You are the sum of the many different influences you have had in your life.
The clearest example is the influence of your parents. Your mom and dad came together and literally created you. They each gave pieces of themselves to shape and form you into who you are today.
The same is true as life goes on. There are people who will come and go but the influence and impact they leave on your life is going to have an effect on the person that you are.
And the same is true for the influence that technology has over us.
Hundreds of years ago, people did more shaping and forming of individuals; but today, technology has taken a lot of the people in our live’s place at the crafting booth of our life.
What are the Effects Technology Has Had On Us?
Recently I have been reading Cal Newport’s famous book: ‘Digital Minimalism.’ In the beginning he discusses the start of Facebook, a company that was targeted to college students really just as a means to check up on what your ex girlfriend was doing or who she was dating. There were no real intentions behind this company other than connecting college students online.
Fast forward to 2023 though where Facebook is now an app under the banner of Meta. And Meta has intentions. Meta is seeking to change the way we all do life. No longer is Zuckerberg’s goal to help you stalk your ex, instead his goal is to make a mirror life in an alternate reality and for you spend the majority of your time, energy and resources in this Meta universe. Zuckerberg may not have thought he was changing the world when Facebook first started, but you can be sure that today Zuckerberg very much so believes he is changing the world and in reality he has.
When Facebook started, those college students maybe checked it once a day at the most. Now people will spend hours of their day on Facebook or Instagram just scrolling, and let’s not even discuss Tik Tok.
The apps have taken control over our lives. We see this at every dinner table in a restaurant where each member of the family even the 2 year old has their devices out; scrolling, laughing , seemingly having a good time.
But that good time is not spent with those sitting literally not even a foot away from them. The seemingly good time is spent watching other people live a better life through the screen our eyes are glued to.
The dinner has been interrupted, our jobs have been less focused, and even our churches have become props for ascetically pleasing photos to entice more people to come and promote the ‘business of church.”
How Can we Change Our Relationship with Technology?
Cal Newport gives us three principles to help guide us to a life of digital minimalism.
1.) “Clutter is costly”
Distractions in life are costly. The more distractions you have, the less focused and productive you will be. Of course many of us will hold this to be true when it comes to the way our homes are organized. We all learned hard lessons from the show ‘Hoarders’ back in the day. We specifically got to see individuals who had so much literal clutter in their walk ways that it led to the decline of the overall health for their lives. Many of these individuals were depressed, anxious or physically endangering themselves.
The same can be true for technology. The more “stuff” you have on your phones or tablets, the more you have calling for your attention. The more you have speaking into your life.
We need to declutter.
2.) “Optimization is Important”
There is a concerning ease too how quickly we download things to our phones. It is so easy to download and install a new app or feature that many of us do not take into consideration whether we should or not.
I work at a cabinet shop Monday- Friday every week for eight hours a day. And in this shop we have tools. These tools have been carefully selected to better us in the craft of sculpting cabinets. We never aimlessly walk around Home Depot or Harbor Freight grabbing every piece of equipment that we see. The reason why is because we do not need every piece of equipment.
Cal brings up the example of the Amish community and how they, unlike popular misconception, use technology. The Amish use technology but they use technology in accord with the values they have. Just because a piece of technology is convenient does not mean it is worth their time or energy. For the Amish they ask the question Donald Kraybill recalls as: “Is this going to be helpful or is it going to be detrimental? Is it going to bolster our life together, as a community, or is it going to somehow tear it down?”
Technology at it’s best is a tool that can help you in your pursuits, but often it is at its worst, a distraction or a convience that takes away the value of life that God has so graciously bestowed on us.
3.) “Intentionality is Satisfying”
Imagine living with a purpose. Every moment of everyday you are free to live out the purpose for why you are here. The same can be true for our relationships with technology.
In 2023 we are seeing a rise in conversation around what it means to be a man. For many men today, after the rise of the Me Too movement(which I believe was needed and a net positive), they feel as if they have no reason to live. They feel they have no value or importance in society at large. This in turn is why the rise of the “Red Pill” community has become alarming. Many men who are longing for a reason to exist, are gravitating to other men who are giving them bad reasons to exist. Many of these bad reasons are to get rich quick, conquer the world, and to treat women and inferiors as valueless beings who need to be trampled for on or used.
Tech companies in 2023 likewise have given many of us a bad reason to use what has been created. By the greatest minds of our generation, a lot of us have been convinced that we should use technology to numb the pain, distract ourselves and to not have to encounter the uncomfortable, awkward and weird areas/people in our lives. We have been given a tool to “connect with others” that has left many of us who use it the most feeling the most disconnected.
