A Digital Revolt

LES SILLARS, HOST: So Alessandra, you're about to start on the Postman Pledge story. And you have come to a, well, you've come to me with an offer, really. What's the offer?

ALESSANDRA NASH, REPORTER: To take the Postman Pledge myself.

SILLARS: You want to take the Postman Pledge.

NASH: I do.

SILLARS: Wow.

SILLARS: I had this conversation with Alessandra Nash last October. She’s one of our correspondents for this season of Doubletake.

The Postman Pledge has nothing to do with the Post Office. The Postman Pledge is a promise that a small number of families around the country have been making to each other. Essentially, they agree not to give their children smartphones. And to eliminate social media from their homes.

Alessandra offered to stop using social media along with them while she did the story. This was not going to be easy for her. She got her first Facebook account at age 14 and she’s been a heavy user of social media ever since. As a journalism student at Patrick Henry College, she had blocked Instagram on her computer.

ALESSANDRA: But it's also very easy to, like, turn on and off the web restrictions ...

So when she got bored or wanted to take a break from studying ...

ALESSANDRA: ... I would go to my computer, like, turn off the restrictions, go on Instagram for a few minutes, then go back and block it again. Like, pretend that I'm very self controlled. [laughter] It’s embarrassing. It’s really embarrassing.

LES: Well, I give you credit for trying.

Alessandra spent her high school years pretty much glued to her phone.

ALESSANDRA: Lots of summers, just like stuck to that as a sort of outlet, and, I don't know, it's, I guess you can call it addiction.

Music: Damon Allen, Everyday Robots

LES: So this is a pretty personal story for you in a lot of ways.

ALESSANDRA: Yes.

LES: Well, we will look forward to seeing what you come up with over the next little while.

ALESSANDRA: See if I don’t cave! [laughter]. But. I’m excited.

Like Alessandra, lots of people are trying to get social media use under control. Especially for their kids.

So today on Doubletake, Alessandra will explain who Neil Postman was and where this “Postman Pledge” came from. But first, she’ll take us to a Christian school in Idaho that strongly encourages all its families to sign the pledge. That’s right: a whole school where students are not supposed to have smart phones or social media. Not at school. And not even at home. As one parent told us, that’s like declaring war on an entire culture.

NASH: Seventh grade was a rough year for Mandi Moore’s daughter.

MOORE: She felt very isolated from her class ...

All her classmates had phones. And she didn’t.

MOORE: She felt like at school, it was even hard to interact with her friends, because there were so much of the conversation she was missing out on.

Mandi’s a mom of two from Boise, Idaho. She and her husband were always careful with digital technology in their home. They canceled cable TV when their children were young, even though they mainly used it to watch the news.

MOORE: I remember one day just feeling just this huge urgency, we have to get rid of this. I could just tell that it was not going to be helpful in forming them in the way that we were desiring to.

Mandi often talked with her children about the addictive nature of technology. Her background in physical therapy helped her explain a similarity between digital technology use and brain injuries.

MOORE: Technology has a physiological effect on you that you can't control. It is similar to a drug. When you're developing and you're a child, your body is not equipped to have any defense against those types of drugs.

She wanted her children to be attentive, to be curious, and to love truth. To not lose their childhood to the instant gratification promised by screens.

So when her daughter came home from middle school a few years ago begging for a phone, the simple answer was “no.” But when everyone else's parents were saying “yes” …

MOORE: It felt like all of a sudden, an all out war for my children.

As her daughter grew older, the battle intensified. Her daughter’s high school running team relied on texting. She missed several practices because her team couldn't contact her about time or location changes.

MOORE: At that point, I gave her a smartphone, albeit very locked down.

When colleges started to recruit her in her junior year of high school, Mandi allowed her to open a social media account.

MOORE: I noticed the draw that it had she can be drawn in and pressured you know, that's how people are going to communicate with her. And I think just looking at her, I feel like it's isolating.

In hindsight, Mandi thinks her daughter was too young to get a phone.

MOORE: I held out until I felt like it was the very last minute that I could hold out in giving a phone to my daughter. And I regret now doing it then.

