The Smartphone Decision Isn’t Really a Technology Decision

By Steve Otey

A few years ago, my family took an unforgettable vacation to Canada. It was amazing for lots of good reasons, but it was also memorable for some of the not-so-fun parts of the trip.

I’m guessing you’ve had some of those vacations with your family too. For us, it happened in the car as we were headed to the ferry to Vancouver Island. We had reservations. The website said the wait to board would be about 30 minutes. Well, apparently Canada not only has a different measurement system from the United States, but also a different way of tracking time.

My family of six, with all our luggage, crammed into the rental van and sat on an exit ramp for over four hours! Our girls didn’t have cell phones at the time, and my wife and I weren’t in the habit of using our phones on car trips. Lots of memories were made in those four hours. We hadn’t planned a meal in the car, and it didn’t take too long before my four daughters started getting “hangry” (and maybe mom and dad did as well).

At some point, my daughter Megan decided she was going to somehow make sandwiches for everyone out of a cooler that was buried in the back. She found a little bit of bread and a half-empty jar of peanut butter. We didn’t have a knife, so she “Germ-X’d” her hands really well and used her index finger to spread the peanut butter to make sandwiches. That was the opening day of “Megan’s Food Van.” I’d like to say that I couldn’t taste the Germ-X in that sandwich, but I can’t.

Here’s the thing about those trips. The expensive stuff, the attractions, the planned activities, those were all great.

But almost none of our favorite family memories came from the things we paid for. They came from the margins. The waiting. The boredom. The Food Van. The unplanned moments where nobody had anywhere else to be and nothing else to look at.

And that’s exactly why the smartphone question matters so much more than most parents realize.

Why This Isn’t Really About the Phone

When parents start asking questions about smartphones, they almost always frame it as a technology question: “What’s the right age?” “What apps should I block?” “Should I use Bark or Covenant Eyes or just take the thing away at night?”

Those are all good questions. I’ll get to some of them here. But if we treat this purely as a technology decision, we’re going to miss what’s actually at stake.

Here’s what I mean: In Deuteronomy 6:4–9, God tells His people to keep His commandments on their hearts, to talk about them at home and on the road, when they lie down and when they get up.

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 6:4–9)

The whole picture in Deuteronomy is one of ongoing discipleship fully integrated into daily life. Faith isn’t a separate compartment. It’s passed down in the regular rhythms of a family’s life together: in the car, at the table, before bed. And God’s instructions here go deeper than “impress these commands on your children.” We can’t skip over verse 6. “These commands that I give you today are to be on your hearts…”

As parents, we are commanded to follow God first and impress His commands on our children second. We do that by using all the strategies laid out in the passage, including taking advantage of the downtime, the margins of life.

A smartphone has the power to fill every one of those moments. And once those moments are taken over by a screen, the natural, unscripted moments where faith actually gets passed down from parent to child start to disappear. Not because anyone intended the smartphone to take over, but because the phone was available and the conversation wasn’t.

That’s why I tell parents that decisions about smartphone use aren’t primarily about screen time limits or which apps are dangerous, even though those things definitely matter. It’s about whether your family still has margins — whether there’s still room for the unplanned moments, the PB & Germ-X sandwich, and the conversation that wouldn’t have happened if everyone had a screen in front of them. Unfortunately, many parents miss these moments because they too are absorbed in their devices.

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 “As parents, we are commanded to follow God first and impress His commands on our children second.”

I am by no means living this perfectly. I’ve failed at this plenty. I can’t tell you how many times my own kids have seen me pick up my phone at the dinner table, scroll for a minute, and put it down without saying a word about what I was doing. They don’t know if it was an emergency, work, or I just got bored of the conversation. That’s not the example I want to set, and I’m guessing if you’re honest, you’ve got a version of that story too.

The Real Question to Ask

Many parents ask me, “What age should I give my kid a smartphone?” I get it. It’s the question that feels most urgent. But I’d encourage you to ask a different question first.

“What kind of family do we want to be, and does this phone help or hurt that?”

That question reframes everything. It’s not about whether your kid will be the only one in their grade without a phone, although I know that pressure is real. It’s about whether this device, at this point in your child’s life, will protect or erode the things you’re trying to build: time together, conversations that go somewhere, a household where faith isn’t a Sunday-only topic.

For me and my house, we support Jonathan Haidt’s general guidance in his book “The Anxious Generation” of no smartphones before 14 and no social media before 16. My older daughters didn’t get phones until at least 16, and they were careful with social media even after that. My 15-year-old still doesn’t have one.