So when we back up, declutter, carefully choose and intentionally use the tech that we have in our lives, we will be able to reconnect with the greater purpose for why we are here to begin with.
What Are Our Values as Followers of Jesus?
I mentioned earlier about how the Amish only use technology that is in accord with their values. As Christians we must revisit what some of our values are that can play into our use of technology.
The first value I would like us to revisit is one you have heard before. When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandement of the law is Jesus quoted the Old Testament saying: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
Years ago as a practice I learned from Jonathan Edwards, I began writing resolutions for my life. These were reflections, goals, values that I seeked to instill into my everyday. And for a year or so, every morning I would get up and read these resolutions as a guiding light as I started my day.
Where I differed from Jonathan, was I categorized my resolutions into two columns, one being principles or disciplines on how to specifally love God throughout my day and the other being principles or disciplines in how to love my neighbor throughout my day.
When it comes to technology we must first surrender ourselves to the greatest commandments to love God and love others. That must be the foundation on which we build on. Before you ever download, install or even open up an app or a screen, ask yourself; how is my use of this in submission to loving God with all my heart, soul and mind? And how is my use of this loving my neighbor?
Very quickly I also want to in the same character of my resolutions, give two practices that are in accord with these values.
The first practice is the discipline of regularly placing yourself in solitude. This practice is a way to love God well. You may have heard the famous line that God speaks in a “still small voice.” He is not desperate for your attention. You either will hear him or not. The question we all must wrestle with is: will we attune ourselves to hear the voice of God? This requires us to unplug from all distractions and inputs in our life. This requires you to make yourself still. Stop being a busy body, doing a million things. Stop even doing one thing. Just be still.
I remember reading once about how astronauts train their bodies for space. One of the areas they train is their ears. We have so much noise today in our society that it is almost impossible for people to be alone in the quiet. But for astronauts in space, it is physically painful how quiet it is. Our ears are designed to hear our bones ache. Ryan Trahan a famous YouTuber vlogged his experience being in the most quiet room in the world.
Jesus also, pulled himself away from the noise and inputs of his world. Regularly throughout the gospels, you can catch Jesus routinely pulling Himself away from the crowds and into the “deserted place.”
The more famous story of Jesus “retreating” into the wilderness is the story of Jesus after his baptism in Matthew chapter 3, where chapter four shows Jesus going out into the “wilderness” or solitary place to be “tempted by the devil”(Matthew 4:1).
In this story Jesus spends forty days and forty nights fasting. This is interesting because fasting in one sense is starving the body. You are physically growing weaker, but spiritually you are growing stronger as you train yourself to lean more into the power of the Spirit than into your own strength. Which is why this story is so famous because we see a physically malnourished Jesus, be able to resist the devil to his face.
This is something that Adam and Eve, two people who were not physically weak could not do. Yet Jesus, relying on the Spirit, being attuned to God’s will for forty days and forty nights is then able to do.
This is not the only time Jesus goes off in to the “lonely place.” If you have a yellow highlighter out I would encourage you to as your read the gospels, highlight every time you see Jesus leave the crowds to go be alone with the Father.
Jesus even does this the night of his arrest. As he go off a little ways away from his students to pray and seek God’s will for what’s to come.
As students ourselves of Jesus, we must regularly unplug. We must regularly turn our screens off(even from the Bible app) and just be with God. Spend time praying, listening and reading God’s physical Word. We must practice the heart of God by being “slow to speak and quick to listen.”
The second practice I would encourage us to think through as we reevaluate our relationships with technology is to reassess our relationships with others.
Community is a high value for the life of a follower of Jesus. Does the church need you? Yes! But likewise, you need the church! You need to be doing life on life with other individuals in your faith community. Social media is a great tool to connect with others, but there is something truly magical about spending one on one time with other people in reality.
Online we may be able to bypass the awkwardness in a conversation or to not ask “get to know you” questions because their profile says all we need to know. But dealing with others in real life forces our bodies to take on the heart and mind of Jesus. Like I said a minute ago, the heart of God is “slow to speak and quick to listen.” Conversations and building relationsips with people in real life force you to have to take on the character of God to make any real progress. This is why community matters. People are hard to deal with. personalities can be hard to overcome, but that is also how God designed it to take place. Because when we deal with someone whose personality is a little too much for us, we are then convicted by the Spirit in us to have humility and say: “but I am hard to deal with as well.”
In closing, how will you center your life around the values of Jesus? How will take on the lifestyle he had? How will you stop yourself from submitting to the lordship of technology and instead surrender yourself to the Lordship of Jesus.
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