Is Your Cell Phone Changing You?

We all have them. we all use them. But what are they doing to us, and to our culture and communities?  Consider this - Six Ways Your Phone is Changing You by Tony Reinke

Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone at Macworld Expo 2007, and I got my first one a year later. I can’t remember life without it.

For seven years an iPhone has always been within my reach, there to wake me in the morning, there to play my music library, there to keep my calendar, there to capture my life in pics and video, there for me to enjoy sling-shooting wingless birds into enemy swine, there as my ever-present portal to Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

My iPhone is such a part of my daily life, I rarely think self-reflectively about it. That’s precisely what concerns David Wells, 75, a careful thinker who has watched trends in the church for many decades.

Wells asks Christians to consider the consequences of the smartphone. “What is it doing to our minds when we are living with this constant distraction?” he said recently in an interview. “We are, in fact, now living with a parallel universe, a virtual universe that can take all of the time we have. So what happens to us when we are in constant motion, when we are addicted to constant visual stimulation? What happens to us? That is the big question.”

That’s a huge question. What is life like now because of the smartphone? How has the iPhone changed us? These self-reflective questions may seem daunting, but we must ask them.

The Internet Age

Wells is quick to remind us we are only 20 years into this experiment called “The Internet Age” (or “The Information Age”). All of our digital communications technology is relatively new. One day we will stand back and look with more precision at what our smartphones are doing to our brains, our hearts, and our souls, but we don’t have the leisure to postpone self-reflection for the future. We need to ask ourselves questions now.
We have wise Christian fathers in the faith who are asking important questions, if we’re willing to listen. One such man is Dr. Douglas Groothuis, Professor of Philosophy at Denver Seminary. Groothuis has been tracking the impact of the Internet on the spiritual life since he published his book The Soul in Cyberspace in 1997.

I recently talked with Groothuis about how our iPhones are changing us. He suggested we think about six areas.

Change 1: We are becoming like what we behold.

At first that statement sounds abstract, but it’s one of the most simple (and profound) psychological realities we learn in Scripture: We become like what we behold. To worship an idol is to become like the idol; to worship Christ is to become like Christ. Passages in Scripture abound to this end — Psalm 115:4–8, Romans 1:18–27, 12:1–2, Colossians 3:10, and 2 Corinthians 3:18.

What we love to behold is what we worship. What we spend our time beholding shapes our hearts and molds us into the people we are. This spiritual truth is frightening and useful, but it raises the questions: What happens to our soul when we spend so much time beholding the glowing screens of our phones? How are we changed? How are we conformed?

One way we become like what we behold shows up relationally, Groothuis warns. Our digital interactions with one another, which are often necessarily brief and superficial, begin to pattern all our relationships. “When you begin to become shallow in your interactions with people, you can become habituated to that.” All of our personal interactions take the same shape. The barista at the coffee counter gets a DM-like response. When we hang out with friends, we offer a series of Tweet-like responses in a superficial conversation with little spiritual meaning.

“The way we interact online becomes the norm for how we interact offline. Facebook and Twitter communications are pretty short, clipped, and very rapid. And that is not a way to have a good conversation with someone. Moreover, a good conversation involves listening and timing and that is pretty much taken away with Internet communications, because you are not there with the person. So someone could send you a message and you could ignore it, or someone could send you a message and you get to it two hours later. But if you are in real time in a real place with real bodies and a real voice, that is a very different dynamic. You shouldn’t treat another person the way you would interact with Twitter.” But we do, if we’re not careful.

Change 2: We are ignoring our finiteness.

Fundamentally I am a finite man, severely limited in what I can know and what I can read and what I can engage with and (perhaps most importantly) very limited in what I can really care about. Yet my phone offers me everything — new news, new outrages, new videos, new music, new pictures, and new updates from all my Facebook friends.
One reason we own smartphones is to avoid being left behind. We don’t want to miss anything gone viral. We track hashtag trends mostly out of fear of being left out. And little by little we ignore our finiteness, we lose a sense of our limitations, and we begin lusting after the forbidden fruit of limitless knowledge in a subconscious desire to become infinite like God.

