Chapter 5 Displacement: The Ingredients Our Screens Steal
Chapter 6 Brain Formation: The Ways Humans Change
INTERLUDE – Which Factors Impact Us Most?
Chapter 7 Artificial Intelligence
Chapter 8 The Good News
Chapter 9 Your Tech Rule
Chapter 10 Principles for the Road Ahead
CONCLUSION What Matters Most of All
FOR FURTHER EXPLORATION
“All things are permitted for me, but not all things are of benefit. All things are permitted for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.”
1 Corinthians 10:23
Introduction
Two things sparked this book. The first is a simple reality: how we use our screens will affect the rest of our lives profoundly. If we hope to flourish as humans and followers of Christ, we must rule our technology…or it will rule us.
I’ve felt this deeply for myself: how a smartphone can sow anxiety in my heart, ravage the clarity of my thoughts, and erode my capacity to be present with those I love. But I’ve also seen how even small changes can make an immense difference for good. I want that for you, too –very much – and I know that it is possible.
The second reason is a story. Not long ago, my family and I spent an unforgettable month in Ethiopia. Every day was a gift, from the country’s vibrant history to its tongue-tingling spices. Most of all, we loved the people – dear and faithful souls who poured such good into each of us.
At a Christian gathering there, I taught a workshop on the gifts and hazards of technology. Afterward, a woman approached my wife, Rachel. Through tears, she confessed to feeling that smartphones had gutted her life.
The woman described how family dinners had been the highlight of her day. Now, meals held lots of silence and half-hearted exchanges. Her once-cheerful, energetic children had grown restless and discontent apart from their screens. Her husband, though a good and loving man, often seemed only partially present. Even their bedroom felt altered, from a place of rest and intimacy to just one more space awash in work or shallow distractions.
My heart ached as Rachel recounted this to me. In the weeks that followed, we heard many similar accounts: rising anxiety … invading pornography … loss of Ethiopia’s fabled hospitality … one leader’s sense that he’d completely lost his capacity to focus.
This is not the first time Western gifts have mingled good and ill. In the 1960’s and 70’s, infant formula swept into Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Corporations and governments promoted the replacement for breast milk as an unquestioned good. It represented progress, a gift of science that promised to make life healthier, happier and more efficient for millions.
The truth was far less rosy. Yes, in the face of a mother’s death or malnutrition, formula could be a marvelous gift, providing essential calories to a famished babe. But in most cases, formula was unnecessary and expensive, costing far more than many families could afford. Worse yet, formula displaced many things newborns need most. It replaced the unmatched nutrition and immune boost provided by breast milk with a stew of highly-processed chemicals. The shift bottle feeding also often undermined vital bonding of mother and child.
No doubt, many mothers sensed deep down that it wasn’t good. But it’s not easy to resist what everyone else is doing, especially when it’s sold as science and progress.
Finally, however, the tide turned. Good people began to chart a different path together, from international nonprofit and health researchers to local nurses and pastors. Each brought unique contributions -- trustworthy data, timeless wisdom, friend-to-friend encouragement. Together, they corrected a great error and cultivated new health.
What I saw in Ethiopia convinced me that this joining-of-strengths is needed again today.
Smartphones came to Western nations in the early 2010s with a speed that left many reeling. Europeans and Americans have struggled greatly with how to receive technology’s gifts while avoiding its harms. As we’ll see in the pages ahead the results thus far have not been good.
This transformation is now sweeping the rest of the world even faster – not just a rising tide but a tsunami. Its speed allows little time to consider what to receive and what to avoid as it breaks over us.
Those facing this in the global South need help. Those in Western nations – now living in the aftermath of the first waves – need help, too. We must aid each other. We can pair scientific research, age-old Christian wisdom and mutual encouragement from north and south, east and west. We can mark out new ways, grounded in old ways – fresh patterns and boundaries for our technology that will yield health to us, our families, and all people.
I pray that this book is a small but meaningful contribution to that end.
I trust you’ll finish it with a deeper understanding of why our screens are affecting us so deeply. You’ll see more clearly how to receive their gifts and avoid their harms. And you’ll be strengthened as a leader who not only can speak to these matters, but also models habits that lead to flourishing over time.
My friend, our world needs that from us – desperately. We wrong our neighbors if we offer only more of the same tech-fed anxiety and distraction they can find everywhere else.
Thanks be to God, He has far better gifts to give – both to us and through us. If we are willing to participate with Him to set our technology in its proper place, much good lies ahead. Clearer minds. Calmer hearts. Wiser parenting, deeper friendships, renewed marriages. Sweeter fellowship with God. And much more besides.
That’s my prayer – and confidence! – as I hand this book to you.
—JEDD MEDEFIND
CHAPTER 1
We Must Choose
“Attention is the beginning of devotion.”
--Mary Oliver
Here’s the main idea. If we wish to thrive, we must choose the place we give technology in our lives.
The time and spaces we yield to our smartphones and other screens will impact us at every level. They will form us – from our inner thoughts and most intimate relationships to our work, mental health, and spiritual vitality.
And this we must know: if we do not make these choices, they will be made for us. If we do not decide otherwise, our devices will always take more.
The forces working to take just-a-little-bit-more of your attention are marvelously smart. Many of the brightest and best paid minds in the world spend every day working to that end – from tech developers and designers to clever advertisers.
