For years, I received a weekly notification on Sunday morning around 9:00 a.m. on my iPhone. This specific notification was quite revealing about all of the things I did that week, and also, by default, what I failed to do as well. I am still not sure why that message always came right about the time my family and I were heading out of the house on the way to gather with our local church, but it was always a bit jarring to me, especially as it seemed that I could always hit a high score each week. For some reason, that notification stopped arriving on Sunday morning, but I now have a widget on my home screen with a detailed graph of exactly how I spent my time on my devices that week.
The screentime settings on my iPhone have long been a useful set of tools for me to think about how and where I have been spending time. Obviously, it does not show everything I do during a week, but it does reveal the amount of time I have often been distracted from some of the most important things in life. This screentime feature can show you which apps you use the most, how many times you pick up your phone, and the exact time you spend on specific websites. For me, this information is a helpful barometer for how my week has been and what is going on, as our screentime usage can at times correspond in some ways to the stresses, anxieties, and pressures that we each face. These devices are not in themselves bad, but often do distract us and can become forms of escape.
These little devices never really leave our side and can easily become tools of distraction as we seek to avoid our ever-growing to-do list, put off certain conversations, numb ourselves from the challenges we face in our days, or simply disconnect from the immediacies of life and “relax” a bit. Ironically, though, additional screentime often has the reverse effect, as our hearts, minds, and souls are rarely calmer and steadied by mindless scrolling. We tend to be more anxious, isolated, and distracted as a people than ever before, despite the promises of how these tools were going to revolutionize our lives for the good.
Amid the challenges and stresses of life, especially for those called to ministry, we must recognize the formative power of technology and how these tools alter our perception of God, ourselves as human beings, and the world around us in distinct, yet subtle ways. Not only do our tools shape us and our world, but they can also become avenues for us to distract ourselves from what many philosophers call the transcendentals or properties of being that exist beyond our immediate experience and world. These tools often turn our gaze inward, instead of upward toward God. Truth, beauty, and goodness are rooted in God himself and transcend the daily struggles and pressures we face each day. All technologies, especially digital ones, can become ways we amuse and distract ourselves from the people and things that truly matter, whether that be our relationship with God, caring for our families and friends, or even how we serve the Lord in our churches and vocational callings.
Amusing and Distracting Ourselves
In 1985, sociologist Neil Postman published one of his most well-known works about the power of technology, namely television in his day, to transform some of the most important aspects of our lives into mere entertainment and distraction. Postman’s main argument was that television revolutionized society as it took serious subjects like politics, history, art, and the ways we are informed through the news into works of mere entertainment. These vital aspects of life together in society became mere “vaudeville acts,” trivialized entertainment-driven spectacles. But rather than simply amusing and entertaining ourselves, it seems that today’s technologies also have a design by which we are able to distract or distance ourselves from some of the most important things in life. Whether we convince ourselves that we simply need a few minutes to “relax” and next thing we know we have been scrolling for hours or when we feel overwhelmed and “doomscroll” trying to find information that we hope will bring the long desired solace, we often turn to these devices in pursuit of peace, comfort, and distraction from what is right in front of us.
Just as Postman noted how the “now … this” moment of cable TV news reveals how short our attention spans are as we are basically told we have thought enough about one thing and need to move to the next, we live in a world of constant distraction that may not even allow us 30 seconds to focus on something that truly matters before we are distracted by something that promises ease, efficiency, and entertainment. We see this phenomenon at play almost everywhere we turn in society today.
Think about the last meal you had with a friend or your family, where our devices are often within arm’s reach at all times, often placed neatly next to us on the table. Even if you had the awareness not to be on your phone during a meal because of how rude it can come across, we often confidently place the device screen down to communicate to others that we are truly “present” with them. But that little device reminds us and everyone else around us that we can quickly duck out if things become boring, time-consuming, or we just need a hit of the dopamine-induced drive to wonder what we might be missing out on. Even as I write this, my phone is right next to me, and it likely is for you as well, unless you are reading this on your device, which ironically proves the point in some ways about the peak of digital saturation and distraction in our day. You likely will not even be able to finish the piece without getting at least one notification as well. If our devices are constantly distracting us, what are they drawing our attention away from?
Distraction from Truth
Most of us grew up in a day when we were constantly told that “just because it’s on the internet doesn’t make it true.” Even the great Abraham Lincoln once noted in a viral meme, “Don’t believe everything you read on the internet.” The irony about the internet is that it can be a source of great information, but since everyone can access it and post it, it is also a source of great misinformation. Technology often has a double-edged sword effect, but these tools are clearly not neutral.
One of the most significant challenges the church faces in society today is the manipulation of truth, which has become a tool used to push certain agendas upon us in ways that often distract us from reality itself. We live in a day where truth has not only been reduced to mere pragmatism and coherence with what we already believe, but also in a time where we are increasingly dependent upon our devices for access to news and information. Via these technological devices, we have countless false visions of truth being pushed upon us at such a rate that it is difficult at times to wisely navigate the overwhelming nature of what we are facing.
