Beating Them at Their Own Game
A Review of The Opt-Out Family: How to Give Your Kids What Technology Can’t
Whether we be Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, traditionalist or progressive, there is one thing we all share. We are consumers. We may not want to be. We may feel quite certain that we are not. But we are. Because there is another thing that we all share. Whether we are rich or poor, old or young, male or female, white or black, we all have a smartphone. And that smartphone makes us a consumer—whether we want to be or not.
The role of the algorithm that controls Facebook, TikTok, X, and every other app and platform is to personally tailor our streaming experience to suit our likes and dislikes. Unfortunately, it does not do so to promote or preserve our individuality, but to secure and enhance our conformity. Users who are directed by the algorithm to view increasingly radical political posts end up trapped in cyber silos. And that is a boon for advertisers, for polarized and isolated people are more pliable to suggestion and susceptible to influence.
As insidious as this process is on the general public, it becomes even more so when it divides the members of a family from each other. Each is caught in his or her own digital bubble, connected, so they think, to a community that truly loves them and understands what they really want and what they really need. How does the algorithm do this? In The Opt-Out Family: How to Give Your Kids What Technology Can’t, Erin Loechner explains exactly how the method works.
In addition to traditional metrics (people you follow, where you live, what your hobbies are) TikTok relies on biometrics to inform its algorithm. While you’re watching TikTok, it’s watching you. Through the camera on your phone, TikTok can detect changes in your face as you react to each and every video you watch. What makes you smile? What makes you laugh? What raises your eyebrows? And for how long? TikTok studies that information to determine what you’ll like next—and better. Then they use that information to display ads from its brand partners, who—primed with your most intimate data imaginable—can guide you down whichever path will guarantee them the most profit. (67-68)
Loechner, who was once an influencer, knows of what she speaks. She knows the power of the algorithm and of biometrics to shape and sway the human mind by playing on its deep needs and desires. She knows as well, for she sat in on meetings when the art of influencing was discussed, that those behind the Big Tech industry know exactly how and why the algorithm works.
But she also knows, from personal experience, something far more important: Big Tech can be beaten at their own game. Loechner founded, and put into practice with her own family, a global tech-free movement called the Opt-Out Family. Her book chronicles her journey of liberation and that of her family from the algorithm and teaches us, in a winsome and winning way, how we can do the same for ourselves and our families.
Her method of doing so can be summed up in a single cliché: fight fire with fire. If we want to reclaim our children from the grip of TikTok and a hundred other apps, then we must first learn the methods that have allowed Big Tech to steal their souls. Then, we simply need to use those same techniques from a position of love and respect in order to win them back. If we do that, we cannot help but succeed, for we know our children in a personal, intimate way that no AI bot can. We know our children’s biometrics because we live, love, and laugh alongside them, because we know what makes them smile and frown, giggle and go silent.
Apps keep us scrolling because they promise with every swipe we will encounter something new and exciting as we sit safely on our bed or sofa. The algorithm claims to have so calculated the world that it can entertain while protecting us from all stress and danger. In fact, Loechner writes, “there is no algorithm that will shield us from the full human experience. No convenience will aid in the accurate prediction—and guaranteed safety—of life’s storms, proverbial or otherwise. No formula for heartbreak, no pattern to suffering” (99).
That’s where true, face-to-face parenting comes in. Good parents know their children harbor a natural desire for safety and adventure; they also know we live in a dangerous world. In the end, social media can provide neither a real sense of wonder nor any real safety. Parents who put in the necessary time, work, and creativity can do both: nurture and protect while providing their kids with “the element of surprise, the element of subversion, of mystery, of risk, and adventure” (105). We just have to log off and guide our children into real, hands-on play.
Teens often turn to their phone because it offers them a space where they can experiment and fail without long-term consequences. Big Tech obliges such desires by offering layers of positive reinforcement, achievable goals, and a constant tracking of progress. How do we compete with such a successful strategy? By implementing it ourselves. We know how to reinforce our kids, how to help them set goals, and how to encourage them each step of the way. We can do it better than the algorithm can. If we do, our children will choose us over the technology every time.
Loechner fills her book with practical ways we can transform our home into a safe place of risk, a place where children can try new things without the fear of failure. We can triumph over their smartphone by providing them with creative tools and then stepping back to let them fashion their own personal projects. “When we don’t allow our children to complete the creative cycle themselves and we swoop in uninvited, we not only interrupt the process of play but remove the value of the experience. As difficult as it is, try not to infiltrate your child’s play with your idea of fun, your version of the outcome, or your fix for the problem. Stay near, and stay available should your child need your assistance. But until then, let them be” (156).
The Opt-Out Family has much more to suggest, but this brief review should suffice to encourage parents who are fed up with their children’s (and their own!) addiction to social media that change and freedom are possible. We know our children better than Big Tech does, and we can win them back. We just have to stop being afraid and learn again, to quote the “Opt-Out Family Pledge” with which Loechner ends her book, to “pause to listen attentively,” to “make our own fun” and to “build habits that support our values” (285).
If we do that, our children will truly rise up and call us blessed (see Proverbs 31:28).
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