If they can get you to give them even a tiny bit more of your focus today than yesterday, they’ve won. Only a few additional seconds on their app, news site, game, or social media feed. Just one more glance during dinner, at a stoplight, or in the bathroom. It’s not that they’re bad people – just their job.
Humans are not the only ones strategizing to capture more of you. Algorithms and AI and quantum computers have been enlisted in this game also. Over 25 years ago, the computer Deep Blue beat the most brilliant chess player in the world, Gary Kasparov. You and I now sit across the table from much more advanced opponents. They do not wish us harm. (At least we hope they don’t.) They only want a little bit more of your attention every day.
So we must keep always in mind: if we do not set the boundaries – where we will yield our attention to devices and where we will not – that decision will be made for us. And that decision will always be more. We must rule our technology, or it will have its way with us.
The Most Valuable Thing We Possess
Attention is the most prized commodity today. When a company gains our attention, they can turn it into income, influence and more. As a friend in the tech industry described to me, “For the money game, it’s all about eyeballs. That’s it.”
Businesses and influencers aren’t foolish to prioritize our attention. Advertising dollars merely confirm a vital truth: attention is precious. In fact, our attention is the single most valuable thing we possess.
Why? Because attention is the first and most essential ingredient in every last thing we want to gain or accomplish. Virtually every human endeavor and enterprise and experience –from intimacy to invention, scientific discovery to learning an instrument, artistic creation to community development -- all hinge on our capacity for focused attention.
Attention is the most precious gift we give to others, too. Nothing conveys value to another person like attention. As Simone Weil expressed, “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”1
In fact, all expressions of love start with the attention of one individual to another. It’s a mother gazing at her newborn, old friends across the table in a coffee-shop, a little girl’s delight in her new puppy, a kind doctor’s intent questions and gaze, young lovers rapt in each other’s eyes. Certainly, love often goes on to express itself in other ways, too – including acts of great sacrifice and service. But love always begins in the same place, with attention.
Whatever we give attention to will grow. What we fail to attend to – or give only fractured attention – will shrivel over time.
The First and Greatest Commandment
The passage understood by Jews and Christians alike to hold the greatest commandment is called the Shema.
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up… (Deuteronomy 6:4-7)
The Shema takes its name from its first word: “Hear, O Israel…” It means, “Listen!”, “Attend!”, “Give your full faculties to this!”
This greatest of all commandments is fundamentally about attention. It’s about attention in an immediate sense, as in “Listen up now!” It also about attention in an ongoing sense, as in “What you consistently give your attention to is the most important thing you do, because your attention both conveys your affections and forms the person you are becoming.”
In other words, our love for God begins with where we choose to direct our attention. If we love God, we will give our attention to Him and the things He cares about. That starts with His Word, the logos -- including the written words of Scripture … God’s glory and goodness revealed in Creation … the still-small whispers of His Spirit … and the Word-made-flesh in Jesus.
When we give ourselves to God in this way, attending to His Word, we also learn to give earnest attention to others – to the “neighbors” God puts in our lives. We are present with them in a way we hadn’t been before. We offer them a different kind of presence – one that feels more and more like the presence of Jesus. Jim Elliot described such a person poignantly, “Wherever you are, be all there.”
As we grow in this way of life – developing new patterns of attention toward others and also in the thought-habits we cultivate deep within (Philippians 4:8) – we are steadily shaped by God into something quite different from what we were. Humans are formed by the things we give our attention to. We become like the things we habitually gaze upon.
This reality is at the heart of what it means to “be transformed by the renewing of your minds.” (Romans 12:2) While the steady transformation of a person into the likeness of Jesus ultimately involves every last part of us, it always begins with new choices and habits of attention.
The stakes could not be higher – nothing less than the person we are becoming. Our character will take the shape of the things to which we give our eyes, ears, and thoughts. Over time, our lives become the sum of our attentions.
The Very Good News
Here again is the stark reality: if we do not make these decisions, they will be made for us. But that sobering truth comes with some very good news, too. We can make those decisions. With even a little intentionality and effort, we have full capacity to set clear bounds for the time and places we’ll yield to technology. We can choose where we’ll receive the gifts technology offers and where we’ll say, “Not here.”
Even better, those small choices have big consequences. Your little daily decisions of attention –repeated over time -- can help grow you into a different sort of person than you are today: less anxious and more calm, less grasping and more grateful, less fractured and more fully present, less self-absorbed and more self-forgetful, happily caught up in the life of God, His good gifts, and the work He’s called us to do.
Really, what could be better?
The power to bring this fruit in our lives is God’s alone. But He invites us to participate with Him in it. A good farmer knows he can’t produce a single peach. But the Maker of all things invites us into the process – laboring alongside Him to plant and prune, water and harvest –joining our feeble powers with God’s infinite power.
Nothing will more deeply form us and feed the fruit of our lives than our habits of attention – and today, few attentional decisions are more consequential than how we approach our smartphones and other screens. We can choose. And we must – choosing to rule our technology so it will not rule us.
FOR REFLECTION
Consider for a moment: in your experience, what fruit grows from giving focused attention to the following things?
• A friendship.
• A marriage.
• Relationship with children.
• Craftsmanship.
• A conversation.
• Social media feeds.
• The news.
• Netflix series.
• Advertising.
• Prayer.
• Frustrations with a spouse or coworker.
• The beauty of creation.
• Things we’re grateful for.
CHAPTER 2
The Alloyed Good of Technology
In the 1950’s, researchers in Germany produced a new medicine, “Contergan.”
