iPhone birth control

Yesterday, I shared Noah Smith’s observation that fifteen years ago, the internet was an escape from the real world — and now the real world is an escape from the internet. Smith recently shared a study that puts hard numbers behind that idea. Researchers at NBER used a clever natural experiment: the iPhone launched in 2007 exclusively on AT&T through early 2011. That carrier exclusivity created geographic variation — some areas had coverage, others didn’t — allowing them to isolate the smartphone’s effect on birth rates. The results are striking. iPhone access reduced births by 4.5–8% among 15–19 year olds and 3.2–6.6% among 20–24 year olds. Overall, the diffusion of the iPhone explains 33–52% of the entire decline in the U.S. fertility rate since 2007 among women aged 15–44. The mechanism the researchers point to: less in-person interaction, more pornography use, less sexual frequency. Sadly, it all makes intuitive sense. And birth control is likely just the tip of the iceberg. And…