How One Family Navigated Smartphones and Social Media in the Teen Years

A guest post by Jordan Woodie

Earlier this year, my cousin Jordan and his wife Larissa sent their oldest child to college. They also have another teenager and a preteen. I asked Jordan if they would consider writing something about the way they’ve navigated smartphones and social media in their family. Their kids are some of the brightest, most conversational, most emotionally present kids I know. No one is perfect, but I thought readers would be encouraged by one family’s testimony of striving for wisdom in a technological age.

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My wife and I grew up in the 80s.  Virtually any kid from that decade will remember the original NES, watching E.T., or having your very own Care Bear or Pound Puppy.  What we don’t have any memories of during that time is the Internet. The only accessible phones were attached to walls.  And our “social networks” were literally our neighbors, sports teams, and friends from church and school. 

This has not been the reality for our children though.  My wife and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary earlier this year.  As of this writing, our three children are 18, 16, and 10.  Like many families, one of the more significant parenting challenges we’ve faced is how to best navigate the seemingly inevitable role of smartphones and social media in the lives of our teenagers.

As our first child began to approach the preteen years, we knew it was going to be important to think through how biblical values would impact our decisions related to smartphones and social media. By God’s grace, my wife and I had made a decision in 2007, as we were moving to the mission field with a two-year old and another baby on the way, to forego setting up a Facebook account (we weren’t even totally sure what that was at the time).  This certainly wasn't because of any unique foresight on our part.  We just wanted to give ourselves fully to learning a new language, assimilating into a new culture, and establishing a whole new network of relationships.  In order to do so, it just seemed best at the time to do everything we could to give ourselves to the world in front of us, instead of trying to maintain a broad network of ties to multiple worlds. 

An Intentional Technology Plan

We’ve never regretted not having personal social media accounts.  So, before the first smartphone ever landed in the hands of one of our kids, we wrote down what would be our family’s ‘technology plan’.  This is how the first part of that reads:

This plan is designed to help our family keep one another accountable in making sure our personal use and family use of media is appropriate and ultimately something that honors God and not something that displeases Him.  This plan will help protect our family from the damage that the inappropriate use of media can cause.  We are grateful to God for the good things we can use technology for and at the same time, we want to always live in a way that shows we believe that people are infinitely more valuable than screens.

What followed was our attempt to implement practical family expectations and rhythms that would give some structure to what we said we valued.  This included things such as establishing ‘screen-free zones’ in our home, personal screen time limits and cut-off times, screen audits (not viewing phones as private property), and observing occasional ‘screen sabbaths.’

I’m choosing not to include all of the elements and details of our family’s technology plan for a few different reasons.  One, our implementation and execution of this plan has been far from perfect.  Second, the way something like this fleshes out for any given family will look different.  Third, and probably most importantly, although we wholeheartedly believe some kind of family technology plan has value, we also believe its value is limited.  External safe-guards are only one part of the equation.  They have no ability to change the heart.

The Bible teaches that external boundaries are important, but not most important. Even as believers, we still contend with our sinful flesh.  Paul said it this way:

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.  For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.  But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law (Galatians 5:16-18, ESV).

The reality is that external boundaries in and of themselves are no match for a heart that is intent on sinning. 

Shepherding the Heart

So as our family’s technology plan has definitely proven to be a helpful aid in the process of parenting our children through the unique challenges that smartphones and social media present, it has not been a substitute for shepherding our kids’ hearts towards the supreme joy of loving God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength.

One practical example of what this shepherding process has involved is navigating our oldest daughter’s request to set up an Instagram account in her last couple of years of high school. My initial inclination was to not allow it.  What good could possibly come from it?  But as my wife and I prayerfully discussed it, she helped me consider the narrowing window of time we had, not just to reinforce boundaries and teach principles, but to walk beside our daughter, helping her to think through things biblically while she still lived with us. We didn’t want her first foray into the social media world to come after she left home. 

A second example of this process has been a practice of confession, to our children, my own failures in this area, and not just monitoring theirs.  As one of the pastors in our local church, I’ve often encouraged families with the truth that an integral part of the process of discipling our kids is modeling repentance.  In our family, this begins with me. This painfully involves confessing sin to our kids and asking for their forgiveness, particularly when my sin has directly affected them.  The sin of valuing a screen over the other people sitting in the living room needs to be brought to light and redeemed by the Gospel in my own heart, before it needs a parental control setting.

Practical Questions

Of course, any attempt to implement some kind of family technology plan that’s guided by biblical principles is going to be, to some degree, counter-cultural. This will inevitably create opportunity for conversations about these things with other families, especially when your kids spend time with other kids whose families may not have the same parameters in place.

When approached with grace and humility, we’ve found these conversations can be overwhelmingly more encouraging than awkward.  I believe most parents instinctively feel that the net impact of social media and smartphones on their family has been negative. For example, if one of our kids is going on a trip with another family, we have asked the parents to remind our son or daughter to put their phone in a common area before going to bed.  Nonetheless, these habits and parameters can and do elicit strong emotions from teens, especially as they’re navigating what it means to not conform to the world.  These conversations about technology can serve a larger purpose to remind our whole family that our identity is not found in conformity to this world, but in conformity to Christ.  Wise practices with technology are opportunities for discipleship.

I’ve been asked, ‘What is a good time to start implementing these kinds of principles?’ Regardless of who’s asking, or what season of life they find themselves in, my short answer is the same: “Now.”  Even couples without children can and should begin thinking about these questions, because handling technology with wisdom is for adults as much as teens. And for those whose children are older, and are tempted to feel like the opportunity for discipleship has passed them by already,  I would encourage you this way: Don’t worry about time that has already passed.  Rest in God’s grace. With his help, redeem the time you do have.  Even if your kids are already out of the house, they can still benefit from seeing you model consistency in this area, no matter what stage of life you’re in.

God is a God of grace. As he helps you establish wise safeguards for your family for smartphones and social media, and as you tend to the hearts of your children by shepherding them to walk by the Spirit and modeling for them (although imperfectly) what that looks like, the lasting fruit of that will be gratitude, not resentment.