As President Trump takes office, a group of conservative public intellectuals and strategists release a statement on harnessing technology for the good of the family. “A Future for the Family: A New Technology Agenda for the Right,” published on Wednesday, January 29 at the journal First Things, aims to put the wellbeing of families at the center of tech-related initiatives, protecting children from technology-related harms while leveraging technology to strengthen the family and renew home life.
A 2024 Ipsos survey reveals that 70% of American parents say that it is “overwhelming” to raise a child in our current age of technology; 78% say that their children spend too much time on screens and not enough learning real social skills. Half believe that their children are lonely. In a world where 91% of children own smartphones, policy must help empower parents to make wise choices regarding the technology that affects their households.
“The rapid pace and increasingly virtual nature of technological change,” says Clare Morell, one of the statement’s authors, "threatens to obscure the core of what it means to be human, to tax the strength and vitality of the family, and poses unique challenges for human flourishing. Now more than ever, the Right needs a clear strategy to help us govern our technologies towards the thriving of the family so they don't undermine or supplant it. That is precisely what this statement of principles does.
An electoral coalition that joins pro-family and technological interests has catapulted President Trump into the White House. Now, these two groups must begin to govern together, argue the statement’s authors. This provides the potential–perhaps for the first time–for modern technology to be designed with the empowerment of the family in mind.
With signatories from across the conservative intellectual sphere–from the Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, Center for Renewing America, and many other noteworthy institutions–this statement outlines a vision for a positive relationship between the family-centered conservative wing of President Trump’s coalition and the so-called “tech right.” It offers ten principles for lawmakers who seek to take up the challenge of ensuring that technology supports family flourishing, offering guidance for how to treat health care, human sexuality, childhood education, social media and smartphone design, work and industry, a republican way of life, and the culture of the home. All of these dimensions of our common life are affected by technology, and public policy should help them work for families, rather than against them.
While many of the issues addressed have elicited the concern of conservatives in a piecemeal way over the past years, especially those related to reproduction, social media addiction, and end-of-life issues, this statement provides a framework in which all of these issues are seen to be interrelated, symptoms of a larger problem that must be dealt with holistically.
“Rather than being forced to adapt our families to technological interests,” says Michael Toscano, one of the authors, "or to protect our families from them, tech and the pro-family movement should work together to elevate the family. A future with weak families is no future at all: the family brings the future to life, by bringing the next generation into the world. If Big Tech wants a bright future, it should work with the one institution that can make it happen: the family."
The full text of the statement can be found at
https://firstthings.com/a-future-for-the-family-a-new-technology-agenda-for-the-right/
The list of signatories includes:
AUTHORS:
Michael Toscano, executive director, Institute for Family Studies; director, Family First Technology Initiative.
Brad Littlejohn, fellow, the Ethics and Public Policy Center’s Technology and Human Flourishing Project.
Clare Morell, fellow, the Ethics and Public Policy Center; director, Technology and Human Flourishing Project; author of the forthcoming book The Tech Exit (June 2025).
Jon Askonas, assistant professor of politics, The Catholic University of America; senior fellow, Foundation for American Innovation.
Emma Waters, senior research associate in the DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family at The Heritage Foundation.
SIGNATORIES:
Ryan T. Anderson, president, the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
Erika Bachiochi, fellow, the Ethics and Public Policy Center; editor in chief, Fairer Disputations.
Oren Cass, founder and chief economist, American Compass.
Miriam Cates, GB News presenter, senior fellow at the Centre for Social Justice and former Member of Parliament.
Matthew B. Crawford, senior fellow, the University of Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture.
Christopher DeMuth, Distinguished Fellow in American Thought, The Heritage Foundation; Chairman, National Conservatism Conference.
Patrick J. Deneen, professor of political science, University of Notre Dame.
Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, Princeton University.
Mary Harrington, author of Feminism Against Progress.
Yoram Hazony, chairman, Edmund Burke Foundation.
Yuval Levin, director of social, cultural, and constitutional studies, the American Enterprise Institute.
M. Anthony Mills, senior fellow and director of the Center for Technology, Science, and Energy at the American Enterprise Institute; senior fellow, Pepperdine University’s School of Public Policy.
Joshua Mitchell, Department of Government, Georgetown University.
R. Albert Mohler Jr., president, Centennial Professor of Theology, the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
C. C. Pecknold, associate professor of theology, The Catholic University of America.
Nathan Pinkoski, research fellow, Institute for Philosophy, Technology, and Politics.
Ramesh Ponnuru, editor, National Review.
R. R. Reno, editor, First Things.
Kevin Roberts, president, The Heritage Foundation.
Christine Rosen, senior fellow, the American Enterprise Institute.
Leah Libresco Sargeant, author of The Dignity of Dependence.
Ari Schulman, editor, The New Atlantis; fellow, Cosmos Ventures.
O. Carter Snead, Charles E. Rice Professor of Law and Concurrent Professor of Political Science, University of Notre Dame; fellow, the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
Eric Teetsel, executive vice president, Center for Renewing America.
Carl R. Trueman, professor of biblical and religious studies, Grove City College; fellow, the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
Andrew T. Walker, associate professor of Christian ethics and public theology, the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; fellow, the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
Brad Wilcox, Melville Foundation Jefferson Scholars Foundation University Professor of Sociology, University of Virginia; Future of Freedom Fellow, Institute for Family Studies; and nonresident senior fellow, the American Enterprise Institute.
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