Posted on 05/26/2026 6:20:30 AM PDT by MinorityRepublican
Birthrates are collapsing across the developed world, and the numbers are stark enough to unsettle most demographers. Nearly three‑quarters of humanity already live in countries with fertility at sub-replacement levels, according to the United Nations. A 2024 Lancet forecast goes further: 97 percent of countries are projected to fall below replacement fertility by 2100, a demographic inversion without historical precedent.
These declines imply shrinking workforces, depleted pension funds, increasingly isolated older adults and a worsening of the politics around immigration, often seen as the only realistic remedy in Western societies. Familiar forces have been blamed — delayed parenthood, wider access to contraception, the rising cost of childrearing and existential angst that spans climate change, war resurgence, and how AI will transform the future.
But something more intimate is also contributing, rooted less in macroeconomics and anxiety than how digital life is rechanneling libido. Its consequences may be civilizational.
The smartphone is now the closest relationship many people have. It is the last thing they touch before falling asleep and the first thing they reach for upon waking up. According to a survey by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 87 percent of Americans regularly sleep with their smartphones in the bedroom.
The device has colonized that most personal of spaces, turning the bed into a workstation and turning notifications, likes, shares and algorithmically curated content into a preferred source of dopamine hits. As a result, many couples spend their time side by side in distinct digital bubbles. More than distraction, this is a kind of fetishistic displacement that redirects desire. As the device becomes the primary source of stimulation, the partner is “phubbed” (for phone snubbed), with reproductive sequelae.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
This species has amused itself to death.
“the rising cost of childrearing”
#1 while you are taxed heavily to pay for illegals and other wasteful stuff the government likes.
The global fertility crash started before smart phones. In the West, it started with the “cradle to grave” Welfare State.
Safe and Effective, alright.
The JAB. Big Pharma cannot bring themselves to say the name.
They don't even care how blatant their lies are. They just need to be a source for someone to cite as justification for inane policy.
It ain’t my phone that keeps me from dating. It’s crazy women with more baggage than samsonite that keeps me from doing it.
CC
“We’re just running humanity’s fertility off a cliff.”
Epidemiologist Nicolas Hulscher: “These mRNA shots are getting into the ovaries, instructing them to produce toxic spike protein. The body attacks it, and then... you’re going to have these 33% lower birth rates in vaccinated women.”
The birthrate was going down before smartphones existed. Dating is off because men are being trashed and the dating game is full of traps for men.
It’s 95% economic and I’m not going to pretend otherwise.
Not sure that this can completely be blamed on cell phones as the cause. There are other factors that seem more likely to be contributing factors. The biggest being abortions.
The Wall Street Journal had this article over the weekend:
Falling Birth Rates are a Mystery
(the link unlocks the article for you)
What long article failed to mention was any research into falling male fertile sperm counts; a subject there is considerable research on, research that suggests yes, globally male sperm counts have declined.
Covid 19 shot side affect is sterility.
When AI really gets going many more will have plenty of time to idol away thanks to the new electronic god and overlord.
I’m not really sure cellphones in the bedroom is that big a deal. In the landline days most folks had a phone in the bedroom. And these days the cellphone is also an alarm clock. So unless they’ve got good evidence that phones and alarm clocks are a problem I think they’re reaching.
Replace the stupid cellphone with church, love, marriage, and childrearing! And reading, too!
But the fertility rate was already declining before all the technology we have today.
No one was distracted in the '70s yet we struggle to reproduce.
People like to say people are less social due to smartphones. But I’ve never bought it. There’s plenty of those old timey pictures of people in group situation with their faces buried in the newspaper. People were plenty distracted in the 70s. 1870s even.
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