(LifeSiteNews) — Imagine what you could do with all the time you waste on your phone. Would you take up a hobby or start a mission project? Spend more quality time with your family? Explore your city? Read a book? Volunteer? Pray?
The reality is, we stunt our growth and our very lives when we waste away hours on our phone or social media. We may not even realize that there is a beautiful life, a human life we could be living, if we could just master our relationship with technology. How much more true this is for children and teens.
Enter an app that meets you where you’re at and guides you through a 30-day detox challenge, then a 30-day growth challenge to help you reconnect with the world. The first phase focuses on rewiring your phone habits until you have mindful control over your device. The second phase challenges you to engage in activities that help you grow, connect with others, and nourish your mind, body, and spirit – like moving outside, reading one of the classics, or supporting a local business.
The app is designed so that people can take on challenges together, whether it’s two spouses or a group of friends, offering support and accountability, as well as a nudge toward human connection.
Planned to be released after Easter, the app is named “The Canary Challenge” in honor of the proverbial canary in the coal mine. Instead of warning of harmful gas, the Canary Project warns of and seeks to remedy the profound, disturbing dangers of phone misuse and addiction that range from disconnecting humans from loved ones to short circuiting our focus to fueling anxiety and much worse.
The Canary Project founder Terry Gromes pointed out to LifeSiteNews that virtually everyone was given all this technology “without knowing the risks.”
“Anxiety and depression and suicide are skyrocketing. Amount of time spent with real people is declining,” said Gromes, only scratching the surface of the dangers of phone and social media use, which he has supported with documentation on his website.
“Our goal is not to be anti-technology. I came from a world of state-of-the-art technology,” he said, referring to his previous position as director of technology at an industrial robotics company. Gromes helped develop tech for screen devices there, sparking deeper thought about other screen devices and then an investigation into social media algorithms, and how they are designed to “break down the discipline of a mature adult.”
Gromes was especially concerned that these addictive devices are being given to children. With a desire for more fulfilling, mission-based work, he eventually launched the Canary Project and began to develop an app to help tech users, especially kids, to reclaim their lives.
He told LifeSiteNews his goal is to “reach out to families and schools so that adults in the room understand how these devices are impacting the next generation.”
The dangers of tech use and smartphones for kids in particular are, simply put, horrendous. Among the worst risks are that of pornography exposure, targeting by pedophiles, cyber-bullying, and “sextortion,” a growing phenomenon in which teens and young adults are lured into sharing intimate images that are then exploited for blackmail. This has led to at least two publicized suicides.
Even if a teen escapes all that, the dangers of the smartphone and social media are still formidable. Evidence is piling that smartphone use is making students dumber and even causes “brain drain” by its mere proximity; it is contributing to teen depression and serious psychological distress, including suicidal ideation; and it is also stunting our children socially.
“It would blow your mind with some of the data that has come out. The Wall Street Journal did an article that showed one out of five Gen Z-ers leaving college take their parents with them to an interview, because they don’t know how to have a conversation. Because they’ve grown up with a screen, they don’t know how to talk to real people,” Gromes shared.
“The social connection has been completely severed because they’ve lived in their screens,” he went on. “That’s the urgency of this project. Let’s not do this to another generation. Parents, please take your cell phones away from your eight-year-olds.”
According to Gromes, even more basic developmental problems are emerging from tech use in young children. “When you give a kid this tablet with a dog running around on the screen, they’re not learning how to watch lips and form words. It results in delayed prefrontal cortex development. You have kids that can’t make simple decisions. You have kids that can’t make eye contact. You have kids with personality problems,” he explained.
The brain rot that comes from tech overuse is arguably accelerated by TikTok, popular among Gen Z for its short-form video content. Gromes shared that 50 percent of Gen Z prefer TikTok as a search engine over Google. Disturbingly, 25 percent of five- to seven-year-olds are using TikTok, and some estimate that numbers could be as high as 30 percent.
Even more horrifying is the finding that TikTok’s search algorithm directed new 13-year-old users to porn. According to Gromes, 19 percent of teens report they see sexually explicit content every week without actively seeking it out. Intentional porn use is a much bigger problem, and about three-quarters of teens reported in one survey that they have viewed porn.
Compounding all of these problems is the fact that social media and smartphone use in general hooks kids – and adults – on a chemical level.
“The addiction is real,” said Gromes, pointing out that we get a “dopamine rush” when someone “likes” or reposts our content, for example.
“The science wasn’t there 10 years ago. And that’s why we’re all the canaries.” Gromes pointed out that one of the differences between “old tech” like television and video games is that they “couldn’t fit in our pocket,” allowing us to be glued to tech almost 24/7, as many kids nowadays are.
“But now we know. It’s horrifying to think we already have one generation that was literally the guinea pig, but now we have enough information. We need to stop this from happening to the next generation.”