Whitelisting

I woke up one morning not so long ago and opened my laptop to check my email. Half an hour of aimless browsing later, I found myself watching some pointless news clip. My morning coffee was still in the pot and my Bible unread.

Later that day I impulsively pulled my phone from my pocket, tapped open a couple of apps for no particular reason, and then put it back—until I felt another phantom buzz on my thigh.

I wouldn’t last long if I approached the physical world this way. When I step out my front door, I usually have a good sense of where I’m going and why; after all, walking takes energy. Just going for a drive to clear my head means I have to keep my hands on the steering wheel. Aimlessness has immediate consequences in the physical world, but the internet seems built for it.

Our individual lack of purpose when it comes to technology is symptomatic of a society-wide syndrome. For many decades now, Americans have rarely asked whether a new technology should be developed and deployed. If we can do it, we should, right? Recently, I asked a leading engineer at a major tech company why they had added their AI companion to computers and programs without asking users whether they wanted it. The question confused him: “Well, we just figured people would.”

This exposes the absurdity of applying the tool metaphor to digital devices: “The computer/smartphone/AI is just a tool; what matters is how you use it.” No one picks up a hammer at the beginning of the day and walks around swinging it at any object in sight—but that’s how we use our phones. In the physical world, when you find a loose board, you take the hammer out of the toolbox, pound in some nails, and then put it back.

What if we approached our digital technologies the same way? What would it look like to live a purpose-driven tech life? I certainly can’t claim to model one myself, but I would like to show my kids a better life than my own. For my wife and me, this began by trying to protect our children from the perils of internet pornography and other soul-poisoning online content. But we soon recognized that the traditional approach, “content filtering,” was no good. Instead, we used the “whitelisting” feature that most parental controls have.

We created a list of appropriate websites for each of our kids and enabled only those websites. They could request access to other sites, and we’d approve or reject them. Or if they needed a bit more scope to search and browse, we’d fully enable the browser for a limited time, and then restore the constraints. We took a similar approach with certain devices. They had to bring the iPad to Mom to explain what they wanted to use it for and why. She typed in the passcode, and then ensured it was locked again when they were done.

My wife and I started designing our entire family tech life around this whitelisting principle, and have even tried—with imperfect success—to model it ourselves, limiting our own access to apps and devices. Rather than the default being “anything, anywhere, on demand” with a few “Danger” or “Road Closed” signs posted to block the really bad stuff, we decided that devices are off and websites inaccessible, unless and until we need them for a particular purpose.

From talking to other parents, we’ve discovered that this is pretty radical. But our kids just think of it as normal. And why not? After all, this is a lot closer to how we treat the offline world. When you move to a new community, you don’t tell your kids, “Alright, spread out. Feel free to crash on any couch in the neighborhood or help yourself to the goodies in any fridge—unless the door is locked or the owner objects.”

The walls and doorways of the physical world remind us that we are finite creatures. God designed us for certain ends, and we flourish only within certain limits. The purposes we pursue determine the shape of those limits, and as we grow and mature, the limits should gradually expand to enable us to pursue higher and grander purposes.

Some external limits we might remove altogether, but hopefully only because we have internalized them—that is, we’ve formed clear enough purposes that we instinctively know what tools to use and when.

I certainly can’t claim to have reached that level of maturity in my tech life yet. But in the meantime, I’m grateful for the opportunity to show my children that limits are actually what make freedom possible.

—Brad Littlejohn is director of programs and education at American Compass; he lives in Northern Virginia with his wife Rachel and four children