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DW News

DW News

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Are smartphones killing birth rates worldwide? | DW News

Video Overview & Insights

The world is having fewer children and the pace of decline is happening much faster than expected. The reasons are complex and varied, from a lack of affordable housing to a lack of suitable partners. But could smartphones and modern tech be part of the problem? DW speaks to AI researcher Connor Leahy about how digital life may be reshaping relationships.

It's not the smartphones it's the government we are tired of working day and night for these big corporations and still we can't afford a house still we can't afford food so why have children I'm turning 31 next month I have a proper job I get paid more than average still I can't afford to buy a house so how am I suppose to build a nest I can't raise a child in this shoebox apartment !!

— @MynameisLee1995

Chapters:

0:00 The world is having fewer children

If by "smartphones" you mean "unprecedented wealth inequality" then yes.
What an unserious video.

— @Dorian803

1:35 Are smartphones the problem?

2:06 Connor Leahy, ControlAI

It's a blessing in disguise. With AI taking over human jobs, the world will need fewer humans.

— @user-du8hf3he7r

4:50 Freedom vs social decline

7:24 Is AI reducing birthrates?

Governments will come up with taking away smartphones instead of making housing more affordable.

— @hermes667

10:27 Why is a future with fewer people scary?

#birthrates #smartphone #tech #demographics #dwcurrentaffairs

Blame anything. Just anything but living cost.

— @darnit1944

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Full time work and low income is my reason. Im not making another slave while giving myself even more work.

— @JL-ly7me

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"I had no children, I transmitted to no creature the legacy of our misery." — Machado de Assis, in The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas.

— @douglasm.382

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Hahah who in their right mind would blame it on smartphones. People think that the problem started just now..it has been an issue since the 70’s. This is lazy reporting

— @poeperdhe

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Ugh smartphones are not the reason, everyone already knows the reasons, they just don't care to take accountability

— @kgizzles

More User Perspectives

@

Pretty obvious everyone’s too abused by work and cost of living to make babies🤷🏾‍♂️

@Marco-on2ou
@

When they get some psychologists to do some scientific studies, let me know. There are many obvious reasons for a decline. Really, all you have to do is ask those who have no desire to reproduce and they will tell you the obvious. The real problem is that society really doesn't want to hear the real answer. The cell phone is an easy scapegoat.

@RickPaquin
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Night clubs and friends parties should have to turn over cell phones. No tech allowed.

@corey3788
@

Such lazy reporting

@777Alastor
@

I've watched multiple videos about this over the last 5+ years. The explanation is hard to pin down, but it's become clear to me what the issue is - I don't know how you fix this but... Here's my simple, but direct reasoning as to what is going on.

"Modern life, is not compatible with the forming of families or the upbringing of Children."

It's become so systemic within our society, it may be unfixable, and may only worsen more. We are likely doomed...

@outofmyhandsagain5
@

Please increase babies 😭😭❤💵

@rajadon2071
@

DINK lifestyle rules, wife and I had great jobs, no debt all the toys great early retirement, why would we screw that up with brats?

@BHUFF
@

Correlation is NOT causation 😂
Kids are not affordable.
Healthcare and Childcare alone drives away potential parents

@utvota
@

Inequality up, birthrate down, I wonder if there is any correlation? Nah, it's the smart phone!

@SumDude-b9i
@

Toxic feminism plus smartphones are a societal cancer

@HermannCortez
@

0:40 could this be a simple as people have rights get rid of them before having them. 😒🥱🕳️😏🥺🤏🏾🤭👂🏾💌🥴💯

@TiaJohnson-i4f
@

How can I have children when all I earn already goes to boomers?

@RumbleCookie
@

Lol this is why I can't trust those "researchs" any more, so bloody myopic. Only look at one factor but blind to everything else.
Have they even checked how much it is to raise a kid well in current days, and how much are people earning? Sure blame the phone, not the economy.

Wait until governments see this "study" and issue phone curfews instead of fixing the real issues in household spending power 😂

@AtomicChorizo
@

Wolves are worried that the sheeps are not breeding

@rohitgautam6693
@

So.... no one has ever seen iRobot?

@KeyaCares
@

I think social media is the biggest driver of the decline in birth rates. People often overshare their bad experiences in romantic relationships, and these stories can trigger many others, even if those experiences don't happen to them. For instance, there's a trend called the TikTok relationship standard, and people treat it as a life standard. Therefore, if you don't follow a TikTok standard, it means you failed.

@fatimahpurwitasariharahap4551
@

I love DW News. It's like the Babylon Bee only they don't get it.

@Cadcare
@

Is this guy the worst "expert" or what? He said a whole lot of nothing and blamed on AI😂

@anuragdas9400
@

Tech, economics and feminism (Modernities Trifecta of Destruction).

@djdarryl01
@

How about divorce laws

@savoirancien4093
@

Blaming AI?!

@EverythingFilm23
@

So what if population of developed countries decreases by half or by two thirds in 100 - 200 years? Why do you need so many people? For what? A lot of jobs are already robotized.
The challenges are pressure from migrating nations and care of elderly people - so deal with them, find solutions. First you destroy family pattern - like three or for generations living together, taking care of their young and old, now you want these nuclear families to produce more working force.

@itisenglish9149
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When the AI Cos threaten openly to automate coding and data analytics; the message is clear future is bleak for young !

