Page 48 - Family Resource Guide Spring/Summer 2025

FAMILY LIFE & SUPPORT NORTH STATE PARENT FAMILY RESOURCE GUIDE SPRING/SUMMER 2025
‘The Opt-Out Family’:
How One Family Chose Being Present Over Tech
BY ALISON SUTCLIFFE,
REPRINTED BY PERMISSION FROM PARENTMAP
For many parents, tackling tech is an overwhelming issue and the stakes have only gotten higher since the U.S. surgeon general
released his report on the devastating effects of social media on youth mental health last spring. Warning shots have been fired, parents, and we’ve all been thrust into the trenches, whether we like it or not.
So when I had the chance to sit down with author and former social media influencer Erin Loechner to talk about tech, algorithms and her recently released book, The Opt-Out Family: How to Give Your Kids What Technology Can’t, I jumped at the chance. Loechner has successfully wrested her family from Big Tech’s hold, trading her million followers and six-figure earnings for, in her words, “people over pixels.” For families hoping to live with a little less tech and a little more time appreciating the real world, Loechner has ideas.
Tell me a little about your background, your life as an influencer and what prompted you to leave that world despite your success.
As a former six-figure influencer with a million followers, I became privy to the inner workings of the algorithm, the pitch decks, influencer asks and brand requests that capitalize on vulnerability, humanity and relational empathy en masse. (If you’ve ever wondered why everyone is crying in their cars on Instagram stories, it’s because those posts perform best and are continually requested by brands.)
I’d already known from my HGTV.com show that product trends stem from years of demographic research and sociological forecasting. But now, the conversations in conference rooms and board meetings aren’t just about trending products; they are about trending people. We are numbers, we are dollars, we are visits and hits and metrics. It became clear that the medium I was participating in was designed to devalue our humanity for the sake of a sweater on sale.
I feel fortunate that this realization grew as did my children (now 12, 8 and 4) and I recognized that if I were
to march to the predetermined pace of the algorithm, I’d be parenting a lot more often with a phone in my hand than without. I also knew these social media platforms — as they existed at the time, and sadly, still exist today — were no place for a child to spend time in or with. I wanted something different for my kids (truly, all kids), and I was willing to go first. I thought, if I can carry on doing the work I love without a social media presence, then it must not be as inevitable or necessary as society makes it out to be. (I’m happy to report that I was right.)
What’s the most important thing your family gained by opting out? Are there things you miss out on (or feel like you’re missing out on) by being tech-free?
Time. We’re not frittering away time watching other people experience life. We’re experiencing it ourselves. We’re taking from life what is offered to us: the freedom to play and learn and experiment and grow. That means, of course, in any given week, we might build a Viking ship replica or host a pickup basketball tournament or design an off-grid farm or sew a doll wardrobe or throw an ’80s-era dinner party or bake a half-dozen pies for our neighbors to taste test. That also means, of course, we’ve missed out on the latest cat video or meme. It’s a trade-off I’m willing to live with.
An important idea in your book is for parents to “specialize in predictive humanization” to compete with tech’s algorithms. Can you explain what that is and why it’s an important element of going tech-free?
Predictive personalization is a strategy baked into every successful social media algorithm. The program takes just a few pieces of data — location, age, interests, etc. — and uses that information to predict someone’s behavior, needs or wants in order to serve them content tailored to those desires. This is why your Instagram ads are continually showing you products you didn’t even know existed but are exactly what you’ve been looking for (ahem, weighted blankets).
My thought is this: If technology specializes in
predictive personalization, let’s be parents that specialize in predictive humanization. Let’s protect our children from anyone or any place that seeks to manipulate their interests for profit or gain or worth. Let’s instead help guide them to places that offer delight while asking nothing from them in return: a bed of pine needles, a crackling hearth, laps for reading, skies for gazing, hammocks for swaying and dreaming. Delight.
No matter what your family dynamic looks like right now, you have this very tool at your disposal. You, as a parent, have the potential to employ this strategy better than any AI machine learning algorithm ever could. Why? Because TikTok can’t tell your daughter how she liked her strawberries cut when she was 3. TikTok doesn’t have data for your son’s first words or his favorite memory or the name of the stuffed teddy that he slept with for eight years straight.
But you do and it’s all you need to start. The best algorithms begin with data, and data is what we, as parents, have in spades. Let’s use that to our advantage. (So many specific examples in the book!)
What do parents miss or get wrong about limiting or reducing kids’ social media use and screen time? What do you suggest instead?
I think what we often get wrong is that, in many cases, opting out is far easier than parents think. It’s moderation that is hard. When we’re at the mercy of constant time management and check-ins and parental controls and screen time charts, we’re setting ourselves up as tech managers rather than parents and mentors and trusted confidants. By prioritizing one proactive decision now (no smartphone), we’re saving ourselves from prioritizing the countless reactive decisions that come later. (Which apps are OK? Which are safe? Is she spending too much time with it? What if she sees something inappropriate? What if he hacks the settings? What if they encounter bullying? A predator? And the list goes on.) Once we can begin to consider the topic from a first order thinking versus second order thinking perspective, it’s easy to see which choice offers less overwhelm in the long run.
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48 North State Parent Family Resource Guide Spring/Summer 2025 • www.northstateparent.com