One Community Makes an Old-Fashioned Change to Keep Kids Off Screens

Published: July 21, 2025

By Mallory Mattingly

A community in Portland, Maine, found an old-fashioned way to keep kids off screens but still in communication with each other — landlines.

“What parents in a Portland, Maine, community did when their kids were asking — begging — for cell phones, they caved. Kind of. They got their kids phones, but the bulkier kind with the long, squiggly cord. You remember those. [I’m] talking about landlines,” CBS MORNINGS reporter Adriana Diaz said.

When Caron Morse’s 10-year-old daughter started asking for a phone, it was a hard no from the mom, who’s also a mental health provider at a local public school, The Atlantic said.

She “really knows that smartphones can increase anxiety and depression in teens and also shorten their attention spans,” Diaz continued. “So the mom got her kid a landline and then nudged other parents to do the same.”

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“So what ended up happening was that 15 to 20 families in this community installed landlines. All their friends are kids, and they basically created a pod of friends who communicate the old-fashioned way,” the reporter explained.

Screen time’s adverse effects, particularly on kids, are well documented.

The Mayo Clinic says, “Too much screen time and regular exposure to poor-quality programming has been linked to: obesity, inadequate sleep schedules and insufficient sleep, behavior problems, delays in language and social skills, violence, attention problems, and less time learning.”

But as Morse and her community found, cutting out screens but not communication can actually help kids grow.

The families saw their children become “better listeners and more able to engage people in conversation, not just on the phone, but in person….the kids also learned that very important phone etiquette.”

Social psychologist and The Anxious Generation author Jonathan Haidt touts landlines as a valuable way to keep kids connected without screens.

“Landlines foster conversation skills, as there’s nothing to look at — it tunes kids’ listening abilities. And with attention spans decreasing further and further, these kids are cultivating not just listening skills, but attention and empathy — valuable personal skills in an increasingly digital world,” he said.

Britteny Mast, a mom of two, installed a landline and praised its impact on her kids.

“We saw this as a way to fill in the gap for these elementary years where we don’t want to give them smart technology quite yet, but we also don’t want to take away their opportunity to learn independence and have a certain amount of freedom as they get older,” she said.

Other ways to get your kids off their devices? Implement screen-free family meal times and seek a community like Morse’s that values letting kids explore and play without technology.

So when your child asks for a smartphone, consider the reasons why. Installing a landline might just be the way to go.

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