The New Greed

Reading this one made me say "Ouch!" Can addiction to cell phones, social media and e-mail be a form of greed? From Christine Hoover at The Gospel Coalition:

....The next morning I opened my Bible, gave this issue to the Lord, and waited. I knew he was going to talk to me about it, and he did.

“God, help me,” I prayed. “I've allowed technology to distract me beyond measure. I'm causing myself great pain.”

It seemed as if God were saying, “Doesn't this remind you of something you read recently, something about piercing yourself through with many sorrows? What does it say again?”

This is what I'd read in 1 Timothy 6:9–10:

But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. 

Again, he seemed to say, “What you're doing is being greedy. Technology and social media is birthing a new greed, and you've fallen into the snare. Your desire for accolades, invitations, relationships with those I haven't given you, followers, and whatever contentment you think you’ll gain is actually covetousness and greed, and all you're accomplishing is piercing yourself through with many sorrows. Read further.”

Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy. Let them do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life. (1 Tim. 6:17–19)

Going somewhere else in your mind takes away time and energy that could be given to the good works right in front of you.

Slicing Your Mind into a Million Pieces

He helped me understand by applying the Word to me: “Your greediness means you're trusting in uncertain riches and not in me. It also slices your mind in a million pieces, taking you out of your present life and causing stress. This stress gives the illusion that you don't have time to give to others; that you're busy in ways that you're not; that you don't have enough when you have all you need, and that you must be stingy with yourself. Going somewhere else in your mind takes away time and energy that could be given to the good works right in front of you. You are rich—in love, in time, in energy, in gifts—but you act as if you're not. Keep reading.”

But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith. . . . Now godliness with contentment is great gain. (1 Tim. 6:11–12, 6)

The Lord kept instructing me: “This is what matters. This is true gain, not an uptick in Twitter followers or an important e-mail coming through or seeing how you stack up against others. All of what's important with regard to contentment happens in the present. Pursue godliness and pursue contentment in me. This is great gain.”

I knew that God was absolutely right, and I felt so silly because I step so willingly into the snare of greed. But God reminded me that it isn’t silly—it’s a fight.
The New Greed

The new greed. That phrase kept ringing in my ears as I was seeking God about how to fight the good fight of faith. The new greed. We are after so many things, and it's playing out on our phones and iPads and computers as much as it ever has in our other material possessions and our bank accounts. 

Why are we—why am I—checking our phones so often, scrolling through Facebook or Instagram? What exactly are we looking for? Why are we leaving the present that God has given us so richly to enjoy to go somewhere else in our mind, a place often called Comparison or Discontent? 

God has given me the present to richly enjoy. I have enough and, with God's help, will not be ensnared by subtle greed and covetousness.

---

Your Kids and Smart Phones

I hope all parents who read this blog read the Anne Marie Miller article on Your Kids and Sex I linked to on Wednesday. If you haven't already done so, please read it...

...and then read this one: Teens and Unrestricted Access. It's time to start monitoring those smart phones.
 

Other Social Media Connections

Did you know you can access this blog on Facebook  -The Journeymans Files.? Yes you can! I'm also on Twitter @bg_simmons.

Love to see you there also

Papal Tweeting

The Pope is now on Twitter - @Pontifix.  I'm sure our Catholic friends will rejoice at the number of evangelicals now following the Pope!

When Your Internet is Down

When our internet access is down, our idolatry is revealed. I've felt like doing all of the above!

Hat Tip: Vitamin Z

Twitter Gleanings

Some more gleanings from my Twitter feed:

"The beatitudes aren't prescribing how to achieve a better life; they're describing what happens to those that God kills & makes alive." - Tullian Tchvidjian @PastorTullian

There are two paths in life: The path of discipline and the path of regret. One or the other - Your choice. And mine.