Maybe if she and her husband hadn’t been alone in this, it would have been easier.

Mandi had seen the effects of social media throughout her teaching career. And she definitely noticed it as Dean of the Ambrose School’s Bridge Campus in Garden City, Idaho.

MOORE: As soon as the bell rings everyone would be on their phone, and no one would be looking at each other anymore.

Ambrose used to allow phones on campus. But they were supposed to remain off, be kept in lockers, and not be used during school hours. Still, teachers often caught kids who normally obeyed rules sneaking out their phones during recess.

MOORE: It was just draining the students all day long. I just knew that this is something that's now controlling them, versus them controlling it.

Many people have similar concerns. US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, who was interviewed on CNN recently, agreed that teen social media use is a huge problem.

MURTHY: We’ve put them in unsafe, untenable environments, and we’re hoping for the best.

Exactly. “Hoping” won’t protect kids. Ninety-five percent of teens between the ages of 13-18 own a phone and half of them have internet access. Lots of parents are unaware of what sort of material – or people – their kids are encountering online.

Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist and author, addresses this in his recent book “The Anxious Generation.” He explained his concerns on MSNBC.

HAIDT: A complete collapse of mental health hitting especially girls and especially young girls in Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, it all starts around 2013.

The year Instagram became wildly popular among young people. He believes the introduction of smartphones and social media has rewired childhood for the worst. And he wants parents to act now. And for parents to know they have more of an impact than they think.

HAIDT: We’re stuck because it’s a series of collective action problems. Why do you feel like you need to give your kid a smartphone in 5th or 6th grade? Well it’s because everybody else did. We parents and teachers – we can solve this if we act together.

Mandi had watched all these issues develop over the last several years. She knew she wanted to do something about it, but she didn’t know what. And then she learned about something called the Postman Pledge.

In 2023 one of Mandi’s colleagues from Ambrose wrote about a woman named Jeanne from Hyattsville, Maryland.

SCHINDLER: My name is Jeanne Schindler and I am currently a homeschooling mom and a homemaker, though, earlier in my life, I was a university professor.

She taught political philosophy. And she’s the author of The Postman Pledge.

SCHINDLER: The idea started over two years ago, when our oldest child was just 13. And when we learned that his best friend was about to get a phone, which was concerning to us.

Like Mandi, Jeanne was concerned about the damage digital communication technology does to children. Jeanne also knew she couldn’t parent against the grain alone.

SCHINDLER: It couldn't be this idiosyncratic and weird thing that our little family was doing. It had to have broader support.

So, she reached out to 24 couples with children from her kids’ private Catholic school and their church. She invited them over for cake and coffee to discuss how to parent in a technological age.

SCHINDLER: Out of those discussions, the Postman Pledge was born...

It’s a nod to author and social commentator Neil Postman. His 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death foresaw the massive effects communication technology would have on public discourse. And on education.

In 1985 he was concerned primarily about television. Here he is on C-SPAN in 1988

POSTMAN: Insofar as we’re talking about American commercial television, that’s what it’s best is, to provide amusement in order to gather an audience, and so ...

Postman pointed out that media shape the culture in their own image. Today social media is more influential than broadcast television. But Postman’s principle applies: people who spend a lot of time on social media will over time adopt the values of social media. Critics say these values include a drive for constant stimulation, an inability to focus, a desire for attention, a shallowness of thought, and a focus on self.

SCHINDLER: The pledge is an annual commitment to commit our families to not having smartphones for their children, and to not allow their children to use social media.

Here’s Mandi reading the Pledge.

MOORE: As Christian parents, we pledge for the next year to not allow our children to have smartphones, or use social media …

Mandi knew that kids needed to thrive at home to flourish at school. She felt that the burden should be on parents to ensure limited social media and internet exposure. The Postman Pledge, she realized, could help.

MOORE: … we also pledge to conscientiously limit our family's use of electronic technologies in general, and [build] to cultivate the habits of attention and presence, that allow us to grow in the love of one another and of God.

So Mandi started hosting informal chats with parents from each grade to explain internet safety and the Pledge. She invited parents to sign it.

Many parents were on board from the beginning. Like Anne and Mike Thomas. They have three kids.

