Gen Z became the first generation in history to go through puberty with a portal in their pockets that called them away from the people nearby and into an alternative universe that was exciting, addic...
Addiction isn’t just measured in time spent connected to screens but also in how it dulls our spiritual sensibilities. We use social media to blunt the edges of overwhelm, to find something to thrill ...
When I talk with parents of adolescents, the conversation often turns to smartphones, social media, and video games. The stories parents tell me tend to fall into a few common patterns. One is the “co...
Isaiah 49:15-16, Jeremiah 2:13, Matthew 18:3, Galatians 4:6, John 10:27
We’re little children wandering the aisles of the internet because we’ve lost the presence of our loving parent. We are desperate for the attention of a good Father who sees us. We have no idea how to...
Genesis 16:13, Exodus 33:14, Isaiah 49:15–16, Matthew 18:3–4, Luke 15:20–24, Psalm 139:1–3
We’re little children wandering the aisles of the internet because we’ve lost the presence of our loving parent. We are desperate for the attention of a good Father who sees us. We have no idea how to...
Perhaps we look to a screen because it’s too painful to remember we are mortal. To sit in our limits and let them wash over us. To embrace this body, this moment in time, this feeling, or this place. ...
Proverbs 4:5-7, Ecclesiastes 12:11-13, Isaiah 28:9-10, Matthew 7:24-27, James 1:22-25, Psalm 119:11
Gathering information without processing and applying it is counter to how the mind works and how the brain is structured and has a deleterious effect on our mental and physical well-being, creating a...
Did you see the “Smiling Selfie in Auschwitz”? An American teenager touring Auschwitz stirred up a firestorm of criticism when she posted a picture of herself smiling amid a concentration camp (and ev...
Sometime in 2007, a serpent of doubt slithered into my info paradise. I began to notice that the Net was exerting a much stronger and broader influence over me than my old stand-alone PC ever had. It ...
The digital age’s technological advancements boast three major contributions to the improvement of human experience, which in turn have become its undeniable values: We have access to what we want wh...
James 3:5-6, Matthew 6:22-23, Proverbs 18:21, Nehemiah 8:, Isaiah 44:
Culture is shaped by the primary medium of an era. Marshall McLuhan is widely known as the father of media studies. He coined the famous phrase “the medium is the message” in 1965. And while some to...
Matthew 23:27, Isaiah 29:13, Luke 12:2, 1 Peter 3:4, James 5:16
People can say one thing and do something totally different. You see the darkness that is often hidden from polite society. The thing that you see is a widespread insecurity. I think people put on a f...
Leisure has changed significantly since the dawn of the internet age. A 2008 international survey of 27,500 adults between the ages of 18 and fifty-five found that people spend 30% of their leisure ti...
Leisure has changed significantly since the dawn of the internet age. A 2008 international survey of 27,500 adults between the ages of 18 and fifty-five found that people spend 30% of their leisure ti...
In June 2024, I (A. J.) had the opportunity to visit the Oregon State Correctional Institution in Salem, Oregon, to meet with a group of inmates who had read one of my recent books. The experience was...
Exodus 24:15–18, 1 Kings 19:9–12, Isaiah 30:15, Mark 1:35, Luke 5:15–16, Psalm 2:1–2
Recently a professor shared with me a college student’s reflections in response to my earlier writings on solitude and silence: I was not born into a world relatively unaffected by technology lik...
The biggest impediment to concentration is your computer's ecosystem of interruption technologies: IM, email alerts, RSS alerts, Skype rings, etc. Anything that requires you to wait for a response...
Isaiah 40:8, Hebrews 13:8, James 1:17, Matthew 24:35, Colossians 2:8
A YouTube video from the Today Show in 1994 shows Bryant Gumbel and Katie Couric asking each other “What is the Internet?” and debating if the “@” symbol means “at” or “about.” The world is very diffe...
Sisters and brothers, hear the good news When our faith falls short, God remains faithful When we are distracted, God remains attentive When we judge ourselves and others, God offers mercy and forgive...
Without the internet, we wouldn’t expect instant gratification as often as we do. Not just the ability to get online answers immediately, or same day delivery. Because of the internet, the anticipatio...
People began to learn, first from the telegraph, then from radio, newsreels, television, and the Internet, that what was happening now, all over the globe, mattered more than what was happening here.
Studies of conversation both in laboratory and in natural settings show that when two people are talking, the mere presence of a phone on the table between them or in the periphery of their vision cha...
Tony Reinke does a great job capturing the deep ambivalence many of us feel about our smartphones in this short excerpt: This blasted smartphone! Pesk of productivity. Tenfold plague of beeps and ...
In this short excerpt from Brant Hansen’s excellent book, Unoffendable, the author shares a “hypothetical” example of how he deals with online criticism. Generally speaking, it never goes the way you ...
Video is now everywhere. Whatever happens in front of any other Wi-Fi-connected digital camera in the world can be mediated to us and to our vision. Amateur video is pouring into public platforms ever...