Question 13 - Cellphones for Children
Father, should I give a cell phone to my children?
I am surprised to see that so many young people in our missions seem to have cell phones when they have certainly not reached the age and maturity to use such things.
It is of utmost importance not to put cell phones in the hands of young children. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, because electronic devices cause young people to live in an artificial world; secondly, because cell phones give them access to very bad things. If only parents knew how many young people lose their innocence by using cell phones, they would certainly avoid putting such objects into young hands.
First of all, cell phones make both young and old people live in an artificial world. I recently read a study which showed how cell phones are programmed to create dependency among those who own them. It goes so far, the study showed, that even the colours chosen to appear on our screens are selected so that they will create an addiction. The study also recommended putting our screens in "greyscale" to combat the pull they have on us. I myself did this, and I can testify how less attractive the screen appears in greyscale.
How many young people spend hours and hours playing video games on their cell phones, while children of their age should be out having fun in the nature that the Lord has created. These video games make young people extremely lazy and irresponsible. Real nature does not forgive. If we die, we die. In video games, we die several times a day and we continue to play, thus losing all sense of responsibility for our actions.
But the confessional teaches priests that one of the abominable effects of cell phones on young people is the extreme ease with which they make them fall into pornography and its resulting sins. The young people thus become prisoners, sometimes for long years, of deadly sins which put them in danger of losing themselves, and of compromising their virtue – sometimes for the rest of their lives. And obviously, the priest cannot talk to you.
You sometimes think that your children have just a cell phone. They do not have internet. There is no way for them to access evil. Think again! They are the young generation. Computers are something much more familiar to them than to you. How easily they are able to "hack" your passwords and open the door to a world that may well be quite foreign to you.
Fathers, remember your adolescence. Remember how troubled an age it is, especially when it comes to young men's sexuality. Do you really think that your boys are so virtuous that they will not give in to the temptation to look at the flood of impurity made available to them in only a few clicks? Have pity on their souls and on your own,
because you are responsible for what goes on at home. These things are so serious, you cannot plead ignorance.
To summarize, dear parents, I see no reason why a young person still living at home and not working should have a cell phone. Try to keep your children from possessing such objects for as long as possible. When age and circumstances make it no longer possible to deprive them of it, make sure that the youngest do not have access to the older ones' cells.
Finally, remember that when you make a decision in your family, you are, in a way, committing the other families of our missions: young people from other families will necessarily want to have access to the same things as yours do. How many times did my own father tell me: "I did not educate you like I really wanted to, but pressure from other families in Tradition left me no choice but to make concessions which I never wanted to make."