@vinaygupta5234
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Smartphones 😂😂😂. Check how much you get paid and how much everything costs. Greedy bastards

@arturwolak856
@

Look! The capitalist class is worry that they are running out of cheap labour slaves to exploit, poor subjects to rule over, and a huge consuming pool to push forever growing economic growth! The easiest, most efficient way to revolt, to resist, to push this meat grinding machine to a screeching halt is to not creating new blood for them to leech.

@DannyHuanDao
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What is the problem? Why to have kids when climate change will make them suffer? Don't look up!

@jakejoyride
@

Smartphones, yeah? No. Try crushing economic pressure and a collapsed family structure.

@deVryz
@

If this is the real cause, then thank you, smartphones

@Argentinian_in_Taiwan
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I blame it on birth control pills

@AlonsoP-o3c
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Why buy a cow...when all you need is the milk?

@thehumancanary131
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Dudes who look like him are why birthrates declining lol

@schlepedits7486
@

Yes,smart phones exposed the truth

@chocolatehersheykiss7412
@

People literally tell you why they aren't making children! The smart phone/technology/social media is a side effect and not a cause.

@alanamorton8234
@

DEAR DW NEWS,
HAVE YOU EVER SEEN THE YOUTUBE CHANNEL 'THE MISERY MACHINE'? No? Well, they talk exclusively about CA Cases and the failure of CPS to defend children from neglectful, abusive or evil guardians. Let me iterate: THOUSANDS of cases in the past ten years, ONE channel, UNSPEAKABLE EVIL being done to CHILDREN as young as the age of one day old. We live in a society which incentivizes anti-child behavior because children take up resources and time. And it's not like they're doing much to aid America's growth, either. Our adults can barely make a living wage and they want to make wages even lower. Children are so dumb nowadays that people in the eighth grade are speaking at a kindergarten level. NONE of our children are excelling. And then there's the world we're bringing them in where isolation drives them so crazy that they're one day away from bringing their father's shotgun to school, and the system that enabled that won't punish the father, won't push for better safety rules, won't change anything to the point that we believe inside that bringing a child into this world is extremely dangerous. And it isn't even a child in school, it could be anyone anywhere at any time that could be violent with a firearm.

DW News,
Even though you'd love to find an easy scapegoat and blame smart phones while hypocritically allowing yourself access to these smart phones and require your kids to carry smart phones to school so you can keep in contact with them during emergencies, the truth of the matter is that this country does not incentivize child bearing. It doesn't pay its workers enough to care for children. It does not reduce its cost of living. It does not value children as much as it does industrial growth. People do not see the point of having children anymore because to be quite frank a child will not thrive at all in this world because this world is colorless, bland, boring, lonely, violent, destructive, chaotic, and people now believe that bringing a child into such a world is akin to CHILD ABUSE.

Sorry for the many grammar mistakes, but the point is crystal clear. Looking at this from the lens of a person who has a cushy job and who doesn't have to go beyond their armchair and their internet access to see why people won't have children is a poor position to understand why people in general in this society would not have kids. We get it, you're extremely sheltered. But in this world, at this time, in this era, we have so many cases in which children are put in extreme agony because they exist. That's sad. That's incredibly sad.

In short,
We are not having children anymore because our socio-economic conditions have led us to creating a world that cannot support children.

It is easy to scapegoat smart phones for some people because they would rather point at one thing and do nothing about that thing than to root out the reason why we're all suffering. It's because we live in a society built off of trickle-down economics where the rich get even more disgustingly rich to the point they can tamper with our elections and get away with a slap on the wrist and a steep tax cut while the poorest Americans end up neglecting their own flesh and blood.

If we want to discuss what actually is causing the birth rate crisis and if we're actually serious about helping make a world that incentivizes childhood and child growth, we need to first undo what caused our era of infertility; the lack of broad growth in return for upward growth. Trickle-Down Economics must be canned first, and then we can discuss what we should be doing to help support new families. Cheap housing, affordable school, free public college, better human services, maybe even socialized. We can easily cut our military spending in half to do all that, but we won't because doing so is akin to 'hating' America. But if we did that, we could spend that on our kids' futures and create a world that better cares about America's broader growth instead of just upward growth.


When the top has everything and the bottom has nothing, America is fragile. And it truly is. So let's instead talk about what we can do to help our fellow Americans instead of scapegoating smart phones because God forbid we take personal accountability.

-An Ashamed American

@HoopsMacabre
@

Yeah, it's smart phones.... totally not misogyny, or the insecurity that breeding causes to women.

@ShilgenVens
@

Cost of living is insane one and done for the foreseeable feature!

@MelanieStelzer
@

How about wealth inequality?

@teufeltuna1956
@

Maybe that's exactly what they're worried about.
For decades we've been told there are too many workers competing for too few good jobs. If birth rates keep falling, the balance of power eventually shifts. Workers can demand better pay, better benefits, and better working conditions because employers are competing for people instead of people competing for jobs.
The billionaires are often the first to panic when birth rates decline. They're worried about who will fund the system, keep spending, and support the next generation of subsidies and corporate profits. 😏

@pnw_mainecoons6633
@

Cost of living is crazy expensive rn, even without paying for childcare

@J-w2w4w
@

Politics, wars, uncertainity, low income and most of all GREED is the problem! As long as we blame technology and not the wrong doing of the elites, we'll decline even more!

@comshtato
@

The nerve of Gen X and baby boomers for blaming it on Tech is next level!!!! How about the wars and the bad economy that you caused!!! Direct reason for millennials and gen Z planning not to have children!
Tech stop you from having unplanned child, like gen x and baby boomers having sex out of boredom, getting the wife pregnant, then leave in the middle of the night!!!

@abdelazizboudiaf3061