Abigail Shrier is a writer for the Wall street Journal, and author of the fascinating book Irreversible Damage, Teenage Girls and the Transgender Craze. She’s not a Christian, but a journalist who’s researched how lots of girls have come to identify as transgender in recent years. Here’s the first piece of advice she gives to parents on how to protect their children from the influence of gender ideology. As Christians, we might feel her suggestion is a bit of a blunt instrument, but it’s still striking:
Don’t Get Your Kid a Smartphone
Parents will balk; parents will groan. Most consider this an unimaginable amputation. How could I separate a teen from her iPhone? But in terms of obviousness, this one’s not even hard. It practically writes itself.
Nearly every novel problem teenagers face traces itself back to 2007 and the introduction of Steve Job’s iPhone. In fact, the explosion in self-harm can be so precisely pinpointed to the introduction of this one device that researchers have little doubt that it is the cause. If I had told you in 2007 that one device would produce a sudden skyrocketing in self-harm among teens and tweens, you would likely have said, ‘No way is my kid getting one’. And yet, here we are; the statistical explosion of bullying, cutting, anorexia, depression, and the rise of sudden transgender identification is owed to the self-harm instruction, manipulation, abuse and relentless harassment supplied by a single smartphone.
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