Millions of people have been moved by former Senator Ben Sasse’s insights as he faces his last days on earth. And one issue that he brought to light is the world’s fertility crisis. He asks:

“What in the world is happening with the natalism crisis all across the industrialized, rich world? …I don’t have a phone on me, but that we carry around these super devices in our pockets that have distracted us from some of the most fundamental human activities and aspirations. Having a baby is a bet on the future. And almost everywhere in the world, and the world is richer and richer and richer statistically than it’s ever been, people have decided, ‘Ah, actually babies are kind of an inconvenience.’ Babies have always been an inconvenience. And the most glorious thing you can do to enrich your family and to make a bet on the future! How weird that we’ve stopped having sex. We’ve stopped making babies. We’ve decided that being distracted by a dopamine hit around a Candy Crush might be a good way to spend your time. Not if you’re a full human.”

For 19 years in a row, America’s birth rate has been falling, and in 2025, it hit an all-time low of 1.57. Not only is this decline disheartening for those of us who are pro-life and pro-family, but it should be alarming to all Americans because the number of births needed to sustain the country’s economy without immigration (i.e. the replacement rate) is 2.1.

If American couples do not begin to have more babies, then there will not be enough resources to adequately provide for the country’s aging population. In fact, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said the declining fertility rate is a national security crisis.

A new report by the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) reveals that the creation of smartphones has been one of several factors that has contributed to the decline in America’s (and worldwide) fertility rate. The following are three ways that smartphones are actually beginning to replace humans and are contributing to the lowering of the fertility rate.

More Young Adults Are Choosing Smartphones over Human Interaction

One way that social media and AI is impacting fertility rates is that it causes people to spend less time together and more time looking at screens. The authors of the report write, “The decline in socialization among young people happened before the pandemic. Between 2010 and 2019, the average time young adults spent with friends in a given week fell by nearly 50%, from 12.8 hours to just 6.5 hours. The pandemic pushed this number even lower, to 4.2 hours a week with friends. And while there has been a slight increase since, we seem to have found a new norm. Young adults spent just 5.1 hours with friends in a given week in 2024.”

One of the report’s authors, Clare Morell, spoke to FRC’s Jody Hice on Friday’s “Washington Watch.” Morell explained, “With that decline in in-person socialization, then we’ve seen corresponding steep declines in the rates of dating, marriage, and sex. And they’re all, I think, very directly tied to the fact that these technologies are replacing our real-life relationships that we need and are inhibiting relationship formation. People are turning to their phones. They’re turning to social media as replacements for real-life friendships.”

As Morell and Chloe Lawrence write in their report, “Social media doesn’t produce real connection or pleasure, so while people are more connected online, they are lonelier than ever. Screens also can’t deliver oxytocin, a critical hormone that bonds human beings with others and is released only through physical touch and eye contact. Digital technology thus keeps people endlessly chasing the next dopamine hit while depriving them of the human bonds they need. It creates a self-perpetuating, self-destructive cycle of addiction.”

More Young Adults are Choosing Porn over Real Relationships

It’s no surprise that pornography viewing has become an epidemic. Porn sites receive more website traffic in the U.S. than X, Instagram, TikTok, Netflix, Pinterest, and Zoom combined.

Along with pornography being available in people’s pockets 24/7 comes earlier exposure to it: Tragically, the average age that a child first sees pornography is now 12 years old. According to Morell, “The earlier … the age of exposure to pornography, the greater the chances that they will struggle with … real-life relationships. …Specifically, what happens is, over time, pornography users actually start to prefer pornography to in-person relationships and in-person sex. And so, what’s happening is then people are turning to screens and pornography instead of going out and pursuing a partner in real life through a dating relationship that hopefully ultimately then leads in marriage which is the proper … context for having children…”

Two other notable points that Morell made about the impact of pornography on relationships are:

• “Men who use pornography frequently are 31% less likely to get married.”
• “Porn use in marriage affects relationship stability and relationship quality, which also then impacts the rates of fertility of having children in marriage.”

More Young Adults are Choosing AI Companions over Real Relationships

Sadly, Morell points out that artificial intelligence has an even worse impact on relationships and fertility rates than pornography because, whereas people use porn to substitute for the sexual aspect of a relationship, they are using AI companions as substitutes for the emotional aspect of a relationship: they feel understood and known by the AI companion — without the friction within human relationships. Morell explained, “Chatbots … don’t create the relational friction that we experience in the real world of conflict and pushback. They’re actually very sycophantic, which means they basically just tell you what you want to hear.”