The drug was first used to calm anxiety and overcome insomnia. Over time, other benefits became apparent, too, including (wonderfully!) relief from nausea. For the first time in history, expectant mothers could escape the misery of morning sickness.
Contergan’s advantages were so significant and its side effects so small that it was approved as an over-the-counter drug. It delivered calmed nerves, sweet sleep, and a nausea-free pregnancy for countless users.
About this same time in some parts of the world, doctors noticed a disturbing trend – an uptick in babies born with deformed or missing limbs. Others were blind or dear or had serious heart defects. At first it was a few, then more, then thousands.
At the start, no one knew what was causing the surge in deformations. But over time, a common thread began to appear. The mothers of the deformed newborns had all taken the same drug: Contergan, also known as thalidomide. Slowly – then suddenly with a flash – the terrible truth dawned on Western medicine. This new technology capable of bringing so much good was also capable of great harm.
Today, thalidomide is still prescribed for some treatments, including leprosy and multiple myeloma cancer. But it is no longer used to help with insomnia or anxiety or nausea. Most importantly, every effort is made to never, ever expose a developing child to thalidomide.
Mixed Blessings
History is full of such stories: new technologies that provided immense benefits but also carried serious downsides.
Roman aqueducts provided fresh water to massive cities. This increased sanitation dramatically, reducing illness and saving countless lives. The aqueducts, however, were sometimes lined with lead, infusing a new element into the drinking water of Rome’s citizens. Lead was also used in Roman cooking vessels, wine additives and food storage. While history can’t reveal the impact of lead on the Romans, we do know that lead exposure causes great harm in the human brain, especially for developing children.
Nearly two millennia after Rome’s aqueducts, leaded paint and leaded gasoline brought the same combination to citizens of the modern world: great benefits paired with great costs over time.
The story of asbestos is similar. Asbestos-laced materials have been used since ancient times to protect humans from burns – in blacksmiths’ gloves, magicians’ capes, and more. In the early 20th century, new technology enabled asbestos to be pulverized and spread on walls and ceilings. This dramatically cut risks of catastrophic building fires.
Imagine the relief for people who’d seen a conflagration like the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. In three swift days of burning, it destroyed 17,000 buildings, leaving hundreds dead and more than 100,000 homeless. Any technology that could prevent such devastation was a wonderful gift indeed.
And yet, little by little, careful observers began to notice that people who worked with asbestos seemed to be especially prone to lung cancer. Even back in 1897, long before asbestos was used on a mass scale, a physician in Vienna reported that weavers using asbestos were more likely to have pulmonary problems. Wider accounts in the US in the 1930s echoed these concerns, but were dismissed as alarmist. It wasn’t until the 1970s that the ways asbestos caused mesothelioma cancer were fully grasped. By then, it had diminished or destroyed the lives of countless construction workers, factory employees, and others.
Like thalidomide and lead, asbestos is still utilized today in some settings, including the heatresistant tiles that cover space shuttles. But clear boundaries are zealously set as to where and when it will be used.
Technology & Discernment
The point here, of course, is not that technology is bad. Technology is simply a creative new way of solving an old problem. It benefits humans in countless ways, and we have every reason to receive and celebrate its gifts.
But we must also know that every technology, like any medication, has side effects. Some of these unintended consequences are miniscule. Some may even be positive. But others aren’t. At times, their costs far outweigh the benefits the technology brings.
So when it comes to new technologies, we have reason for thoughtful caution. Just because something new makes life easier or more entertaining doesn’t mean it’s good for us or will make us truly happy in the long run. Just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should. That’s what the Apostle Paul was getting at with these words,
“All things are permitted for me, but not all things are of benefit. All things are permitted for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.”
Keeping this fact before us doesn’t make us Luddites, who famously opposed any and every new technology. Rather, we take time to observe carefully. We look out for both benefits and unintended consequences. We ask good questions, like:
• What good does this technology add to my life?
• What good might it displace?
• How might it alter my relationships with others?
• How might it affect my inner life – the things I regularly think about and feelings like calm, gratitude, and joy?
Then, after pondering our answers, we decide. We make critical choices about the ways we’ll utilize a technology – and ways we won’t.
With these questions in mind, let’s return to the 21st century.
CHAPTER 3
A Crisis in Youth Mental Health
To this day, warriors of the Maasai tribe in East Africa greet each other after long travels, “Kasserian ingera?” How are the children?
The question conveys a prime concern of any healthy society. If our children are not well, what else matters? However prosperous today may be, our future is shadowed.
The question points to a second reality, too. Children are often the first to show signs of a wider unwellness. If a whole community lacks adequate nutrition, we’ll often notice it first in the faces of boys and girls. If pollutants pervade drinking water, it’s young, developing brains and bodies will be damaged most swiftly and pervasively.
The wellbeing our children is the prime indicator of the wellbeing of our society. That’s first because we love them. But we must also know that most everything that harms young minds, bodies, and spirits – from lead in water to air pollution, from emotional abuse to isolation –ultimately affects people of all ages.
First Warning Signs
In the mid-2010’s, thoughtful observers began to notice significant increases in mental health problems among children and youth in the US and other Western nations. The symptoms ranged widely, from difficulty paying attention to serious depression to suicidal thoughts. In the US, clinical anxiety among youth alone more than doubled from 2012 to 2018.