ANNE THOMAS: I was just so glad that this school was willing to take a stand on this and to boldly unapologetically, say, this is what we are doing, and we would like you to come on board.

Anne and Mike have raised their kids with minimal access to digital technology.

ANNE THOMAS: Our culture, especially here in America, we want our time filled, it needs to be filled with something. I think that people miss out on the richness and the fullness of relationships and the beauty of one another that God has given us.

But Mike and Anne have struggled with their daughter over the Postman Pledge. She’s a gymnast. Her skill level puts her with older girls. Some of them have exposed her to pop culture and digital tech for which she’s just not ready.

MIKE THOMAS: So, in the same way, these girls walk up with their phones, and, “Oh my god, can you believe what this guy just said about me and look what they're doing here.” She's been asked, unfortunately, to grow older than she's supposed to be, you know.

She knows her parents' expectations. She knows about the Postman Pledge. But she continues to ask to listen to certain music, play certain games, and plead for a phone. She argues because she wants to fit in.

MIKE THOMAS: This is the main challenge. I want her to be the influencer of others and not be influenced by others.

But they don’t want to alienate their children over this, either.

MIKE THOMAS: So I have to watch it, I have to be the, like, don't push too hard, because then you don't want her to, like, hide stuff. I'm so used to my daughter being like, “Okay, Dad,” you know, and now she's never, “Okay Dad.” I have to earn that.

Mike and Anne know that, Postman Pledge or no, some things get through the cracks. They have a rule that computers, including their son’s Chromebook from school, must be used in the family’s common living areas. They have software to monitor the device. And Ambrose tracks students’ laptop use.

MIKE THOMAS: They do a great job of having a blacklist. So every website you go to is tracked. They do know where you go to, but that doesn't stop you from going there.

On the drive to soccer practice one day, their son noticed an adult store.

MIKE THOMAS: He would ask about hustler store. What is this?

His parents responded with age-appropriate answers. But he wanted to know more. So he snuck his computer into his room and plugged the store's name into Google maps. He found the review section. It included pornographic photos. Then he searched for similar products on Amazon, a site that wouldn’t normally raise red flags with the monitoring programs.

MIKE THOMAS: One thing leads to another, you know, and...

Anne and Mike had no idea he’d been doing this. He’d been spending lots of time in his room and he’d seemed tired. And then ...

ANNE THOMAS: On a school morning I went in to check on him and he slipped something underneath his legs. And so I said, “Oh, what is that?”

The Thomas’ were shocked. They notified the school, which added Google Maps and Amazon to its blacklist. The school stepped in to support Mike and Anne in disciplining and discipling their son.

ANNE THOMAS: What I think the Postman's Pledge could potentially create is just this, like, huge wall of people who act. It's like, they're standing there with shields and swords, and they're ready to fight for you.

Neil Postman believed strongly in the preservation of childhood. In his 1994 book, The Disappearance of Childhood, he urges parents and educators to protect children from the adult world until they’re ready. Here’s Postman again at the State University of New York.

POSTMAN: I believe that human beings need first to be children before they can be grownups.

That involves developing their taste, Jeanne says.

SCHINDLER: We want to give our children the freedom to pay attention, and the freedom to be to be in a particular place to be with people who are right in front of them.

The job of parents and educators, according to Postman, is to give children the space and time to be children. Postman calls this the Monastery Effect. It’s the concept that parents must wall off the world for a period of time for their children. This gives them the space and opportunity to develop an appreciation for the good, true, and beautiful.Mandi says this is worth fighting for.

MOORE: So if children are robbed of their childhood, in the sense of they don't have the time and space and protection to develop their taste. Parents do have to revolt against the culture in order to protect their kids and give them this opportunity for a true childhood.

Another family from Ambrose faces challenges with their four middle and high school aged children. Doubletake agreed to keep this family anonymous to protect their privacy. I’ll refer to the mom as Kate.

Kate and her husband have always been careful about the content their children absorb. Signing the Postman Pledge seemed to them just to reinforce how they were already parenting. An extra layer of support.

Her daughters didn’t see it that way.

