Empowering Families: A Forward-Thinking Technology Agenda for the Right

We’re entering a new time of rapid technological change. This shift could make families less important in our lives. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Conservatives should embrace innovation while also standing against technologies that hurt our human experience. We need to create policies that prioritize families in the tech world, shaping a household that works for the twenty-first century.

Ideally, technology should support us as individuals. However, we’ve seen that without proper guidelines, advancements can actually hinder our well-being and threaten family stability. Today, we face tough political questions brought about by tech’s moral impact. For example, should we create life artificially? Can we truly change genders? Is it right for children to access explicit content? How does automation affect jobs that support families? Our goal must be to guide technology in a way that keeps humanity and family values at the forefront. We need tech to serve people, not the other way around.

Currently, most technologies do not support family life. They were designed for business, military, or government needs, ignoring their impact on families. Technology has undercut parental authority, harmed marital relationships, and affected job availability for families. It has even treated children’s information and relationships like commodities. This crisis touches nearly every part of our society. Healthy families are the foundation of a thriving nation; a country that neglects its families risks its own future.

While conservatives should encourage economic growth and new technologies, it’s clear that the market is not producing innovations that help families. In many cases, it does the opposite.

Experts agree that public policy should steer technology towards enhancing family life. We need laws that support a tech landscape beneficial to households, promote healthy sexuality, reward marriage, nurture childhood, and protect the rights of parents and communities. These core values are vital for strong families and must be defended in this age of technological change. Here are ten principles that can help empower families through technology:

1. Address chronic illness with treatment instead of pursuing extreme life-extension options and focus on easing the pain of terminal illnesses.
2. Support women’s natural roles in having and raising children, rather than reducing their bodies to mere functions or options.
3. Guard human sexuality from harmful influences like violent media, digital exploitation, and AI-generated distractions.
4. Reclaim childhood from social media by encouraging real-world interactions and play; hold companies responsible for creating harmful platforms.
5. Combat the addictive nature of technology by supporting devices that enhance productivity without surveillance or manipulation.
6. Empower citizens by giving them control over their personal data and safeguarding their privacy from invasive technologies.
7. Encourage technologies that support local autonomy and family-based solutions instead of imposing standard changes that disrupt local communities.
8. Promote technologies that improve job satisfaction and human skills instead of those that replace workers, investing in reskilling efforts.
9. Adapt to a household economy by easing rules on home businesses and adjusting labor laws to bolster family life.
10. Promote projects that connect humanity to nature and inspire creativity while removing incentives that draw people toward artificial experiences.

These guiding principles can reshape our current tech landscape positively. When technology starts replacing vital human connections or undermining families, we face significant risks. Families are the bedrock of society, sculpting future generations to continue the human story. The harmony between family life, technology, and a promising future must be restored. To neglect family stability is to threaten our future; strengthening families means nurturing hope and possibilities.

Affiliations are for identification purposes only.

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, Ph.D., 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.

For more information, visit: www.afutureforthefamily.org.