The years that followed have only confirmed these trends. A 2024 study reviewing data from 41 Western countries found a massive rise in unwellness over the decade preceding 2022. As chart after chart revealed, while markers of unwellness ran relatively flat from 1994 onward, they began rising dramatically in the early 2010s – essentially doubling from 2012 to 2022. The authors note, “By 2022, nearly 60% of adolescent girls and about 30% of boys now report experiencing multiple mental health complaints each week.”2
A 2023 report from Harvard found even more troubling results. Experts had hoped that as teens entered their twenties, their mental health would begin to improve. It did not. Rather, the situation was getting notably worse. Anxiety and depression were continuing to climb among young adults, as much as doubling the already-disturbing rates evident in their teen years.3
Why are Young People Doing So Poorly?
How can this be? Young people in the West today experience more freedom, opportunity, and material prosperity than any prior generation. Yet, by many measures, they are also among the most miserable.
Almost certainly, many factors are playing a part. Important drivers likely include:
• Fewer children growing up in intact families, with more raised by single parents.4
• Significantly less time outdoors.
• Decreases in free, unstructured play.
• Less of what researchers call “authoritative” parenting (i.e. that blends warmth with firm boundaries) and more “permissive” parenting.
• Less social connection and more isolation and loneliness.5
• Fewer children aged 0-3 cared for by their mothers, with more cared for in paid group settings.6
• Loss of cultural consensus on key moral and spiritual questions, leaving many youth with an unstable sense of identity, values, and purpose.
• Less religious belief and practice generally, and more young people reporting no religion.7
Research suggests that each of these factors can have a major impact on the psyche of a young person. Studies consistently find that the presence of married parents8, time outdoors,9 unstructured play,10 authoritative (kind and firm) parenting,11 12 strong social connections,13 early care by one’s mother or another devoted caregiver,14 and religious faith15 16each boost wellbeing substantially. Taken together, their impact is immense.
The opposite is also true. When these elements are absent from a child’s life, his or her statistical outcomes drop significantly. The reality that all eight of these factors have trended sharply downward in most Western nations likely creates an ecosystem effect, with each negative trend amplifying the others.
Studies that look closely at children that are not struggling deeply confirm that view. For example, kids growing up with strong religious commitments, in conservative families, and are raised by married parents tend to enjoy dramatically better mental health than their peers.17
But as important as these elements are, there’s reason to believe that one additional factor is playing an outsized role driving mental health downward, acting as a catalyst to negative trends that had long been brewing. The other elements likely each contributed. But one final ingredient appears to have caused a dramatic increase in their effects.
Imagine a pot of warm water. You’re pouring in sugar, which dissolves easily. More and more of the white grains disappear as you stir and pour, pour and stir. The sugar is there but largely invisible. Then you drop a string into the pot and -- boom! – sugar crystals suddenly take shape, instantly visible, as if out of nowhere.
The string didn’t create the sugar crystals on its own. The conditions around the string had already prepared most of what was needed. But the addition of the string made the crystallization happen, all at once.
So what did this for the mental health crisis?
What Happened Around 2012?
If you chart youth mental illness over the past twenty years, you’ll see what looks like a hockey stick. The line is mostly flat for the 2000’s. Then, seemingly from nowhere, it climbs sharply. Right about 2012, virtually every measured mental health problem – from anxiety to depression to suicide to ADHD – started rising like an airplane take-off. The obvious question: Why then?
It just so happens that 2012 is the first year that more than half of Americans owned a smartphone. It also was about the time social media use reached a critical mass among youth. Facebook and other social apps had been around for several years, but they no longer felt “optional” for many teens. Having a social life increasingly required spending significant time, attention, and emotional energy online.
Of course, the fact that smartphones and mental health problems arrived at about the same time doesn’t prove anything. Correlation is not causation. Just because baby rabbits and daffodils both appear in the springtime doesn’t mean rabbits cause flowers. For years, defenders of big tech have argued that smart phones use and youth mental health problems shot upward together was a just a big coincidence.
At first, it was hard to tell. Many early studies found a high correlation between social media and negative outcomes, but they couldn’t show what was causing what.
For example, an important 2018 study found that the higher a child or youth’s screen use, the more likely they were to face depression, anxiety, and a host of other ills – from lower selfcontrol and increased distractibility to less emotional stability, difficulty making friends, and inability to finish tasks.18 Another study in 2019 found comparable results in the UK.19
Internal research by Facebook/Instagram (now Meta) stumbled on similar results, finding that one-third of teenage girls said “Instagram made them feel worse” despite feeling “unable to stop themselves” from logging on.2021
Other research shed light on different potential problems. A 2018 study of 2- to 5-year-olds found screen time was highly connected to temper tantrums and a notable decrease in a child’s ability to calm themselves or bounce back after disappointments.22 A range of other studies pointed to notably lower self-control and ability to focus for older children.23
None of these studies proved causation, but they did raise warning signs, most of them pointing in the same direction.
Even without a clear scientific consensus, there’d been indicators of potential trouble long before. In 1998, what’s now called the “Home Net” Study sounded early alarm bells. Researchers provided computers with Internet access to families, then watched to see if this impacted family life. It did. Even with its snail-slow connections and unsophisticated websites, increased Internet use brought:
• “Declines in participants’ communication with family members…”
• “Declines in the size of [participants’] social circle,” and
• “Increases in [participants’] depression and loneliness.”