KATE: They were immediately very angry about it which I thought was hilarious, because, again, nothing really changed in our home.

Like in the Thomas’s home, devices had to stay in living areas. Kate and her husband allowed their older girls to have tablets with games and internet access. The girls looked up hairstyles and recipes on Pinterest.

KATE: Next thing I know they're searching all these different things regarding teens. But it's like, “How do I get boys to like me? How do I have boys talk to me? How do we get skinnier?”

Her second daughter also discovered the chat feature on Pinterest. So they banned Pinterest, but her older daughter found a way to bend the rules.

KATE: Our one daughter like snuck it from our, again, safe spot that we have to her room and was like watching it at night. Pinterest specifically on her tablet, and it breaks my heart, not only now that she obviously snuck it, but more so the content.

This was even before they gave the girls phones. And then their oldest got a “dumb phone” last October. It only calls, texts and takes photos. Since then she’s lost privileges several times for 2-to-3-month periods.

During one of these periods, she suffered a sports injury that required surgery. Her parents allowed her to use her phone briefly to respond to friends and family who texted her well wishes.

KATE: After surgery, she had this expectation that she would still have it. And we were like, no, it's just short amount of time. And she just like lost it. And it was like an emotional roller coaster of like, I can't even live anymore because I don't have my phone.

They reminded her of why she lost privileges, and how she was making the phone an idol in her life. But she was breaking down.

KATE: And she's like, I have nothing else to do in this world. I don't know how. I'll never see my friends. I'll never talk to them. And then we had conversations with her where she really almost felt like she could not survive.

Meanwhile, ironically, friends were dropping gifts off their doorstep. Reaching out through Kate and her husband with encouragement.

KATE: It's like, the world is here. And it's evident but still somehow this device because I don't have it in my hands to really have direct contact with people. It's like my world feels like it's over.

So why not take it away completely? That isn’t out of the question for Kate. But she knows her daughter won’t live at home forever.

KATE: Eventually like yes, we want you to have a smartphone under our roof. We want enough time to go through all these challenges in our home. And in all honesty, I'd rather them make the mistakes in our home so we can have those conversations and learn from it versus like, when they turn 18. And, yeah,

For now, Kate is sticking to the Postman Pledge. A majority of elementary and middle school parents at Ambrose have signed it. But Mandi has noticed that the older the kids get, the more hesitant parents are to sign. Especially if the student already has a phone.

MOORE: Once the phone is given, it just seems like an impossible thing to take back.

For example, Heather and Trevor Miller have four sons. They signed the pledge for their elementary aged children. But not for their high school sons.

HEATHER MILLER: We do feel like we need to give him the privileges so that we can monitor it more under our roof so we can teach him how to be responsible...

Their older sons have iPhones.

TREVOR MILLER: It's hard to go back once you let that thing out of the box

Their phones and computers have protective software. They allow their sons to talk to friends on Discord, a platform popular with teens and gamers. So far, their sons and their friends have been transparent about inappropriate occurrences on chats.

However, Heather and Trevor are still wary. Their older son is on Discord chats for hobbies.

HEATHER MILLER: So he does interact with some, some people he does not know ... Yeah, it just would be something that we would prefer him not do. But, but we have given him the privilege of doing that.

They want to do things differently with their younger sons, but not retract privileges they’ve already allowed their older sons to enjoy. To the younger boys, that seems unfair.

TREVOR MILLER: We didn't let the other one start playing video games at all until 12 ish, maybe 12 or 13. And when he would complain that, hey, you know ... at eight this guy got to play, we'd say, well, yeah, we made a mistake.

They will adhere to the Postman Pledge with their younger two until they’re driving. Even then, a phone isn’t guaranteed.

TREVOR MILLER: You're not going to just get a phone because you have a driver's license, like you need to have a purpose.

A big part of the Postman Pledge is to encourage parents to draw their kids toward something good. Like community and deep friendships. Instead of just away from something bad.

This is the heart of the pledge, according to Jeanne. To enjoy togetherness apart from the distraction of screens.

SCHINDLER: So, through common meals, through festivities, through dances, through games. We want to build community and celebrate God's creation and celebrate what it means to be human together.

