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· collected 2026-09-03 · by Eli Federman
The irony was hard to miss last week.
asserted
irony → miss → ?
The same day that a documentary (with more than 35 million views as of Sept. 2) portrayed Hasidic restrictions on smartphones and the internet as evidence of a backward, insular world, Meta agreed to a proposed settlement worth up to $17 billion with a coalition of states over allegations that Facebook and Instagram harmed children through addictive design.
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Facebook → portray → design
Meta denies wrongdoing.
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Meta → deny → wrongdoing
As a kid, I spent enormous amounts of time outdoors, growing up near the Santa Monica Mountains and later in the rural mountains of Tehachapi, California.
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I → spend → Tehachapi
I explored the hills, watched wildlife, fished, stared at the stars, listened to coyotes howl and loved sleeping outside so much that sending me indoors for the night was my punishment.
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sending → explore → night
A bedroom can contain a universe more compelling than anything outside: social media, YouTube, video games, group chats and an infinite stream of entertainment engineered to keep us hooked.
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bedroom → contain → us
When our oldest daughter was one year old, she became so attached to her iPad Mini that she’d shake her crib, crying, "iPad! iPad! iPad!" when we took it away.
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we → become → it
In his documentary, Turkish filmmaker Ruhi Çenet takes viewers inside Hasidic communities in New York.
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Çenet → take → York
Again and again, their distance from modern technology helps establish just how unusual and insular their world appears.
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world → help → technology
"Have you ever watched television?" Çenet asks one man.
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Çenet → watch → man
"Have you ever logged into the internet in your entire life?"
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you → log → life
He learns that some members regard unrestricted internet access as dangerous to religious life.
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members → learn → life
Some use "kosher" phones stripped of texting, web browsers and social media.
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Some → use → texting
Computers needed for work use filters restricting which websites users can visit.
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users → need → websites
Instead of mainstream social media, some communities maintain telephone networks where people listen to stories, religious teachings and inspirational content.
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people → maintain → stories
Looking at one kosher phone, Çenet marvels: "There’s no way to send SMS.
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Çenet → look → SMS
It’s like a walkie-talkie."
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It → ’ → talkie
Later, he remarks, "It feels like I traveled back in time," his stunned tone framing these restrictions as inherently negative.
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tone → remark → restrictions
Then, on the same day that viewers of Çenet’s documentary encountered religious restrictions on technology as evidence of a backward, insular world, Meta agreed to a settlement, still subject to court approval, that would impose restrictions of its own, including a default daily limit for teens, blocking access overnight and adopting other safeguards aimed at reducing compulsive use.
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that → encounter → use
Perhaps the remarkable thing about a phone that "only makes calls" isn’t how little it can do.
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it → make → little
Perhaps it’s how little it can do to you.
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it → ’ → you
We routinely describe communities such as the Amish and some Jewish, Christian and Muslim groups as insular because they resist technologies that everyone else embraces.
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everyone → describe → that
Last week, for instance, California’s Catholic bishops backed AB 1709, legislation that would restrict covered platforms from providing addictive features to children under 16.
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that → back → 16
While the legislation has not yet become law, that resistance can still look irrational from the outside.
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resistance → become → outside
Of course, practices vary enormously.
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practices → vary → ?
Some communities heavily restrict internet access; Chabad Lubavitch, the Hasidic movement with which I identify, embraces the internet as a tool for Jewish education and outreach.
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I → restrict → education
For roughly 25 hours every week, my phone stops buzzing.
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phone → stop → hours
Emails wait.
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Emails → wait → ?
Work stops.
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Work → stop → ?
I experience it as freedom.
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I → experience → freedom
The lesson isn’t that these communities discovered the perfect technologies to prohibit.
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communities → discover → technologies
It’s that they believed they had the right to ask what technology would do to them before adopting it.
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technology → ’ → it
Modern America mostly reversed the process.
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America → reverse → process
We asked what technology could do for us first and worried about what it was doing to us later.
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it → ask → us
We handed children extraordinarily sophisticated attention-capturing machines and then seemed surprised when they struggled to put them down.
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they → hand → them
The U.S. Surgeon General’s office now calls harm from screen use among children and adolescents a public-health concern.
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office → call → children
Recent research has linked smartphone and screen use to depression, insufficient sleep and other adverse health outcomes.
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research → link → depression
A 2026 Pediatrics study of 10,588 U.S. children found that smartphone ownership at age 12 was associated with higher odds of depression, obesity and insufficient sleep, although it’s important to note that the observational study could not establish causation.
uncertain
study → find → causation
Researchers continue to debate causation, individual vulnerability and which forms of screen use cause the greatest harm.
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Researchers → continue → harm
But handing children unrestricted access to products deliberately engineered to capture attention amounted to an enormous social experiment.
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handing → hand → experiment
…and 26 more, not listed.