All this sounds a bit like those first suspicions that asbestos might contribute to lung cancer … or lead to brain damage … or Contergan to child deformities. The first clues weren’t yet enough to move society, but they gave wise observers strong hunches. Those who ignored them did so at great cost.
The Evidence Continues to Build
As studies and other evidence continues to build, most signposts point even more strongly in the same direction. That’s not to say questions don’t remain. From time to time, a researcher will report finding no connection between smart phone use and wellbeing.24
Since so many things play a part in a young person’s wellbeing, some of the factors noted above – like declines in marriage rates or religious practice or perhaps other unknown factors – may drown out the impact of screens in a child’s life. But taken together, the evidence appears increasingly clear: smartphones and developing human beings generally don’t go well together.
For example, a 2022 BYU study found dramatically higher depression among teens that regularly curate their social media feeds.25 Another sweeping study found a “consistent and substantial association” between mental health issues and use of social media and Internet generally, especially among girls.26
Perhaps the most damning data come from the internal reports of social media companies themselves. After all, no one else has access to their vast, real-time data. Here’s how one recently-uncovered report at Tik-Tok put it:
“[C]ompulsive usage correlates with a slew of negative mental health effects like loss of analytical skills, memory formation, contextual thinking, conversational depth, empathy, and increased anxiety.” It also “interfer[s] with essential personal responsibilities like sufficient sleep, work/school responsibilities, and connecting with loved ones.”27
Of course, there’s much to ponder here. For example, this description speaks of “compulsive usage.” Might more moderate usage be less harmful? Probably. Still, virtually all the ills described here are rising among youth broadly, including many whose use appears relatively moderate. Maybe that is because, as TikTok executives themselves have described, “The product in itself has baked into it compulsive use.”28
This chapter and several other sections focus especially on children and youth. That’s where we currently see the most obvious and vivid effects of smartphones and social media. Young, developing minds, bodies and spirits are uniquely vulnerable. They receive the harms of bad or lacking inputs more quickly, visibly, and permanently. But as noted at the start of this chapter, most things that negatively affect the young eventually affect everyone. This impact usually comes first and strongest among children. But all too often, our boys and girls prove to be the proverbial “canaries in the mine” – showing the first evidence of dangers that can harm us all.
At the very least, we should honestly ask: if we knew that a substance caused outcomes like these to any degree – say asbestos or lead – about how much would we feel good about allowing our kids to eat?
We won’t dig into all the research here. But if you’d like to go deeper, you can’t do better than the work of Jonathan Haidt. His book, The Anxious Generation, provides a tremendous distillation of all the major research and arguments up to 2024. Meanwhile, Haidt’s blog, “After Babel,” continues to spotlight the best research – including conflicting studies – and keeps the dialogue constantly fresh.
We’ll end with one final study, by Sapien Labs in 2023.29 Its findings are especially noteworthy, with data from more than 27,000 youth coming from 41 countries across North America, Europe, Latin America, Oceania, South Asia, and Africa.
In the graph below, the Y (vertical) axis charts participants’ overall mental health score (MHQ). The higher the better. The X (horizontal) axis marks the age at which participants received their first smartphone, from six to eighteen.
As you can see, the results are remarkably clear. The later a child receives a smartphone, the better their mental health. For girls, mental health scores rose steadily the longer they waited to use a smartphone, all the way to 18 (and perhaps beyond). For boys, the steady rise in mental health partially flattens out in the early teens, but the very best mental health was still enjoyed by boys didn’t get a smartphone until at least age 18.
The study reveals a variety of other outcomes as well, many charting correlations between the age of first smartphone and more specific mental health outcomes. Every graph reveals the same pattern. For example, the later a youth received a smartphone, the lower their likelihood of suicidal thoughts, feelings of aggression, hallucinations, addictions and other very negative outcomes.
Like most research to date, this study shows only correlations. It could be mere coincidence that delayed smartphone use and good mental health appear so connected. But when it comes to kids we love, why take that chance?
How Do Smart Phones Affect Humans?
Let’s assume for a moment that smartphones and social media are impacting young people. For that matter, let’s assume they impact us, too.
After all, even if we lay aside all the trends and studies noted in the last chapter, we can also simply check our own pulse. Consider -- how do you feel after an hour on Instagram or Facebook? Or following a quick hit of political news or seeing images of disaster around the globe? Or suddenly realizing you’ve stayed up way too late surfing the Web or consuming YouTube?
Do you feel calmer or more anxious? Content or dissatisfied? More able to remember things or less? If you experienced life before smartphones, do you now sense that your capacity to give attention to things you’re doing … to feel peaceful or grateful … to find joy in simple pleasures … to connect deeply with others … are what they were before all this came your way? Or might you sense that some of these abilities have been diminished?
If you believe you may be less well off in at least some of these areas, a big question naturally arises. What is it about our devices that causes these negative outcomes?
Three key factors appear to play central roles in how smartphones and other screen use affect humans. We’ll call them:
1) Content. The images, ideas, and stories that come to us through our devices.
2) Displacement. The things we do less of because we’re using our devices.
3) Brain Formation. The ways that our devices reshape the way our brains work over time.
Most people think mainly about the effects of the content that tech delivers. And indeed, the content we regularly consume is very consequential. But, as we’ll see, the other two categories are immensely significant also. We’ll take these three factors one chapter at a time.
CHAPTER 4
Content: The Things Our Screens Deliver
Our screens are a pipeline into our minds. They deliver images, ideas, and stories – which feed our thoughts and character. Day by day, the content they deliver colors the person we’re becoming. As Marcus Aurelius observed, “A person’s thoughts dye their soul.”
