I recently read a book title Scrolling Ourselves to Death. It is an edited work by a number of Christian authors and thinkers, in recognition of the 40th anniversary of the influential book Amusing Ourselves to Death, by Neil Postman (which was about the affect of television on human thinking and society).
The book is largely about social media, hence the title, and the monumental impact it is having on us as human beings, on society, and on the church. There were many valuable insights I took away from the book, but here are the main ones, with some quotes:
- How seductively powerful is the addictive, dopamine-releasing effect of social media, and how careful Christians must be if we are to live “as wise, making the best use of the time” (Ephesians 5:15-16).
“Dopamine media is designed to distract us to death. Or, if we’re more honest, to distract us into an addiction that leads to death…. The best of us are responsible users who can consume media in moderation. But none of us is fully sober…. If the first victims of our addiction are our time and attention span, the second (and far more important) victims are our families and relationships.” (Patrick Miller 27-28)
“Dopamine media is the most powerful, pervasive, and engineered form of communication technology in human history, and it’s not shaping us to love Jesus most. It’s not shaping us to love our neighbor. It’s shaping us into pleasure-seeking addicts. Christians must recognize that, at its heart, this technological revolution has resulted in an institutional, relational, and formational crisis for the church.” (Patrick Miller, 28) - How social media tempts us to replace in-person, embodied relationships with online, disembodied relationships:
“And with each click, swipe, and scroll, we encounter yet another series of faces ‘whose smiling countenance is unalterable,’ offering us polite pleasantries and robbing us of the messy, painful, beautiful, and transformative gift of meaningful community as the embodied church.” (Jay Y. Kim, 195)
“The time we spend scrolling and wandering down algorithmic rabbit trails is often time taken directly away from the nobler, if harder, tasks God has given us to do.” (Samuel D. James, 86)
“It is one of the evils of rapid diffusion of news that the sorrows of all the world come to us every morning. I think each village was meant to feel pity for its own sick and poor whom it can help and I doubt if it is the duty of any private person to fix his mind on ills which he cannot help. (This may even become an escape from the works of charity we really can do to those we know.) A great many people do now seem to think that the mere state of being worried is in itself meritorious. I don’t think it is.” (C.S. Lewis, quoted by Brett McCracken, 169)
“When pastors and church leaders give inordinate energy toward online engagement, unintentionally conceding our ecclesiology to the comfort and convenience of digital platforms, we reshape congregations into audiences. Teaching gives way to entertainment. Communion gives way to commercialization.” (Jay Y. Kim, 200) - How the internet and social media disrupt our view of and attitude authority and institutions:
“We need only notice how many Christians decide their lives today not by external forms of authority (the Bible, church leaders, generational and communal wisdom) but because of their ‘deeply felt personal insight.’ According to (Charles) Taylor, this translates as radical religious individualism. ‘The religious life or practice that I become part of must not only be my choice, but it must speak to me, it must make sense in terms of my spiritual development as I understand it.’ In this spiritually expressivist house of cards, our emotions and intuitions confirm truth. If we participate in community at all (and many do not), our loyalties are often self-selecting along demographic, partisan, and ethical lines. We seek less to be transformed and more to be ratified.” (Jen Pollock Michel, 54)
“Compared to twenty years ago, the internet—not the local church—has become the primary place wehre Christians are formed today. Before their leaders ever speak, many church members already know what they believe. After all, they’ve been reading, listening, and watching their favorite teachers all week. And they expect their leaders to conform—or else. Preaching, then, is expected to confirm the convictions already developed through the internet.” (Collin Hansen, 94)
“The world can’t do without the local church. And the world can’t do without preachers who exposit God’s word for people they know and love by name. I urge preachers to think small…. What if Christians knew this message was for them—right here, right now? What if they knew they couldn’t get that message unless they showed up in person? What if they knew it wasn’t interchangeable with a digital devotional or sermon podcast or YouTube clip?” (Collin Hansen, 101) - How social media discourages deep, careful thinking, and patient, loving conversations, both of which play vital roles in Christian formation:
“While social media is ill-suited for nuanced reporting and fostering meaningful discourse about substantive issues, it excels at fanning the flames of partisanship and exacerbating the ‘us vs. them’ narratives that now dominate politics. Social media rewards incendiary statements and discourages careful rhetoric, transforming politics into a schoolyard where bullies who make the loudest noise attract large followings. No wonder ‘trolling’ has become common practice for leaders and politicians at the highest levels.” (Hans Madueme, 68-69)
“Christians struggling to answer deep questions should consider how face-to-face conversations, thoughtful books, and other resources are more naturally conducive to slow, meaningful thinking.” (Samuel D. James, 84)
“The most successful TikTok videos last between twenty-one and thirty-four seconds…. Experts tell us the average person takes 10 to fifteen seconds simply to process a new piece of information. It takes far longer to consider it and formulate a response. By that time, a new video is queued up and tailored teasers beckon us: ‘Watch this next!’ Such insectile intervals mean human cognition is literally incapable of doing anything with information presented in this format. We experience it more with our reflexes than with our minds.” (G. Shane Morris, 149) - How the “information glut” of nonstop news and social media can deaden our powers of wisdom and discernment, and distract us from what’s most important:
“Our feeds alternate seamlessly between the useful, the tragic, the absurd, the outrageous, and the pointless. Constructing order out of this chaos requires the wisdom tradition of seasonableness, which both limits and orders our consumption. It’s a way Christians can actively push back against the consuming, mind-numbing effects of ‘everything, all of the time.’ (Samuel D. James, 87)
“The information glut has many side effects…. These include information trivialization…(‘How serious can a flood in Mexico be, or an earthquake in Japan, if it is preceded by a Calvin Klein jeans commercial, and followed by a yogurt commercial’); a tendency toward impatience, forgetfulness, and poor logic in how we process information; and a massive shift in the formula for political success.” (Brett McCracken, quoting Neil Postman, 7)