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The latest smartphone feature? Making it harder to have kids.
Data from the CDC shows that the birth rate has been declining steadily since 2007. In 2025, about 53 babies were born for every 1,000 women aged 15–44 — an all-time low.
Now a new study is putting much of the blame on the rise of smartphone use, finding that as much as half of the decline can be pinned on the proliferation of the iPhone.
Researchers at Middlebury College looked at data from June 2007 to February 2011, during which the first smartphone, the iPhone, was released and only sold through AT&T.
What they found was that iPhones substantially deepened the decline of births.
The association isn’t small, either: The authors said smartphone use “explains 33–52% of the decline in the general fertility rate among women aged 15–44.”
But why did getting an iPhone stop people from having as many babies?
The authors point to several likely culprits: fewer in-person interactions, more porn use and less frequent sex.
Dr. Jaime Knopman, a reproductive endocrinologist who was not involved with the research, said that she’s not surprised.
“This study demonstrated that smartphones are impacting our fertility not because they are frying our eggs or damaging our reproductive organs (phew) but because they are changing our behavior,” she told The Post.
“Young people spend less time interacting with each other in person which has translated into having less sex and therefore fewer children. We date in different ways, we meet in different ways and much of this is attributed to living in an online world all the time.
“While technology has made communication make the world smaller, it has also created distance reducing in-person interactions that are essential for building relationships and fostering intimacy.”
A survey from 2019 showed that about a third of adults use technology in every night or almost every night. Nearly 25% of participants felt like their partner’s use of technology in bed interfered with their sexual relationship.
“If you are having less face-to-face interactions, you’re having less sex,” said Knopman, the National Director of Fertility Preservation for CCRM Fertility and author of “Own Your Fertility.”
“As I say in patient consultations frequently, not having sex makes it impossible to get pregnant naturally. No matter how good your eggs and sperm are, if they are not in the same place at the same time you cannot get pregnant without assistance.”
So are smartphones really the reason for low fertility?
Smartphones are one point in a constellation of factors that affect fertility.
“While this study shows us that we can add smartphones to that list, it is not the only cause on the list of infertility factors,” Knopman said.
In many cases, people are making a purposeful choice not to reproduce — or to have fewer children.
Knopman points to affordability as one major factor. In fact, more than 7 in 10 Americans say that raising kids is unaffordable, and a recent survey showed 54% of Gen Z (ages 18-29) and 50% of millennials (ages 30-45) feel pressure to choose between their own financial security and having any or more children.
She added that declining marriage rates and more opportunities for education and professional advancement are part of the picture as well
“We are also having babies later, when our egg quality is diminished,” she said. “The age at first birth has risen dramatically over the past fifty years which has been the primary culprit of declining fertility rates.”
For women worried about how smartphones are affecting fertility, Knopman encourages them to create a proactive fertility plan.
“It doesn’t matter if you haven’t met ‘the one’ or even know if you want to meet ‘the one’ and have a child, but being proactive about educating yourself about your fertility is a must,” she said. “If you are actively trying to conceive with a partner, put the phone down and connect with your partner.”
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