Josh Duggar Banned From Using Smartphones, Jim Bob Duggar Says Devices Steal Souls

Josh Duggar’s wife, Anna Duggar, has allegedly banned her husband from using a smartphone while they work on their struggling marriage, and she didn’t do so because she thinks Josh is spending too much time crushing candy, slingshotting birds at pigs, or snapping selfies (although there are a lot of selfies on Josh’s Instagram page). Anna’s biggest concern about smartphones is likely that they give her husband access to pornography and other women, and she doesn’t want him to be tempted to cheat on her again. However, Josh Duggar’s dad thinks there’s a darker reason people shouldn’t use smartphones; according to Jim Bob Duggar, they can steal your soul.

As Wonderwall reports, Josh Duggar recently returned home from a long stay at a Christian rehab center. He checked himself into the faith-based treatment program after Gawker discovered that he had an account on Ashley Madison, a website men and women in relationships use to cheat on their significant others. This forced Josh to confess to being unfaithful to his wife, and he also revealed that he was addicted to internet pornography.

While he was holed up in the treatment facility, Josh didn’t have access to the internet and all its temptations, but now he does. Anna Duggar is reportedly fearful that her husband will resume his old habits, so she’s allegedly decided to put a safeguard in place by banning her husband from using a smartphone.

“He isn’t allowed to have one of those. He has a little phone with a tiny screen and he can’t send or receive picture messages on it,” a source close to the Duggar family told In Touch Weekly.

Josh Duggar’s parents have never been huge fans of smartphones. They couldn’t stop Josh from getting one after he moved out and got married, but they could control the younger Duggars’ access to the devices. As In Touch Weekly reports, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar talked about their family’s phone rules during a February 2015 interview.

“For most of the boys, we have actually gone back to the basic, cheap phone — the 1995 phone. All it has is phone calls and you can text on it,” Jim Bob revealed.

Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar don’t seem too concerned about their daughters having access to the internet on their smartphones, but they take extreme precautions before presenting the devices to the Duggar sons who are lucky enough to get them.

“Young men would have more of a struggle seeing bad stuff, so what we’ve done with the smartphones that we’ve had, we’ve actually locked out Safari and any Internet search at all, and then we’ve just had basic apps,” Michelle explained.

However, according to Jim Bob Duggar, dangerous images can pop up in surprising places on smartphones. He’s seemingly afraid that his sons will use Google Street View to seek out photos of naked ladies flashing the Google camera cars.

“We have emails and just the basic things on the phones for the guys. But…even on the maps and things there are some ways to see some bad things, and that’s a struggle,” the father of 19 said of why smartphones are dangerous.

“They can go off by themselves and take it out in a hurry. It has the potential to steal somebody’s soul.”

The above comments were made during an audio interview with Covenant Eyes, a company that offers “internet accountability and filtering software” for Christians. According to Vice, Ron DeHaas founded the company because he wanted to keep his teenage son from looking at internet pornography. Covenant Eyes offers an account option for couples that Anna Duggar might find useful for keeping tabs on Josh Duggar. Josh can designate his wife as his “Accountability Partner,” and she’ll receive an “Accountability Report” that lets her know which websites her husband has been visiting on his computer and smartphone.

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There’s a high likelihood that Josh Duggar has already been on the internet since returning home from rehab. According to the “Duggar Family News: Life Is Not All Pickles and Hairspray” Facebook page, he’s selling used cars on Craigslist under the name Jay. Josh lost his job with the Family Research Council after it was revealed that he sexually molested his younger sisters as a teenager, so this is seemingly how he plans on supporting his family of six now.

However, as the Inquisitr previously reported, some fans of the Duggar family are hopeful that Josh Duggar will soon be using a TLC paycheck to pay the bills. Numerous Jill & Jessa: Counting On viewers have praised Josh and Anna for deciding to undergo marriage counseling, and these fans want to watch the couple work on their marriage in front of the Counting On cameras. Don’t be surprised if you see Josh Duggar on TV talking about his smartphone ban in the near future.

[Image via Josh Duggar/Twitter]