a measured and godly use of your phone and the Internet at all times is the first step toward showing your family how to safely navigate treacherous paths.

The next step, and likely the most critical, is to have a trusting relationship with your child. It is only in close relationships that young people feel safe to ask questions and share their struggles. Consider sharing your own struggles and how you’ve overcome them to avoid turning conversations into grilling sessions that neither parent nor child enjoys. This approach shifts the focus from questioning their actions to fostering understanding and support. There is no one best way to build a close relationship or to ask questions, but there is no doubt that a healthy bond between a parent and a child is the strongest way to guard against unsafe influences. That intimate connection also helps you understand where your child is and what his needs are.

Addressing the issues of technology use will be most effective in the context of trusting and open relationships between parents and children. If this is not in place, the ideas below can’t take the place of that relationship. Tactics and resources can never replace connection.

Provide good books

Another way to provide teaching for young people is to have them read books that explain the dangers of using devices and the Internet. These books can also give guidance on how young people can serve God by the way they use the Internet. You can just hand a young person a book, but such study is better done together. You could read through the book together and use that to spark conversations and questions. Another option is to go through a book with a small group of parents and their children from your church. Some of the books listed below have questions that prompt group discussion.

Recommended Books on Technology

1. Tech Talk: Purposeful youth in a device-driven world by Gary Miller (CAM Books)
2. 12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You by Tony Reinke (Crossway)
3. The Tech-Wise Family: Everyday Steps for Putting Technology in Its Proper Place by Andy Crouch (Baker Books)
4. Christians in the Digital Age by John Coblentz (Christian Learning Resources, Faith Builders)

By recommending these books, I don’t necessarily endorse all the ideas they contain.

Pursue other teaching and input

Look for opportunities to attend seminars or talks on the challenges of technology and living a godly and disciplined life. These can be both inspirational and informative as well as provide opportunities to discuss life issues with your child. Another way to broaden your input and support is to discuss these challenges with others in your congregation. It can be as simple as asking other parents how they deal with a given issue with their children. There are many other families who are struggling with the same questions as you are; you don’t need to face it alone.

Discipleship and teaching are the best ways to provide young people with the discipline and desire to remain on safe paths through the Internet. If a young person wants to stay on a safe path, there is a greater chance that the guardrails won’t need to keep them from driving off into the abyss.

Guardrails and Guidelines

However, no one is perfect, and even a seasoned Christian can benefit from some protection in a moment of weakness or inattention. The following ideas are roughly divided into two categories: guardrails, protection to keep us from going where we shouldn’t; and guidelines, behaviors or practices that guide us toward safe paths and away from potentially dangerous areas or habits.

Guardrails

Filters and accountability software Our minds often go to software solutions when we think of protecting young people from impure content. Internet filters prevent the user from accessing certain sites flagged as inappropriate. This is primarily meant to block sites with sexually explicit content, but it can also block sites with violence, gaming, gambling, or other topics.

Accountability software can also provide filtering, but its main purpose is to monitor the activity of a user and flag anything questionable. These alerts can then be sent to someone such as a parent or accountability partner to provide an opportunity to talk about what is happening.

Both types of software are helpful, and an Internet filter is even required in many church groups, but they shouldn’t be the main line of defense. They can be disabled or even bypassed by those who don’t want to stay on safe paths.

Dumbing down smartphones Most smartphones can be locked down in various ways to make them function more like the “dumb phones” or feature phones that many of us used twenty years ago. Two ways to do this are to disable the phone’s internet browser so web pages cannot be accessed and to allow only a certain list of apps that a parent deems as necessary and safe.

Another option is to simply don’t give a young person a phone or only allow them to use a feature phone until you determine they are old enough to begin using a smartphone. Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist who has done extensive research on the effects of smartphones and social media on children, believes that parents shouldn’t give their children a smartphone before age fourteen.1 That may be a good place to start, but you have the privilege to wait until your child is older.

Disable installing apps Another guard that parents can put in place for their teenage children is to disable installing apps. If the child wants to install an app, a parent will have to enter a code or a password. This allows parents to know what sorts of apps and services their child is using and can prevent a child from simply downloading a new app to bypass guardrails their parents have put in place.

Social media restrictions Jonathan Haidt and others have extensively studied the relationship between heavy social media use and the relatively recent rise in mental distress in young people.¹ The effect is particularly strong in young women. The adolescent years are tender ones. Allowing your children to throw themselves into the whirlpool of social comparison, judgment, and conflict is a recipe for disaster. Haidt recommends not allowing young people to open social media accounts before age 16. Considering all the dangers for both young people and adults, you may decide to avoid social media altogether for your family.

Guidelines

Guardrails try to prevent us from plunging into the abyss, while guidelines put their hand to the wheel to nudge us back to safety. The technology guidelines listed below are only a few general suggestions. There are many more that you could put in place for you and your family.

No phones in bedrooms When we are alone, there is a greater chance to go places on our phones where we wouldn’t with someone else around. Parents can insist that phones not go into children’s rooms; phones can spend the night at a charging station or a “phone kiosk” out near the living area. This will have the effect of both reducing the amount of unsupervised time that young people spend on their phones as well as keeping them from using their phones late into the night.

No phones during family time God designed the family to be the primary unit of society outside of the church. The family is where teaching and training of young people should happen to prepare them for life outside of the family and engagement with the church and work in God’s Kingdom. For strong family bonds, families must spend time working, talking, and praying together. This is much harder when phones are around.

When the family is eating a meal or when they are spending other time together, banish phones to somewhere else. This guideline should apply to adults as well. Children won’t be convinced of the importance of phone-free time together if their parents are flouting their own rules.

Device time limits If there is a struggle with too much time spent on the phone, setting time limits for certain problematic apps using device controls (such as Screen Time in iOS) could help keep us from spending more time than we ought to on the phone. Parents can impose such time limits on their children, but they will be most effective if young people choose to limit themselves.

Conclusion

As much as it would be nice to have a list of rules and know that they will keep us and our families safe, rules are simply not enough. Guardrails have an important purpose, but we should resist the impulse to rely solely on them to protect us from the digital abyss.

A heart that is bent toward consumption and illicit desires will discover any possible loophole to fulfill its ungodly hunger. A heart that desires to put away the unclean thing and to develop a closer relationship with others and with God will do whatever is necessary to make sure that happens, even if it requires “cutting off” what leads us to sin.

A heart that is bent toward consumption and illicit desires will discover any possible loophole to fulfill its ungodly hunger.

And He said, “What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man.”
(Mark 7:20-23 NKJV)

In these verses, Jesus was addressing the Pharisees who were accusing His disciples of not washing their hands before eating for the purpose of not defiling themselves. Jesus showed the religious leaders that sin and defilement comes from within the sinful heart of men. Efforts to control our behavior or the behavior of our children without being aware of and addressing the condition of our hearts will only be dealing with the symptoms of sin, not its cause.

May the Lord give us wisdom as we navigate the dangerous paths of the Internet with our families. God has always been faithful and able to help His people in other troubling times, and we know that He can do the same today.

1. Jonathan Haidt’s findings and ideas for how to deal with the issues that the Internet and smartphones bring to children are given in his book The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. Haidt does not write from a Christian perspective, but his work is still quite helpful in thinking through how Christians can respond to protect our children. ↩︎