We live in an era of information overload, which Alan Jacobs describes as “a sense that we are always receiving more sheer data than we know how to evaluate.” He goes on to note that this pattern of information overload is partnered with social acceleration, which he defines as “the perception that the world is not only changing but faster and faster.” We are engaged in a “battlefield of information,” where we must quickly triage what we encounter before being forced to jump to another, often unrelated topic. This excess of information is not making us wiser or more virtuous.
Instead, we are often encouraged to prioritize the immediate and to neglect the ultimate, focusing on what will deliver results in the moment (often personal happiness or simple distraction) rather than what may be good for our souls and society in the long run. Paired with this information overload is the reality that many of the messages we receive are crafted to elicit emotional responses shaped to fit the medium. They are calculated to generate outrage, disdain for our neighbors, or even a lack of concern for particular social issues, and the result is corrosive for the future of our politics and social order.
Distraction from Beauty
But more than simply a distraction from truth, the church also faces a world where true beauty has been reduced to mere personal preference, and the small things in life have become trivial as we are constantly seeking more and better entertainment and distraction from life. We see this with the alarming nature of screen time among both adults and children, where it seems we cannot even go to a place like the beach without a little device in our faces. It also strikes me as odd at a sunrise or sunset on vacation, where countless people arrive early or stay late to video and photograph the sunset instead of simply beholding the view.
We seek to capture so much of what is going on around us that we often fail to appreciate the beauty in the first place. Instead of looking at the sunrise or sunset, we just look at it on our devices. We capture it instead of beholding it. Theologian and ethicist Jacob Shatzer captures this well by playing off the old adage “when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” He writes, “When you have a smartphone with a camera, everything looks like a status update.” Shatzer is revealing that these tools are not morally neutral, as they shape how we view the world around us, including what captures our attention and gaze.
Instead of experiencing beauty, especially in community with those around us, we settle for documenting it to show others. Obviously, capturing video and audio is not a bad thing in itself and can be a way to remember certain details or relive a moment, but the rate at which we capture things and see the world at times through our devices is troubling on a number of levels.
Not only can this trivialize life, making it a set of things to be captured or portrayed according to our desire for the adoration or “likes” of others, but also technology can turn our gaze from ultimate beauty by distracting us like an “ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea,” as C. S. Lewis noted in The Weight of Glory. Maybe at times, we could simply put down our devices and experience true beauty, where our gaze is turned beyond us, without seeking to capture or bottle it for future use. Try to live in the moment rather than be distracted from it.
Distraction from Goodness
Being distracted from truth and beauty naturally leads to a place where we are distracted by true goodness. In our contemporary technological society, we are all tempted at times to believe that the things we want in life must be good for us. Given the power of technology to shape and reshape our lives, we tend to employ a technological mindset to questions of goodness and morality as well. If we can seek control over our world, including our own bodies, it seems natural then for many that we are also able to control and alter what we consider the aim of the good life.
Philosophers have long used the idea of the good life to describe the study of ethics and morality. Most people desire to be happy, but often differ on what they consider the good life to be. Philosopher John Stuart Mill captures this idea nicely by stating, “From the dawn of philosophy, the question concerning the summum bonum, or, what is the same thing, concerning the foundation of morality, has been accounted the main problem in speculative thought, has occupied the most gifted intellects and divided them into sects and schools carrying a vigorous warfare against one another.”
The summum bonum, or highest good in life, is what drives every decision we make as human beings, but the problem is that we often disagree with how best to define it. In our current age, the summum bonum is often seen as something we get to define or refine to our liking rather than something discovered. Technology often tempts us with the allure of power and control, giving us the sense that we are our own kings and queens, ultimately in a position to decide what is truly good for us in life. This temptation to be distracted from true goodness found in God himself is one of the strongest in contemporary life, as we often settle for mere imitations of the highest good.
Being Christian Amid the Distractions
Given the realities we face as Christians today, it can feel at times quite overwhelming once we recognize the challenges we face today. Not only are we daily faced with distractions from truth, beauty, and goodness, but we are often bombarded with so much that we simply cannot hope to keep up or process all that is before us. These distractions can take on many forms in our lives whether that be the false realities of online influencers who tell stories of truth, beauty, and goodness that do not accord with reality or social media posts that presents us with a perfectly curated picture of life, designed to merely cohere with what we already want out of life, Christians must recognize that technology is not merely a neutral set of tools but one that is shaping everything about us and our world. These tools are subtly shaping our perception of God, who is himself truth, beauty, and goodness. These transcendentals are fundamental realities of our creator God that we are all hardwired to pursue, even if we are often distracted from their true source in our technological age.
This week, instead of being your high score on your screen time app, try to double down on being present with those God has placed in your life. Whether that be your best friend, spouse, kids, or church community, take this opportunity to slow down in an age of efficiency, speed, and convenience to focus on what truly matters in life. Focus on the things that transcend the here and now as you pursue the good life God has created you for, instead of being distracted by shallow substitutes for truth, beauty, and goodness