How to Live Without Your Phone

If you don’t do it for yourself, do it for your children

A screenshot of that infamous Apple ad

A long-held belief of mine is that both institutionalized education and the rule of law only wield enough power to imbue healthy behaviors in teenagers insofar as their families embody them in the first place.

A kid will hardly learn good eating habits at school if his parents are obese due to fast-food overconsumption. Genetics and environmental childhood upbringing remain undefeated as modeling forces of a person’s character. Regulations and societal customs change collective behavior over time, and peer influence can steer kids away from their parents to some degree, but family sets a baseline that’s hard to override.

Maybe you already know where I’m going with this, but in case it’s not clear, let me say it straight: your smartphone addiction is the first and foremost cause of your children’s smartphone addiction.

As a member of the younger half of society (not for long, although not so much because I’m getting older but because the pyramid is inverting), it’s fascinating how often teenagers and young adults are used as scapegoats for behaviors and attitudes we learned from our parents, directly by copying or instruction, or indirectly, through an inevitable hereditary endowment. They will blame the ills of society on…