 We long for more & God's promise is that there is more awaiting us. More to delight us than we will ever exhaust. @CSLewisU

“All who live with any degree of serenity live by some assurance of grace.” – Reinhold Niebuhr RT @TheIDShift

 "The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it"- Chinese Proverb. RT @bcloritts

 "Religious people obey God to get things; gospel people obey God to get God." - Tim Keller RT @DailyKeller

 "Just the knowledge that a good book is waiting one at the end of a long day makes that day happier." --Kathleen Norris

Modern "statements of faith" lack the depth of thought & eloquence of language found in the great historic creeds of the church. @BrianZahnd 

We should be as generous & lavish in forgiving others as we want God to be generous & lavish in forgiving us.

Productive Illusion

I'm feeling so productive today!

Hat Tip: 22 Words

Follow Me on Twitter

For those of you who use Twitter I'm now on board with the Twitverse. You can follow me at bg_simmons.
    

Offering Strange Kindle Fire

What if they made this announcement at the start of every church service?

“Please silence your pagers and cell phones as we prepare to worship the living God. We welcome you to use your phones, readers, or other digital devices to follow along in God’s Word, but we warn you that this is the worst possible time to send texts, check email, or bomb angry birds. God demands and deserves our full attention, and he destroyed Nadab and Abihu for offering “strange fire” during worship. So use your kindle fire at your own risk.”

Somehow I don't think that would go over very well!
BTW, the Nadab and Abihu reference is from Leviticus 9 & 10.

From Mike Wittmer

The Apostle John on Technology

Some interesting comments on the use of communication technology:

We mentioned the apostle John’s view of technology found in 2 John 12, where he wrote, “Though I have much to write to you, I would rather not use paper and ink. Instead I hope to come to you and talk face to face, so that our joy may be complete.”

John was comfortable using the communication technology—pen and ink—of his day, but he did so with a set of values that were contrary to the tendencies built into the technology of writing. Whereas a letter requires that one isolated person write a message and then another isolated person later read that message, John says that his joy is never complete until he is physically present with his community.

And yet, aware of this problem, John used writing because he understood both its helpfulness and its problematic value system. From that perspective he was able to use technology in service of the embodied communal life that Christ taught him. When John could not be physically present with his community, he was comfortable using technology to communicate with them. But he was always careful to state that he considered technologically mediated relationships to be inferior to embodied relationships.

It's Only Real When It's Facebook Official

Tweeting Jesus

Hat Tip: Rick Ianniello: jesus tweets?:

What Happens When Your Cell Phone Goes Off in Church?

One church's light hearted approach to a common problem.

Hat Tip:Take Your Vitamin Z: What Happens When Your Cell Phone Goes Off in Church?:

On Temptations to Sin Via Social Media

Found a great post by Julian Freeman - Social Media and Temptations to Sin   - the kind of post that makes me say Ouch! He begins with:

Blogging, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, the list is endless and growing. The options and opportunities for engaging in online social media are legion. To be sure, as Tim Challies points out in The Next Story, technology is not in and of itself either good or bad. Christians must engage deliberately and discerningly in an effort to redeem the opportunities afforded by living in the age we do.

It must be stressed again, however, that this engagement must be thoughtful. If we say, 'I just like it' and then go full-steam, headlong into the world of facebook, twitter, or whatever, we will be setting ourselves up for disaster.

Here are just a few of the immediate temptations we need to be aware of that come hand-in-hand with participation in social media...

Much good stuff in the post about confusing words with action and the problem of empty speech (read it at the link) - but then he closes with this:

..Much of what happens in the social media world is measured by some kind of 'analytics.' Friends in Facebook, followers in Twitter, subscribers in the blog-world, etc. It is tempting to measure our success by how many people 'like' what we write or 'retweet' what we post. We can find value in having people follow us, becoming our 'online disciples' of sorts.
But consider Jesus's description of the Pharisees who set themselves up as teachers:

They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others. But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ. The greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. (Matt 23:5-12)

 Ouch! If he had also quoted James 3:1, I'd really have to say ouch!

