Unsolicited Advice and Unpopular Opinions

I thought it best to slowly ease into my goal of “writing more” and start by offering my solutions to world problems. First item on my list: gun violence. 

A disclaimer (obviously): I do not consider myself educated on the many nuances of this issue. (Though, as my friend Gretchen put it when I mentioned writing about this “controversial” topic, But what’s controversial? Isn’t everyone against gun violence?) 

Andy Stanley recently said that the farther away we are from a problem, the more simple the solution seems to be.

I am certainly far away from the problem of gun violence in America, or more specifically school shootings. Yet I cannot help but feel that there is a simple solution, at least in part.

After the November 2024 school shooting in Georgia by a 14-year-old boy, one of my first thoughts was: how many hours was this child spending on the internet? How many hours was he spending outside, with friends? I emailed my favorite author Erin Loechner.

Dear Erin,

I have loved your work for years. Thank you for speaking truth so beautifully into our broken world.

I know your internet usage is limited, but I imagine you heard about the school shooting in Georgia yesterday, committed by a 14-year-old student. I live in Georgia, so this senseless tragedy has felt more real to me. (A self-centered perspective certainly.)

While I know this is a gross oversimplification, I can’t help but feel in my heart that these tragedies are, at least in part, the result of children’s unsupervised access to the internet.

Not sure if you agree, or if you have any thoughts. But with all of the research that you’ve done for The Opt-Out Family, I felt that if anyone could speak into this heartbreak, it would be you.

The way we interact with the world via the internet feels so unsustainable. How can it go on this way? When will everyone wake up? Is it crazy to say that the way we use the internet is killing people?

She wrote me back.

Hi Avery:

Thank you so much for your kind, thoughtful note. I wish I had more answers, wisdom, even a hint of perspective on all of this. But I do believe you're inching toward discovery in your guiding question: Is it crazy to say that the way we use the internet is killing people?

It's not crazy. The way in which we use the Internet has dehumanized us in every way. All of our most precious resources are being fracked daily - our attention, our free will, our time, our agency, our innocence, our capacity for trust, for resilience, for creativity. Why would we expect to move through the world as whole beings when we've fragmented our soul into binary digits?

The only way I know forward is to rally, and to run. To gather as many people who are willing to look critically at both convenience and cost of these devices, and, together, model a new way to live. 

I'm in if you are.

And so, I suppose the question is: are we in? 

We have confused physical safety for an all-encompassing sense of safety. We fear our toddlers choking on blueberries, but have little concern for the recommended videos that pop up on YouTube Kids. We fear our teenagers walking to the neighbor’s house, but leave them with unlimited access to the world in their hands every night of the week. We have banned Crocs in schools before we have banned cell phones.

One of my favorite reminders by Erin is that there is often no wrong answer; it's only "wrong" not to ask the question. And too often, we don’t ask the question.

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After getting married in 2017, Clint and I decided our bedroom would be a phone-free zone. (Or Clint might say I decided, and he acquiesced.) We would leave our phones in the kitchen every night. And just about every night for the past seven and a half years, we have held fast to this rule.

Clint recently shared this habit with a coworker. Her response was: I’ve never thought of doing that. 

And maybe this is where we begin. This is where we ask the question: is what we’re doing what’s best? It might not be what’s easy, but since when has what's easy been the same as what’s best?

When I tell people of our habit of keeping phones out of our bedroom (note: It doesn’t come up that often. I do try not to be completely obnoxious.), the first question I get is, but how do you wake up?

So while I will not pretend to actually have a solution to the multi-faceted issue of gun violence in America, I do have a challenge: buy an alarm clock. It might just be the first step back to wholeness.

PS: If leaving your phone in the kitchen every night of the week doesn't feel doable, what if you started with one night a week? I'm in if you are.