This review of the Doorman app highlights its potential as an alternative to phone pouches in schools. Unlike pouches, which promote avoidance, Doorman limits distractions while teaching responsibility and digital literacy. Students keep their phones but with restricted access to approved apps. Testing showed the app worked well, with high student buy-in due to its fairness. Privacy concerns were addressed transparently, and schools found it effective.

Conversations about youth and technology often focus only on risks, but young people are not just consumers, they are creators, innovators, and culture shapers. Treating them as passive users underestimates their agency and erodes trust. Effective digital parenting means working with, not just for, youth: setting boundaries, listening, co-creating rules, and guiding critical thinking while celebrating strengths.

Raising kids today means guiding them through a flood of online voices, from podcasts to TikTok to group chats. Some content can feel extreme, and the instinct is to shut it down. But when youth only hear one side, they lose the chance to think critically. By asking questions, listening, and exploring sources together, parents can help kids build balance, resilience, and thoughtful perspectives in a noisy digital world.

When fear meets complexity, bans often feel like the easiest fix. But history shows that blunt prohibitions rarely solve nuanced problems. Just as the Tylenol - autism debate oversimplifies medical risks, calls to ban phones and social media from kids risk ignoring both evidence and opportunity. Parents and schools need balance, not bans, to truly protect and prepare youth.

Parents are not powerless against Big Tech. Despite billion-dollar budgets and endless algorithms, research shows that kids don’t just absorb content, they interpret it through the conversations, examples, and guidance they get at home. Your presence and influence shape how they see the online world. Big Tech may capture their eyes, but you shape their understanding.

Anxiety in youth isn’t born in a vacuum, it often reflects what they see in us. Kids don’t just listen, they watch how we react, solve problems, and cope. When parents catastrophize or ban technology without explanation, it fuels worry. Calm modeling, open conversations, and digital literacy help shift anxiety from something that controls kids to something they can manage with confidence.

Banning kids from technology may feel protective, but research shows it can have the opposite effect. Sonia Livingstone, professor at the London School of Economics, warns that when parents make phones and social media off-limits, it often turns them into “forbidden fruit.” Instead of pushing curiosity underground, the real solution is preparing kids with guidance, conversation, and digital literacy

For years, headlines have claimed that Silicon Valley elites keep their kids away from the very technology they create, pointing to one small “tech-free” school as proof. It’s a compelling story, but it isn’t true. Most tech leaders don’t ban screens , they set boundaries, guide use, and model balance, just like many families already do.