Clare Morell Helps to Keep Kids Free from Screens
The Radio Free Hillsdale Hour
Hillsdale College
4.8 • 650 Ratings
🗓️ 20 June 2025
⏱️ 53 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Guests: Clare Morell & Benedict Whalen
Host Scot Bertram talks with Clare Morell, fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and director of EPPC’s Technology and Human Flourishing Project, about the long-term effects of smartphone use on children and her new book The Tech Exit: A Practical Guide to Freeing Kids and Teens from Smartphones. And Benedict Whalen, associate professor of English at Hillsdale College, continues a series on the life and work of American writer Mark Twain. This week, he discusses The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From the historic campus of Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan, |
| 0:11.3 | where the good, the true, and the beautiful are taught, nurtured, and honored, |
| 0:16.4 | this is the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour, bringing the activity and education of the college to listeners across the country. |
| 0:25.3 | It is, I think, teaching our kids to be courageous in the sense that they will look different than a lot of their peers. |
| 0:32.7 | But oh, their time, these families said that their kids actually started to notice the differences positively. |
| 0:37.7 | They said, oh my goodness, like our friends who are on smartphones, they're so lame. |
| 0:41.3 | Like, they don't talk to us when we're in group settings. |
| 0:43.8 | This is your host, Scott Bertram. |
| 0:46.3 | Welcome to the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour, part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. |
| 0:53.0 | That was Claire Morel, fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, |
| 0:56.9 | and also author of the brand new book, The Tech Exit, |
| 1:00.2 | a practical guide to freeing kids and teens from smartphones. |
| 1:04.3 | We go in-depth with Claire about the tech exit on today's program. |
| 1:09.6 | Claire also is director of the Ethics and Public Policy |
| 1:12.4 | Center's Technology and Human Flourishing Project. You can find more about the book at thetechexit.com. |
| 1:19.4 | Claire, thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. As I read the tech exit, something occurs |
| 1:25.5 | to me. It's a lot about parents, obviously, and parent pressure. |
| 1:30.6 | This is a subject, though, in which parents are asked to do something that they instinctively |
| 1:36.4 | know could cause some harm and probably isn't all that great for their children. |
| 1:42.8 | Why is this issue of smartphone perhaps different than |
| 1:45.5 | other topics and dilemmas that parents have to deal with? Yes, I think the problem has been that |
| 1:51.6 | the smartphone has become such a ubiquitous part of childhood. It is trickled down from adults to now |
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