Maureen responded to leaked Facebook documents revealing that the social media giant knowingly targets children in a harmful way, especially teenage girls, in an article for National Review entitled “Parents: Your Teens Don’t Need a Smartphone.”

Maureen highlights the difficulties parents face in trying to regulate their children’s activity on mobile devices.

“Smartphones have parental controls, of course, but tech-savvy kids often find workarounds,” Maureen notes. “Experts’ advise limiting screen time, but the genius programmers in Silicon Valley designed these platforms to be highly addictive.”

This lack of control is very worrisome because children face very real threats online.

“Today’s average kid stumbles across pornography at age eleven,” Ferguson points. “A recent Wall Street Journal exposé of TikTok accounts of 13- to 15-year-olds is horrifying: Feeds are dominated by endless videos of violent sexual bondage, glorification of drug use and drunk driving, and how-to-videos of eating disorders and self-harm.”

Maureen offers concrete ways parents can take control of tech in their homes.