According to The Wall Street Journal, the total fertility rate of American’s fell to 1.57 births per woman, hitting a record low. The replacement level to maintain the population is 2.1 births per woman, meaning the population is shrinking as not enough babies are being born to replace the current population.
Newsweek reports that during coverage of President Donald Trump announcing a new deal to reduce fertility medicine cost, Health and Human Services Sec. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., likened the declining fertility rate to a “national security threat.”
Clare Morell is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in the Bioethics, Technology and Human Flourishing Program and author of “The Tech Exit: A Practical Guide to Free Kids and Teens from Smartphones.” She told Jody Hice on the “Washington Watch” program that the U.S. first fell below the replacement rate in 1972 but recovered and surged ahead again.
“But since 2007, we've seen a very precipitous steep decline, falling well below replacement. The last two years, we've hit record lows. It was a record low in 2024; it fell to 1.6. Then just this past year, 2025 fell even lower,” Morell states.
If the decline continues, Morell warns, it could threaten the future of the nation. As she puts it, not replacing the population means the U.S. won’t be able to sustain development and growth.
Morell recently co-authored a report that reveals how digital technology has impacted human relationships, especially sex, marriage, and fertility. She links smartphones and social media as a reason why in-person socializing and in-person relationships have drastically decreased.
“Just between 2010 and 2019, young adults' rates of socializing in person were cut in half. They dropped by nearly 50% in just those nine years, and this coincides with the introduction of the smartphone,” says Morell. “More and more research is coming out that is showing that these declines in fertility that started around 2007 … that’s the same year that the iPhone was invented and smartphones started to become this ubiquitous part of our society.”
Digital technologies, smartphones, and social media have become a replacement for in-person socialization, she says, which corresponds to the decline of dating, marriage and sex.
Morell also speaks on the issues of porn and AI chatbots that have hindered human interactions.
She believes smartphones have exacerbated the pornography issue, as porn is more easily accessible now and exposed to children earlier, around the age of 12. She especially notes the negative impacts of using pornography over a pro-longed period of time.
“Pornography users actually start to prefer pornography to in-person relationships and in-person sex,” stated Morell. “What's happening is then people are turning to screens and pornography instead of going out and pursuing a partner in real life through a dating relationship that hopefully, ultimately, then leads to marriage.”
As for AI chatbots, Morell says more people are turning to AI companions, even preferring them, in part because they affirm what people want to hear. They are non-confrontational and don’t push back but still mimic real relationships, changing people’s preferences away from traditional relationships that have interpersonal conflict.
“Because I think porn was just substituting for the sexual aspects of a relationship, the AI companions are now able to kind of offer very compelling substitutes to the rest of the aspects of a romantic real-life relationship, this emotional intimacy, this feeling understood and known by somebody else,” Morell states.
To combat this, Morell says Congress should adopt a nationwide age verification law both for pornography websites and for AI chatbots. A path is cleared for a federal pornography bill, she notes, as 25 states have already passed this kind of law, which has been upheld by the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, the GUARD Act, which would require age verification on AI chatbots, is a bi-partisan bill recently introduced into Congress.
Tech and kids: parents beware
Morell warns parents that early developmental years are really important, and with easy access to these damaging technologies, they need to delay their child’s technology exposure until adulthood if possible.
“Not only because of the mental health harms and other negative impact screens have on a child's developing brain, but because we want them to be able to form really strong real life relationships that one day that will give them the skills that will hopefully one day help them to find a spouse and get married,” Morell says.
She also believes that parents should distance themselves from their own devices and become role models for healthy conversations and real-life relationships for their children. Churches and pastors, she says, can also inform and be a role model to their congregations.