False Faces on Facebook

From B J Stockman - The "Hotmess" and False Perceptions of Facebook:

You are not your Facebook page, and you don’t need to be. Sure use social-networking, but don’t be unaware of its dangers and deceits. Your friend from college who posts every possible pregnant belly shot possible–doesn’t always look that good. Your old friend from childhood who dates his wife every other day–still has rough patches in their marriage. Your friends who live far away and have those funny and cute kids–aren’t always that funny and cute. O, and neither are you quite that remarkable.

Your Facebook is not you nor is it your friends. Don’t trade the illusions of social networking for the difficulty and beauty of real relationships. What matters most about you is not what is visual–what is seen on the outside via Facebook or whatever–but what is internal.

Facebook tempts us to post things that increase the currency of our like-ability and indulge in the fear of man. The gospel of Jesus rescues you from the need to show how “hot” you are in whatever area of your life you deem important enough to be publicly personified so that people will “like” you. No matter what your Facebook page reveals about you, your life is messy and in desperate need of the life-changing grace and love that Jesus freely gives to those who trust him. The good news is that if you die to yourself and your identity and trust who God is for you in Jesus he gives you a glorious identity: “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you will also appear with him in glory.” (Colossians 3:3-4)

When you awaken to the reality of this glorious identity you may still use Facebook but it won’t shape who you are. The glory of your identity–your whole life–being “with Christ” and “in God” empties Facebook of its allure of false perceptions and being liked.

Hat Tip: Facebook, the Fear of Man, and the Gospel

Internet Addiction = Idolatry

Yesterday my neighbor was digging a trench for a new sprinkler system and accidently cut the Comcast cable to both of our homes. Result: we had no cable TV, telephones or internet access for 24 hours. Another result was that the extent of my internet addiction (and media addiction in general) was revealed once again.

Also Yesterday Take Your Vitamin Z posted the image to the right and a link to an article by Alexia Tsotsis referring to Facebook as The New Smoking:

We’ve all been there; You’re at an outing or a dinner table with friends but itching to check your email or Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or Google+ or Yammer or what ever digital hit of serotonin you prefer. Have you ever “gone to the bathroom” in order to check email or come up with a socially appropriate excuse to pull out your smartphone just so you can check your @ replies on Twitter

Remember when the critical mass of smokers used to leave the table or meeting in groups to go indulge their habit? I straight up open my laptop at bars and parties, and then feel more guilty about that than drinking.

A new British study released today backs up what we otherwise know intuitively, that Internet usage is increasingly becoming an addiction. Out of 1000 people surveyed after being cut off from the Internet for 24 hours, 53% reported feeling “upset” about being deprived of online access and 40% said that they felt lonely after not being able to connect to the Internet. Participants described the digital detox akin to quitting drinking or smoking and one even said it was like having his hand chopped off (!).

Read the rest here.

Not sure what I am going to do about this, but I need to do something. Anything, good or bad or indifferent, that becomes an ultimate thing has also become an idolatry thing. God deliver me from all idolatry!

The New Measure of Existence

Dilbert comic strip for 07/19/2011 from the official Dilbert comic strips archive.:

Hat Tip: Chailles.com

Dos and Don'ts for Web-Savy Ministries

At the website of America Magazine, "the National Catholic Weekly," there is a good list of 10 Dos and Don'ts for Web-Savy Organizations. Good advice here for any church, ministry or any Christian organization.

Hat Tip: The Anchoress

BTW: Did you know that the Pope now has a twitter account? See http://t.co/fVHpS9y
    
 

Is Google in the Original Greek?

 Well, at least he didn't translated it with "Yahoo."

From:  Internet Service - The Sacred Sandwich: