Under Control

I’ve been reading Tony Reinke’s book 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You. Ironically, Facebook got knocked out of commission for several hours Monday. Perhaps God was encouraging me (and everyone else) to consider the message of the book even more seriously. My social media use tends to increase over time until I make a conscious effort to pull back, and this is one of those times.

As I was reading about the decline in reading comprehension and the growing determination to catalogue our lives in post-worthy images, I imagined how a few scenes from Jesus’s life on earth might have been different:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit… meek… merciful…” -Yeah, whatever. Keep scrolling.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted…” -Retweet!

Hey, I got 136 likes on my post! Who’s the greatest now? LOL -“The greatest among you shall be your servant.”

Who are we missing on this Zoom meeting? -Well, Andrew went fishing, Peter’s mother-in-law is sick again, and no one knows where Judas is tonight.

“One of you will betray Me.” -Wait, what did He say? I was checking my messages.

OK, so maybe we aren’t much different from the disciples. We all wrestle in varying degrees with pride, distraction, and desire for attention and approval. Smartphones and social media connections just give us a quick and easy way to do so.

Reinke writes about a theology of remembering:

“Whatever else is at play in the digital age, Christians are commanded over and over to remember. We must not lose our past and our future for moment-by-moment tweets and texts on our phones… All spiritual growth is rooted in remembering what Christ has done in me… Remembering is one of the key spiritual disciplines we must guard with vigilance amid the mind-fragmenting and past-forgetting temptations of the digital age” (187-188).

I would add to that a different sense of the word remember. We need to re-member who we are created to be as the Body of Christ. Social media is great at fragmenting us into camps that are at odds with one another over all kinds of issues. We interpret likes and follows as affirmation that we are in the “right” crowd, even as we’ve simultaneously alienated friends and neighbors that we go to church with. We essentially dismember one set of relationships that’s based on eternal principles for another set based on the illusion of superficial agreement.

“Jesus boils down the purpose and aim of our lives into two goals: treasure God with your whole being, and then pour out your God-centered joy in love for others. On these two commands all other smartphone laws depend: (190).

Reinke asks some good questions, including: “Do my smartphone behaviors move me toward God or away from him? …Do my smartphone behaviors edify me and others, or do they build nothing of lasting value?” (194). I’m sure we could all find areas where we could improve our words and actions to better love God and our neighbors.

“I am not my own. I am owned by my Lord. I have been bought with a price, which means I must glorify Christ with my thumbs, my ears, my eyes, and my time… I do not have ‘time to kill’—I have time to redeem” (180).

“Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil” (Eph. 5:15-16).

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© 2021 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV. Image courtesy of Amazon. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Let's Talk

Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age, by Sherry Turkle, is a book I would recommend to pastors, parents, and anyone who uses a smart phone or social media. Though it was written in 2015 it’s still relevant today. Following are a few quotes and thoughts on the “progress” of technology:

“This new mediated life has gotten us into trouble. Face-to-face conversation is the most human—and humanizing—thing we do. Fully present to one another, we learn to listen. It’s where we develop the capacity for empathy. It’s where we experience the joy of being heard, of being understood. And conversation advances self-reflection, the conversations with ourselves that are the cornerstone of early development and continue throughout life… But these days we find ways around conversation. We hide from each other even as we’re constantly connected to each other. For on our screens, we are tempted to present ourselves as we would like to be… online and at our leisure, it is easy to compose, edit, and improve as we revise” (3-4).

“We are being silenced by our technologies… These silences—often in the presence of our children—have led to a crisis of empathy that has diminished us at home, at work, and in public life” (9).

“Conversation implies something kinetic. It is derived from words that mean ‘to tend to each other, to lean toward each other,’ words about the activity of relationship, one’s ‘manner of conducting oneself in the world or in society; behavior, mode or course of life.’ To converse you don’t just have to perform turn taking, you have to listen to someone else, to read their body, their voice, their tone, and their silences. You bring your concern and experience to bear, and you expect the same from others” (44-45).

“To get children back to conversation—and learning the empathic skills that come from conversation—the first, crucial step is to talk with children. These days, it is often children who seem least afraid to point out that technology is too often getting in the way” (111).

 “People require eye contact for emotional stability and social fluency. A lack of eye contact is association with depression, isolation, and the development of antisocial traits such as exhibiting callousness. And the more we develop these psychological problems, the more we shy away from eye contact… If a tool gets in the way of our looking at each other, we should use it only when necessary. It shouldn’t be the first thing we turn to. One thing is certain: The tool that is handy is not always the right tool” (325).

Although it’s not written from a Christian worldview, this book made me consider what it means for us to be embodied souls made in the image of God. Our God, in Triune community, created man and said “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” (Genesis 2:18 ESV). But ever since the Fall (Genesis 3) there has been division, dissension, and disruption to our relationships. God gave the Law to Moses (Exodus 20), but the condition of mankind required something more—an embodied presence. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

Physical presence is important to who we are as human beings. Jesus touched the lepers, the blind, and the lame. He looked the outcasts in the eye. John testified to “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life” (1 John 1:1). It is impossible for us to fulfill all the “one another” commands through digital media alone.

We know these things, and yet it is all too easy for us to turn to texts, emails, or Facebook as a substitute for a real conversation with another person, and people are suffering the consequences. Children aren’t learning how to have real conversations or how to empathize with others. There’s an epidemic of loneliness among all ages. Suicide rates are increasing even when we’re the most electronically “connected” generation ever. Turkle writes that “human relationships are rich, messy, and demanding. When we clean them up with technology, we move from conversation to the efficiencies of mere connection. I fear we forget the difference” (21). Perhaps we each need to step back and evaluate where technology is leading us and reclaim what is being lost.

“Walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the body of peace” (Ephesians 4:1b-3).

© 2019 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.