We don’t charge phones in bedrooms, and my wife and I have access to all the passwords. That’s not a rule I’m imposing because I think phones are evil. It’s a boundary I’m setting because I want our family’s margins to stay open as long as possible. And after 30 years of serving in youth and family ministry, I’ve seen the dangers firsthand.

Manage the Device + Train the Heart

If you remember one phrase from this whole article, I’d want it to be this one: Manage the device; train the heart.

Read that again. You can find enough help on YouTube to lock down your child’s device so that it literally only makes phone calls. But there’s no app that prevents them from seeing porn on their friend’s device. The “device” part of that mantra is the easier part — no phones in bedrooms at night. No phones at the dinner table. A central charging station for the whole family, not just the kids. These aren’t arbitrary.

Guardrails on a highway aren’t there because the road is evil. They’re there because of the risk, and because guardrails let you drive faster and more freely within them.

But managing the device is only step one. Training the heart is the longer, slower work, and it’s the part that actually requires you, not an app. It is possible to lock down a phone so tightly that it does almost nothing, but no app can disciple a heart. That’s why the smartphone conversation is first a discipleship conversation.

Here’s what that looks like practically: Instead of obsessing over parental controls and monitoring apps alone, you also engage your teen with questions and conversations: “What did you see online today that made you laugh?” “What did you see that brought you closer to Jesus?” “How do you respond when your feed shows you something inappropriate?” “Is your phone use helping or hurting your walk with the Lord?”

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 “It is possible to lock down a phone so tightly that it does almost nothing, but no app can disciple a heart.”

An engaged parent asking thoughtful questions is more powerful than any app or restriction you can put in place. Your superpower for helping your teen survive the onslaught of tech and social media is you.

I tell parents all the time that you want your kids to fail at home. Not because failure is the goal, but because home is where failure gets met with grace, a conversation, and a do-over.

“That didn’t work. Let’s tweak it. Let’s try again.”

That’s discipleship. That’s Deuteronomy 6 in real time, not in a classroom, but in the actual mess of family life.

Three Verses That Drive Great Conversations

I come back to three verses a lot in these conversations. Philippians 4:8 tells us what things should fill our minds.

Proverbs 4:23 teaches a foundational truth.

“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” (Proverbs 4:23)

The Apostle Paul expands on this concept by adding a filter for what we should think about.

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things.” (Philippians 4:8)

Add to this Paul’s instruction in Colossians 3:1–2, where we are instructed to set our hearts and minds on heavenly things. I can only imagine how much more strongly Paul may have spoken to the city of Colosse if social media had existed back then!

“Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” (Colossians 3:1–2)

Put those verses together, and you’ve got a fantastic filter for a family’s relationship with technology. Not “is this app evil,” but “is what’s flowing into our hearts, through our screens, the kind of thing Paul described in Philippians? And are we guarding that the way Proverbs tells us to?” “What does it look like to set our minds on things above in this situation?”

That’s a conversation you can have with a 10-year-old or a 16-year-old. It’s not a lecture. It’s an ongoing, evolving discussion, which is exactly what Deuteronomy 6 describes.

It’s Not Too Late

If you’re reading this and thinking about the phone you already handed over, the bedroom charging station you already set up, the years of dinners where everyone scrolled in silence, I want to say this clearly. Even now, it’s not too late. Even if you have a 17-year-old who hasn’t had any restrictions on their phone, you can still talk about applying biblical wisdom to smartphone use and have great conversation with them.

Family discipleship was never a onetime decision you either got right or didn’t. It’s the ongoing conversation in ordinary moments, and there’s always another moment coming. Today is one of them.

You don’t need a grand gesture or a complete overhaul tonight. Pick one thing. Move the charger out of the bedroom. Have the “what kind of family do we want to be” conversation, even if it’s awkward. Put your own phone away at dinner and tell your kids why you’re doing it.

Just like in the Shema in Deuteronomy 6, the progression starts with parents going first. Our calling is to follow the Lord and invite our kids along. That order applies to nearly everything in life.

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 “Our calling is to follow the Lord and invite our kids along. That order applies to nearly everything in life.”

The opportunities in the margins of life are still there, waiting for an intentional parent to step in. And when you do, you might be surprised how God shows up in those moments. Maybe not a PB & Germ-X sandwich … but something just as memorable, and a lot more lasting.
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