Jeanne told me stories about their Scottish Country dancing events with live folk music. She also hosts coffee chats at her place for parents to discuss technology and theology.

In Idaho, Mandi organizes school events that promote togetherness. Teachers intentionally assign less homework for Fridays so students can spend time in fellowship.

KATE: Obviously like grade wide activities and stay after school and play at the playground. In the winter, I know on Fridays, they try to do ski hangouts.

Every morning at Ambrose, students gather to sing a hymn of the month. Parents are encouraged to attend.

SCHOOL AUDITORIUM: BE THOU MY VISION

And to talk after, too. When I visited Ambrose for this story, I noticed the constant chatter and conversation. I felt strange being on my phone responding to texts in the hallway.

Since adopting the Pledge and more strictly enforcing Ambrose’s tech rules, Mandi’s noticed positive changes. Now, students aren't allowed phones in the building at all, even if they own one.

MOORE: Now I no longer walk to a locker area and see huddled around phones. I walk into the gym in the locker areas, and I see kids face to face with expression on their face, and they're having conversations.

The place seems joyful, exciting, and engaging. Students like Caitlyn and Noelle have noticed it, too.

CAITLYN: It's nice to come here. And we're not all on our phones. We're actually here in person. And that's how we communicate.

NOELLE: It's just so important to learn to actually how to make personal contact with people, like without phones, just knowing how to talk to people without having that.

And there are students like Leah, who had a smartphone at age 14. And she still has one.

LEAH: It feels like everybody gets phones, and it got to the point where I was like, Oh, I'm missing out on in person things because I don't have a phone, which, you know, was not great.

She doesn’t plan to give it up. But she’s starting to see the problems.

LEAH: I don't handle the phone as well as I should. My sister, She's in sixth grade, was not happy. She was like, Well, I actually really like you. And now that you've got the phone, it feels like your attention is now toward it.

She learned that getting lost in her phone hurts others, too.

LEAH: Oh, this is not just me. It's like also the people that I love...who feel like I'm being taken away.

The parents I spoke with took all this very seriously. They seemed like good parents. They weren’t pushovers and they were willing to discipline their kids. They were aware of the dangers of social media and the internet even before signing the Postman Pledge. But even they struggled to make the Pledge stick. I kept wondering whether distancing yourself from tech is even feasible when it’s so pervasive. Mandi thinks it’s possible to draw some important lines.

MOORE: Individuals can still have kind of a rebellious spirit against the spirit of the age or the culture of the age and say, we may not be able to completely opt out, but we can draw hard lines that we don't cross as individuals and families.

Sometimes that means saying no to some things but yes to others. Good things that are already in front of all of us. That’s what Anne wants for her kids.

ANNE THOMAS: To be able to drive in a car for a few hours, and to be able to look out the window, and just admire what God's given us.

Seeing the small, beautiful aspects of life that point to something greater. To unplug and be present with loved ones. To rest from the constant pressures. Young people could do that much more easily before smartphones, according to Jeanne.

SCHINDLER: Young people could come home from school, come away from their peer groups, and be in the sanctuary of their home, where they could decompress, and be themselves and be with people whose affirmation and whose acceptance is a given. I want our children to live in the world and to be in touch with things that are real, and to have the freedom of their imagination and the freedom of their attention.

SILLARS: Did you manage to keep the Postman Pledge?

NASH: Kind of.

SILLARS: What do you mean kind of?

NASH: Kind of, okay, so I ended up deleting my Instagram account completely, which was very huge for me, because it's something I never thought I'd be able to do. I still have my Facebook account, because I need my messenger activated for, like, chorale group chats and stuff.

NASH: Do you think you're different now than you were when you started?

NASH: Yes. Very.

SILLARS: How are you different?

NASH: I feel more present, attentive and thoughtful. And I feel more mindful of how I'm spending my time, if that makes sense. And I don't feel captive anymore like I used to.

MUSIC: RELIANT K, LOOK UP

SILLARS: This story was reported and written by Alessandra Nash. And, just a quick reminder, please don’t forget to rate and review us on your favorite podcast app. Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time.

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