I have written more blogs on digital technology than any other topic except one. Why write another one? I had a different blog started for this month. Why set that aside to write this one? Three things propelled me. Recently, during a sermon, I heard a pastor say, “the biggest hinderance to my spending time with God and to my spiritual growth is my phone.” I immediately thought, he is not alone and what are we as a church doing about this reality? I recently listened to an interview of Anna Lembke, psychiatrist and author of Dopamine Nation. She states that over the last 20 years—through the internet and phones—we have seen marked increase in addiction to pornography, then gaming, then gambling, and more recently what she termed “diffuse addiction to the internet.” If person’s main digital “drug” is not available they simply switch to something else online. She stated that phones are the gateway to many new addictions. It is a systemic problem, not an individual problem. She also said, what we have heard so often, that in the era of the smart phone, mental health is worse, and increasingly so. I heard that and thought, I must write about this again. We must act.
Then, just a couple days ago I heard a podcast on the Harvard study that followed people over decades, and now their descendants. Two social scientists discussed the results of what is known as the “world’s longest study on happiness,” and described why they believe that meaningful relationships are the key to living a long, happy, flourishing life. At one point they referred to another study that showed that up to a certain point more income does increase happiness and the quality of life, but after about $75,000 it does not have a significant impact—whether the person earns $200,000 or $2 million. They then observed that the myth that greater wealth will produce a better life is not new. I immediately thought of the Bible study I gave in class, that Jesus in Luke 12 both confronted this myth and made the same point the Harvard study does—relationships contribute to flourishing more than money. The lies of Mammon are not new, but researchers went on to observe: “That message has been around for a while, but I think it's just more present in our lives. . . Media influences have gotten only stronger in the last few decades, and it's because we carry around a source of communication with media in our pockets all the time, so it's hard to get away from that. We're bombarded by messages about the importance of acquiring certain goods or about making a certain amount of money. . . It's not just a matter of turning off the television anymore, because of the ubiquity of the technologies that deliver those messages.” How do we respond? We must act.
During Lent many will fast from some element of digital technology. That is a good thing. In fact, my very first blog exhorted readers to take a one-day fast from their phones. (If you need motivation, read the few short quotes of what students gained from the fast.) So, yes, fast, but let’s do more.
The goal of this blog is not to explore the problem or the response in depth. See the blog archives for the other 14 blogs I have already written on digital technology. Rather, I share the above observations with the hope they may serve as a wake-up call for you as they did for me. I will list just a few suggestions about response.
- Respond with others. Don’t just do a Lenten fast from social media, or internet news, or TV shows, etc. alone, do it with a group and process together what you learned and how to respond. See this blog for ideas on how to do that.
- Join with others, explore, reflect, get beyond the superficial and respond together. I recommend a group study of Felicia Wu Song’s book, Restless Devices: Recovering Personhood, Presence, and Place in the Digital Age.
- In the interview Anna Lembke encouraged response not just at the level of devices themselves, but to also ask, “what is it about our lives that makes us want to be intoxicated all the time?” As followers of Jesus we have things to offer that our alienated, lonely, addicted society deeply needs. Let us re-double our efforts introduce people to Jesus and to name others.
- Efforts to lessen digital technology’s grasp on our attention is not just about cutting back and removing things, it is even more important to replace it with positive things that will foster relationship with God and others. How might you re-order your rhythms to do that? Who might you invite to a meal, take a walk with, or, perhaps use your phone or laptop to have a long talk with someone geographically distant who you usually only text or communicate with on social media?
In the spirit of the last two points, next month I will share some observations on how we can become better Namers, and have more conversations that gets beyond the superficial.