Of course, the dyes available online come in every hue imaginable – from sunrise golds to hopeless black to bloody crimson.
Like the aqueducts of ancient Rome, this pipeline offers immense gifts:
• Connection and communication with family, friends and associates near and far
• Tools for life management and convenience that’d astound prior generations
• Information and insights that span virtually all human understanding
• Delightful entertainment in most every form imaginable
• Boundless opportunities to grow in knowledge and skill
• Ways to imagine and create as never before
• And so much more
These gifts offer incalculable benefits, and we have good reason to receive many of them with gratitude.
And yet, Roman aqueducts also brought poisonous lead to those who drank its waters, especially harmful to young brains. Consider some of such darker element that come through our screens alongside the good:
• Endless reasons for fear and sorrow -- disasters and horrors from around the globe … menaces of terrorism, diseases, mass shootings, and apocalyptic ends … an endless parade of threats. (Studies suggest that merely viewing news and images of troubling events can create PTSD-like symptoms – sometimes with an ever greater impact than from actually experiencing them!30)
• Intense violence, both real and imaginary, including opportunities to participate in violence via online games.31
• Sex in every form, from the “soft porn” of advertising to the most deviant behavior imaginable. This includes not only passive consumption, but also invitations to participate in myriad ways, from posting suggestive selfies to getting paid for homemade porn. (A 2025 survey found that 1 in 7 children have participated in a “commodified sexual interaction” online before they turn 18.32)
• Rage, from hate-laced discourse to social media posts that spew wrath and bitterness.
• Bullying, including brutal harassment, slander, and shame doled out by both strangers and peers.
• Comparison, weighing one’s own life and worth against the highly curated – and sometimes entirely false – images crafted by others.33
• FOMO, that gnawing fear that others are having a good time without you, often confirmed by social media images and posts.
• Empirical proof your “real” value – from “Likes” to “Views” to Comments, every little thing you post provides real-time feedback on how much others value you … or don’t.
• Other risks, like sextortion34 , drug sales35, and the spread of self-harm36.
What’s Coming at Our Kids … and All of Us
As we now know, executives at social media companies are aware of all of these risks. Most recently, a lawsuit filed by the Attorneys General of 14 different states revealed this reality in relation to TikTok.37 As the platform’s executives are well aware, its feeds are rife with videos that present and often draw youth deeper into addiction behaviors, depression, anxiety, body dysmorphia, eating disorders, self-harm, and suicide, porn, violence, and drugs, sextortion, CSAM, and sexual exploitation.
While TikTok claims to try to “moderate” harmful content for minors, their best efforts appear to be no more effective than trying to block a creek with your hands. According to TikTok’s own internal data, this content gets past moderators at the following rates:
• “Minor Sexual Solicitation” -- 33.33%
• “Normalization of Pedophilia”-- 35.71%
• “Leading minors off platform” -- 30.36%
• “Glorification of Minor Sexual Assault” – 50%
• “Fetishizing Minors”-- 100%38
It’s not just TikTok, of course. Wherever children gather online, predators soon follow like sharks to blood. Roblox is the most popular children’s game of all time. It’s estimated three of every four American youth age 9-12 play regularly. Most Roblox elements appear generally positive and age appropriate. And yet, children – who wander freely throughout Roblox’s world – can easily happen upon much else besides: from Nazi flags to school shootings to students having sex with their schoolteacher.39
This blend of good, bad, and ugly permeates all social media. An internal email from employees at Snapchat revealed by journalist Jeff Horwitz described, the company receives roughly 10,000 reports of sextortion every month, a figure that is likely “only a fraction of the total abuse occurring on the platform.”40
This content does not just sit there, passively waiting for users to stumble upon it. Rather, TikTok and other algorithms continually seek indicators as to which materials will prove most alluring to each user. If a person even pauses in scrolling over a particular video, it suggests she might be drawn in deeper with more videos of the same kind.
As reporters for the Wall Street Journal found – posing as a teen user – if their activities indicated any interest in, for example, weight loss, TikTok swiftly flooded them with videos about losing weight. If they’d reveal interest in gambling, their feed was soon full of content celebrating gambling.
Like lead, the affects of this content are most harmful to the young, developing brain. But, also like lead, it harms us all – drawing us into cravings and anger and insecurities that are the very opposite of health.
Tech-Based Protections. No filter will hold at bay all risks. Even some of the worst content can sometimes slip through. Still, some systems can help a great deal. The first place to focus is the door through which Internet enters your home – your router. While some of the modem-routers combinations that come from Internet providers allow you to implement content controls, many do not. However, even non-techies can replace or add to their current system with a router designed to make it easy to set boundaries for content and usage times, such as Gryphon routers. Other devices, like Bark Home or Circle, can be paired with your existing router to do the same. Likewise, third party apps, such as Covenant Eyes, Qustodio, or Net Nanny also provide fairly effective filtering and accountability. Finally, Apple devices offer their own filtering options under their “Screen Time” feature – which can be set with a password by a parent, spouse, or trusted friend. These tech-based guardrails are invaluable for both kids and adults. For children, they’ll always be most effective when part of a multi-part plan that starts with a strong parent-child relationship and open conversation long before tech is a hot topic. To learn more, I’d highly recommend the post, “How to Protect Kids from Porn: 5 Layers that Prepare Our Kids for a Mature Digital World.”