Unfortunately, there continues to be a significant increase in the number of teenagers who are using AI companions. According to Morell, “Now nearly 3/4 of teenagers say they’ve used an AI companion. Half of them do so on a weekly basis. And yet only 37% of parents know that their teen is using an AI companion. And 1 in 5 teens actually admit that they have used an AI companion for an explicitly romantic relationship.”

She explained that there is a shift in people’s preferences happening as a result of the design of AI technology because chatbots eliminate the traditional costs associated with investing in real-life relationships (interpersonal conflict and things that make you a better person: someone pointing out your flaws, your weaknesses). AI just affirms you all the time. There’s no need to change. It intensifies the selfish, narcissistic culture that social media has already created.

As Morell told Hice, “People are starting to prefer [chatbots] because it feels easier. And unfortunately, then, the frequent use of these chatbots actually leads to more real-life loneliness and reduced social interaction in real life. And so we’re at a point where we could be experiencing something very scary where instead of dating, getting married, having kids … people are just preferring to have a kind of pseudo-social relationship with an AI companion.”

What Can We Do to Revitalize Human Relationships?

Morell and Lawrence offer four steps that policymakers can take to decrease the impact that digital technology has on the fertility rate: require age verification for pornography sites, regulate new AI technologies and age-restrict AI companions, age-restrict social media for minors until they are 16 or 18 years old, and reduce obscenity online and regulate the pornography industry.

Yet it is just as, if not more, important for parents and churches to help kids not let AI companions and social media replace authentic human relationships.

Morell encourages parents to delay the introduction of smartphones, social media, and AI to their kids as long as possible. She has even authored a book called “The Tech Exit,” which is a practical guide to help parents do just that. In addition, she says that parents should be models for their children — limiting the time we spend on our screens and instead have intentional, meaningful conversations with others.

Finally, Morell recommends that pastors talk with their congregations about this issue. Pastors can educate their congregation as they teach a biblical worldview about humans’ identity and purpose. As FRC’s director of the Center for Biblical Worldview, Dr. David Closson, told TWS, “Scripture teaches that human beings were created for embodied relationships. We are not simply minds or emotions floating around, looking for stimulation. We were made for family, friendship, marriage, and community. Technology can absolutely serve those things, but when it begins replacing them, we should pay attention.”

Theologian and professor at Grove City College, Dr. Carl Trueman, shares Closson’s concern about the impact that AI is having on society. He recently spoke with FRC’s Casey Harper and Jared Bridges on the “Outstanding” podcast, discussing his new book, “The Desecration of Man: How the Rejection of God Degrades our Humanity.”

Trueman described how AI is leading to a kind of shame about what it means to be human. “I’m struck at the number of times that artificial intelligence that we are creating is being presented to us as a means of making ourselves of no significance whatsoever. … I think it shows how our understanding of what it means to be human is being increasingly dehumanized because of these technological developments.”

So how can we as parents and the church teach our kids about the importance of real human relationships and not replacing them with screens or chatbots?

1. Teach Kids that Their Bodies Are God’s Holy Temple

Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, ‘The two will become one flesh.’But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”

If our kids realize that their bodies are holy and not their own, they will be less likely to view pornography or have romantic relationships with chatbots because they want to glorify God in their bodies.

2. Teach Our Kids That God Made Every Human Being in His Image

Genesis 1:26 says, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

Humans are unique from all the rest of creation because God created us in His image. This means that we are like God and represent him. Smartphones, video games, and chatbots are mere materials that human beings created that “moth and rust will destroy.” They have no eternal value like humans do.

In addition, all humans (not just Christians) are made in God’s image (James 3:9). If we view our fellow human beings as holy as God sees them, we are more likely to want to develop relationships with them.

3. Teach Our Kids That Human Relationships Are Essential

If our kids view themselves and other humans as made in God’s image, then they are more likely to want to develop relationships with other humans. In addition, if we teach our kids that Jesus encouraged us to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength and love our neighbors as ourselves, they will see the importance of developing true, meaningful relationships as a way to glorify God.