Although not a professing Christian, cultural critic Lee Siegel offers a similar diagnosis in his broadside, Against the Machine: Being Human in an Age of the Electronic Mob:

What kind of idea do we have of the world when, day after day, we sit in front of our screens and enter further and further into the illusion that we ourselves are actually creating our own external reality out of our own internal desires? We become impatient with realities that don’t gratify our impulses or satisfy our picture of reality. We find it harder to accept the immutable limitations imposed by identity, talent, personality. We start to behave in public as if we were acting in private, and we begin to fill our private world with gargantuan public appetites. In other words, we find it hard to bear simply being human.

For the first time in human history, a person can have romance, friendship, and sex (sort of); be fed, clothed, and entertained; receive medical, legal, and just about every other type of advice; collect all sorts of information, from historical facts to secrets about other people—all without leaving home. For the first time in human history, a technology exists that allows a person to live as many secret lives, under a pseudonym, as he is able to manage. For the first time in human history, a person can broadcast his opinions, beliefs, and most intimate thoughts—not to mention his face, or any other part of his body—to tens of millions of other people.⁵³

Ways Ahead for Thoughtful Christians

As I indicated above, despite these profound problems, digital technologies also have profound potentials for good. So what is the way forward? Where do we go from here?

First, we should reject uncritical, consumeristic, adoption of digital technologies. We need to establish a set of criteria for employing new digital technologies. In what is a now famous declaration reprinted in Harpers magazine, Kentucky agrarian author and farmer Wendell Berry established an argument for why he wasn’t going to buy a computer (and, by the way, still hasn’t). The short answer is, “I do not see that computers are bringing us one step nearer to anything that does matter to me: peace, economic justice, ecological health, political honesty, family and community stability, good work.”⁵⁴ In the conclusion of his essay, Berry provided his standards for technological innovation, arguing that any new technological tool should:

• Be cheaper than the one it replaces.
• Be at least as small in scale as the one it replaces.
• Do work that is clearly and demonstrably better than the one it replaces.
• Use less energy than the one it replaces (preferably solar or bodily energy).
• If possible, use some form of solar energy, such as that of the body.
• Be repairable by a person of ordinary intelligence (provided they have the tools).
• Be purchasable/repairable as near to home as possible.
• Come from a small, privately owned shop or store that will take it back for maintenance and repair.
• NOT replace or disrupt anything good that already exists, and this includes family and community relationships.

Although these criteria may seem too restrictive or overly strict, the point is that Mr. Berry has a rationale for adopting new technologies. And I would argue that he offers us a good place to begin.

Also, please note that Berry is not a Luddite. The epithet “Luddite” is meant to brand a person as hopelessly anti-technological. But this is not so. Who were the Luddites? They were a group of English craftsmen from Yorkshire who fought back against the industrialization of the woolen industry in the early nineteenth century. They were self-employed and mainly knitted wool hosiery in their homes. The rise of factories and industrial processes threatened not only their livelihoods, but their entire way of life. Their leader was Ned Ludd, hence, the Luddites. It’s not clear whether Ned Ludd was a real or fictitious character, but for those who called themselves Luddites, it didn’t matter. What did matter was that they did not reject technology per se. After all, they used hand looms to knit socks for sale. What they rebelled against was mechanization of the process. They had a “form of life” that involved good people, good work, and a familiar way of life. Industrialization would mean large factories, imported employees, and a lifestyle governed more by efficiency than craftsmanship. They were decidedly not opposed to technology, but railed against the disintegration of their communities.

Second, we should remember our humanity. The anthropological benchmarks outlined above should provide some assistance in establishing criteria. That we are the kind of beings who exercise our wills argues that we should be critical and reflective as we think about technology. Moreover, disembodiment or excarnational technologies should be resisted. Likewise, atomistic individualism should be rejected. We belong in community. As Schultze recommends, “We should accept no humanly devised idols as substitutes for God, no Tower of Babel for the heavenly city.”⁵⁵

Third, like the modern-day Luddites, the Amish, we should resist the notion that efficiency is the summum bonum, the greatest good. In some spheres of life inefficiency should be the measure of the good. For instance, if my wife looked across the table during our candlelit 50th anniversary dinner and remarked, “You know, you’ve been the most efficient husband a woman could wish for,” how would I take that? Either it is an insult or a category mistake. Relationships between husbands and wives, parents and children, and pastors and church members are not measured by efficiency but by richness, depth, and time spent cultivating the relationship.

In the same way, discipleship and education are, by their very nature, inefficient enterprises. They are more like the relationship between a parent and a child or between a master craftsman and an apprentice than they are like industrial processes.

Conclusion

These points beg for practical ways of moving forward. Thus, in Reclaiming Conversation, Turkle suggests that those who wish to tame technology should:

• Remember the power of your phone. It’s not an accessory. It’s a psychologically potent device that changes not just what you do but who are.
• Slow down.
• Protect your creativity. Take your time and take quiet time. Find your own agenda and keep your own pace.
• Create sacred spaces for conversation.
• Think of unitasking as the next big thing.
• Talk to people with whom you don’t agree.
• Obey the seven-minute rule—wait at least seven minutes into a conversation before reaching for your phone.
• Challenge a view of the world as apps.
• Choose the right tool for the job.
• Learn from moments of friction.
• Remember what you know about life.
• Don’t avoid difficult conversations.
• Try to avoid all-or-nothing thinking.

Aiken offers the following practical steps:

• Have a device to announce the time (such as a watch), instead of your phone.
• Uninstall beckoning apps.
• Turn off notifications.
• Keep phone in airplane mode.
• Turn it off—cold turkey.
• If you must play on an iPad or smartphone, play with your child.

Finally, the Sabbath principle may be immensely helpful. Duke University’s Norman Wirzba has written in Living the Sabbath,

. . . a Sabbath way of living stands in marked contrast to our current stressful, exhausting, death-wielding ways. According to the psalmist, Sabbath observance is above all infused with thanksgiving and praise. Insofar as our practical living grows out of a grateful disposition, a sense that the gifts of God to us far exceed what we can comprehend or expect, we give concrete witness to the world of a God whose generosity and care simply know no bounds. When our work a nd our play, our exertion and our rest flow seamlessly from this deep desire to give thanks to God, the totality of our living—cooking, eating, cleaning, preaching, teaching, parenting, building, repairing, healing creating—becomes one sustained and ever-expanding act of worship.⁵⁶

Whether you call it a digital detox or a digital Sabbath, one way to avoid, or, if necessary, break the addictive power of digital technology is to rest from it. At regular periods, turn it off, walk away, and find rest and delight in God and what God has made, even if it’s only for 20 minutes at a time. Ironically, online resources like the Jewish and the Christian website offer helpful tips on breaking the cycle of technological addiction. The alternative is to learn the hard way: if we don’t get away, we’ll come apart.