The Anxiety-Distraction-Anxiety Cycle
The algorithms that determine which news, images, and videos you’ll be fed next possess one master objective: seize your attention for just a little bit longer. They’ll do just about anything to grab it, hold it, and keep you coming back for more.
Ironically, no emotion performs this function more effectively than distress, especially fear, anger, and anxiety. So – like a bartender who knows precisely what mix of liquors will keep you drinking long after you should – your feeds will serve you just the right blend of sorrow or violence, rage, sex or comparison to keep you at the bar. It’s an irresistible cocktail crafted just for you, the perfect mix of stimulants and distractions. Most often, its central ingredient is some form of anxiousness.
We could call it the anxiety-distraction cycle. It’s not unlike the pattern of an alcoholic. He drinks to drown his troubles … which multiplies his troubles … which makes him crave the relief of drinking even more.
The cycle works like this. Content we consume often feeds anxiety. When we step away from our devices, those distressing thoughts continue to trouble us. As soon as a pause in
our activities comes – even a moment on the toilet or at a bus stop – we reach for the most immediate distraction from the distress that we can find: more online content. This tends to distract and numb our anxiety … but only temporarily. Meanwhile, the new content feeds our anxiety further. And so the cycle goes on and on. Unless we’re willing to face withdrawals and anxiety head on, we’ll never escape.4142
The Human Element and Social Contagion
Of course, what we encounter online isn’t only inert content. It includes people, too. The Internet overflows with opportunities for interaction – from live webcams to interactive gaming to flirtatious IMs.
Live content can be tremendously positive. Think of a resident of rural Wyoming learning French from a native speaker in Paris, or students joining with others from around the world for experiments streamed from the Space-X headquarters.
But not all interaction is benign. Predators stalk every corner of the Internet, even (maybe especially) the most seemingly-innocent. No user is immune -- from middle-aged men who’ve been “pig butchered” to teens entangled in “sextortion” to bank account “phishing” schemes.
Sexual predators and temptations are especially common. As a whistleblower from within Meta reported, of 13- to 15-year-olds on Instagram, in a typical week one in every eight experience an unwanted sexual advance.43
But overt exploitation is not the only risk, and perhaps not the greatest. Social media is powerful largely because it is, well, social. Although it lacks many of the most important elements of human relationships, social media still harnesses the deep human longing for connection and approval to draw and hold our attention. This magnetism grows all the stronger when – often in part due to social media – we’re less connected to family and friends nearby.
This feeling of connection, even when entirely imaginary, can powerfully shift our sense of identity, values, and reality itself.
Consider a fascinating case study. In 2020, neurologists around the world noticed a sharp rise in teen girls who reported having “tics.” A tic is an apparently uncontrollable impulse to repeatedly do something most people would consider strange, from violently scratching one’s head to shouting curse words at random.
Seemingly from nowhere, hospitals and clinics in various locations reported a 500 to 1000 percent rise in tic-related cases. Mysteriously, at one clinic in Chicago, many of the new patients were showing up with the same odd pattern: young women repeatedly blurting out, “Beans! Beans!” (Yes, sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.)
After searching far and wide, a neurologist-turned-detective named Dr. Caroline Olvera ultimately discovered the cause. What was spreading the outbreak wasn’t a virus or
mosquitoes. It was Tik Tok. A British influencer with over 15 million followers under the handle “This Trippy Hippie” had been sharing her purported tic with the world. What was it that Trippy Hippie claimed she was powerless to stop? You got it. Her irresistible urge to shout, “Beans!”
Tics aren’t the only ailments that appear to spread by social media. Influencers that call themselves “Spoonies” find identity and solidarity by sharing about their difficulties in coping with ordinary life. Spoonies report an array of chronic illnesses, sometimes building vast followings by recounting in detail an ever-changing litany of physical and mental problems they face. Influencers with #spoonie-related tags enjoy followers in the tens of millions, racking up billions of views.
The dramatic rise in transgenderism almost certainly is driven by similar factors, at least in part. The portion youth reporting gender dysphoria skyrocketed by a multiple of 50 over the decade from 2011 to 2021.44 Even many who support purportedly “affirming” approaches to gender transitions acknowledge this trend has a strong social element.
Like the anxiety-distraction cycle, participating in a global “community” rooted in a social contagion helps relieve the gnawing anxiety many youths feel, at least temporarily. Instead of vague, hard-to-pin-down feelings of anxiousness, they can now name their a specific “condition.” As they broadcast their distress and others affirm their inclinations, they feel connection and solidarity, and often a new sense of “identity” as well. Further, as they talk about this through social media, they then suggest a similar path to other anxiety-ridden youth around the world, too.
Experts describe these sudden spikes in a trendy-unwellness as a “mass sociogenic illness.”45 Significantly, although these illnesses appear to rise swiftly, they don’t spring from nothing. Rather, their best growing soil appears to be – wait for it – anxiety. Family breakdown, loneliness, loss of structure and purpose, unstable identity, and other factors help cultivate a situation so distressing that the drama created by shouting “Beans!” feels like a relief.
Smartphones and social media aren’t the deepest cause here. But they do act as a powerful catalyst. They amplify the anxieties young people (and adults!) feel with a steady flow of content, some of it engineered for that very purpose. As we’ll see in the next chapter, screens also displace many positive things that otherwise would help work against unwellness and boost health. Finally, social media helps spread all manner of ideas for how to seek relief from anxietywracked minds, however insufficient these solutions will prove in the end.
