{"id":271399,"date":"2026-06-12T11:55:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T15:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/12\/could-your-iphone-be-to-blame-for-americas-baby-decline\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T13:40:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T17:40:20","slug":"could-your-iphone-be-to-blame-for-americas-baby-decline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/12\/could-your-iphone-be-to-blame-for-americas-baby-decline\/","title":{"rendered":"Could your iPhone be to blame for America\u2019s baby decline?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Could your iPhone be to blame for America\u2019s baby decline?<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.scrippsnews.com\/health\/could-your-iphone-be-to-blame-for-americas-baby-decline<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-06-12 11:55:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.scrippsnews.com<\/a><\/p>\n

From 2007 through 2024, the U.S. birth rate steadily declined after nearly three decades of relative stability.<\/p>\n

While some have speculated that the decline stems from socioeconomic factors \u2014 such as the cost of health care, child care or housing \u2014 researchers suggest there may be another culprit: the iPhone.<\/p>\n

RELATED STORY | US birth rate falls to lowest level on record in 2025<\/p>\n

Since 2007, the U.S. fertility rate \u2014 broadly defined as the number of children women ages 18 to 45 have in a given year \u2014 has dropped 22%.<\/p>\n

A paper released this week by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that the advent of the iPhone and other smartphones reduced relationship formation and partnered intimacy. The study noted that smartphones were not the sole cause of declining fertility, but they could account for nearly half of the drop.<\/p>\n

Researchers focused on the period from 2008 through 2011, when many Americans began shifting from flip phones to smartphones.<\/p>\n

The paper argues that more than simply enabling broader smartphone use, these devices made it easier for Americans to access pornographic material, reducing the need for a sexual partner. Researchers also cited increased stress and reduced social contact outside of family as other factors emerging from the smartphone era.<\/p>\n

The authors said financial incentives for having children \u2014 such as those proposed by the Trump administration \u2014 would have only modest effects on boosting birth rates, and that such incentives would come at a \u201csteep cost.\u201d<\/p>\n

RELATED STORY | Birth rates remain stagnant as US encounters aging population issues<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do not claim that the iPhone is the sole cause of the post-2007 decline, nor that no policy lever can move the trajectory,\u201d the paper says. \u201cBut over the 2008\u20132011 window that our design identifies, our estimates imply that the introduction of the modern smartphone played a sizable role in the decline in U.S. births.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe mechanism evidence suggests this operates through the…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Could your iPhone be to blame for America\u2019s baby decline? https:\/\/www.scrippsnews.com\/health\/could-your-iphone-be-to-blame-for-americas-baby-decline Publish Date: 2026-06-12 11:55:00…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":271400,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ewscripps.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/76c3f19\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/6016x3158+0+338\/resize\/1200x630!\/quality\/90\/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fewscripps-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fd6%2Fc0%2F48b74d844ce5b6e00a9be001c735%2Fshutterstock-2345311279.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[120],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-271399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-iphone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271399"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271399"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":271402,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271399\/revisions\/271402"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}