Bill Dalton: Sexy Smartphones
One just published in the National Bureau of Economic Research found that the iPhone caused as much as half of the fertility decline between 2007 and 2011, columnist Bill Dalton writes.
EDITOR'S NOTE: The views and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not of Ottawa News Network.
I knew it I knew it I knew it I knew it I knew it I knew it I knew it I knew it I knew it.
Don’t you just love it when you’re finally right about something? I’d been telling my wife for years that the reason women today aren’t having as many babies is because of smartphones. She’d laugh at me, cancel "date night," and then return to scrolling on her phone.
But this latest development is about more than just sex. Fertility rates in the United States have dropped 23 percent since 2007. And now we know why — that's the same year Apple introduced the iPhone!
People aren't having as much sex because of smartphones. And it’s not just me saying it. Two new studies back me up.
One just published in the National Bureau of Economic Research found that the iPhone caused as much as half of the fertility decline between 2007 and 2011. The most pronounced effects were among young people aged 15 to 24. One theory is that young people began to socialize more on their phones and less in person and consequently were less likely to have sex and become pregnant, according to The New York Times.
A researcher speculated that iPhones also may have made pornography more accessible, which led some young people to substitute it for sex. Nobody in polite society likes to talk about porno, so let’s move on.
Even researchers not involved in the study said the findings were persuasive. However, Phillip B. Levine, an economist at Wellesley College, cautioned: “You shouldn’t take the result so literally and say: ‘Oh, it’s the iPhone’s fault.’ It’s an example of the kinds of social influences that have led to the decline in the birth rate.”
Whatever, professor know-it-all.
But it’s not just the United States. Dropping birthrates are now a near-global phenomenon, according to another just-released study.
“Whatever caused it was something global — something that arrived in roughly the same form in all of these places at roughly the same time,” wrote Hernan Moscoso Boedo, an economics professor at the University of Cincinnati.
The Times reported that those researchers analyzed World Bank data measuring smartphone prevalence and teenage fertility rates in 128 countries. In countries as varied as Iran, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Chile, Mexico and Turkey, they found that teenage fertility declines accelerated once smartphones became ubiquitous. What’s more, fertility rates for teenagers declined fastest in countries with more high-speed access.
Aha! What more proof do you want?
I’d been conducting my own unscientific research for years, observing people everywhere constantly staring at their phones. Ignoring their driving or where they were walking. Ignoring their kids struggling to stay afloat in Lake Michigan. Ignoring their spouses' begging for attention.
I knew the explanation had to be sex. What else could it be?
“Why can’t people just put down their phones?” I asked, but nobody listened because they were too busy having phone sex with themselves.
Some researchers have blamed the rush of dopamine your body releases from the pleasure centers of your brain whenever you’re on your phone. But maybe it’s more like masturbation, something else people don’t like to talk about in polite society. Maybe there’s a reason it’s called digital media, hmm?
OK, enough about phone sex. The important point is that fertility rates are down and eventually that’s a huge problem for humankind. Take it to its logical conclusion and it’s clear that our species will soon be extinct!
And the sad thing is we’re doing it to ourselves.
Unless … the smartphone idea actually came from aliens. Who wants to inhabit our planet after we’re gone?
Or ... after we’ve evolved into nothing more than two huge thumbs.
Having a threesome with their phone.
— Bill Dalton is a former reporter and editor for The Kansas City Star and worked for several Michigan newspapers. He spends summers on the family farm near Fennville. His novel “The Bank Game” — a crime thriller — is available from Amazon along with “Dalton’s Bend.”
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