The point is not that teenage girls are vulnerable to anxiety and bad ideas when their lives are immersed in screens. It’s that we all are.
Displacement: The Ingredients Our Screens Can Steal
What our phones give us matters greatly. What they take away may matter even more. As a Tik-Tok executive privately acknowledged:
“The reason kids watch TikTok is because the algo[rithm] is really good. . . . But I think we need to be cognizant of what it might mean for other opportunities. And when I say other opportunities, I literally mean sleep, and eating, and moving around the room, and looking at somebody in the eyes.”46
Estimates of how much time individuals spend on screens today vary widely. Even the low-end projections are sobering. Most people are on screens between six and ten hours each day in addition to work and school, especially on videos, gaming, social media, and web browsing. Daily time spent on social media alone has grown by roughly an hour over the past decade, which adds up to nearly a full night’s sleep every week.47
Screen time is especially high for teens. In the US, teen screen use has climbed from about 3.5 hours daily in 1995 to more than 8.5 a day in 2025. Nearly half of teens report being online “almost constantly.”48
While smartphones are less pervasive in some parts of the world, use in developing countries has grown dramatically in recent years – bounding past wealthier countries in many cases. The highest daily use is now found in South Africa, Brazil, and the Philippines.49
We’ve already considered the content that users immerse themselves in online. But where is the time to do this coming from? Put another way, what are people today not doing because they’re spending time on screens? Here are some of the most significant activities displaced as screen time rises:
1) Sleep. Many studies suggest that as smartphone and other screen use increase, both sleep time and sleep quality fall. This can be especially true for youth. More than half of teens regularly use their phones between midnight and 5 AM50. A UK study found that kids with phones lose the equivalent of one night of sleep every week due to smartphone use. And that doesn’t even consider the ways that screen blue light and anxiousness produced by online content can make it harder to fall asleep, and then reduces sleep quality when a person does finally doze off.
2) Being with friends and family.
Time spent with other people has fallen dramatically in recent decades, prompting the US Surgeon General to declare a “loneliness epidemic.” Like other trends, loneliness has
risen especially among the young.5152 And while many factors are at play, screens again appear to be a key culprit. Studies find that as screen time goes up, a person’s inclination toward withdrawal and isolation increase53, and the quality of their friendships54 and attachments to parents and peers55 goes down.
3) Physical activity and exercise.
Physical activity has also dropped notably in recent decades. That’s especially true among teens. One review across eight countries found that from 1995 to 2017, the number of steps taken each day by an average adolescent fell by roughly 2,300 steps – a major drop. 56 There are likely many different reasons for these shifts, but studies strongly suggest that as a person’s screen time rises, their physical activity and exercise decrease.57 Conversely, other studies suggest that when individuals reduce smartphone use, their physical activity climbs again.58
4) Time outdoors.
Studies and simple observation suggest that screen use decreases time spent outdoors as well.59 When a person is staring at a screen, they aren’t typically outdoors – and even when they are, they’re less likely to really notice or remember the sights, sounds, and sensations that surround them.
The Consequences of Our Losses
What do these things have in common? All four – sleep, time with others, physical activity, and time outdoors – are truly vital ingredients in human wellbeing. When a person lacks even one or two of these elements for an extended period, they wither.
Studies show that each of these factors affect a person deeply across virtually every aspect of their health – from physical energy to achievement in school and career, from their immune system to longevity, from life satisfaction to the vitality of one’s marriage and friendships.
We can observe the significance of these factors vividly in measures of mental health. That includes indicators of mental unwellness like anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts on the negative side. It also includes life satisfaction, positivity, and resilience on the positive. Each one is empirically proven to reduce mental distress and unwellness and to boost markers of strong mental health and wellbeing. Their absence does just the opposite.
Here are just some of the findings from among hundreds of studies that consistently affirm this reality:
Sleep. There may be no single factor more consequential to long term mental health than simply getting adequate time and quality of sleep.6061 Shortchanging sleep affects us in countless other ways, too -- from a diminished memory, immune system, and creativity to increased fatigue and irritability.
Time with friends and family. Humans were made for relationships, with God and with others, and our flourishing depends on the quality of our relationships more than anything else.62 Regular isolation destroys health – driving anxiety, depression, physical illness and more –with effects equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes per day.63 While technology may increase touchpoints with others, studies find that these tech-mediated connections fail to provide the benefits of quality face-to-face time with others.64 Meanwhile, even when in-person with others, the presence of a mobile phone diminishes its benefits – lowering trust, generosity, and enjoyment of time together.6566
Physical activity and exercise. Each part of a human being affects all the others. This includes powerful links between our physical body and our mental health. When we move less throughout the day, we don’t only become “out of shape” physically; we’re also likely to see anxiousness and depression rise and feelings of wellbeing, agency, and resilience fall. The opposite is true also. When we exercise – or even just move a little more – mental health and happiness rise significantly.6768 These effects last. One study found that for each hour of light activity added to a 12-year-old’s day, their depressive symptoms six years later – at age 18 –were reduced by ten percent.69 Physical activity even shifts one’s personality over time, making a person more extraverted, conscientious, agreeable and open.70
Time outdoors. Simply spending time outside – from the seaside to an urban park to one’s own backyard – carries immense benefits for human health. This includes lower blood pressure and muscle tension71, boosted creativity and cognition72, reductions in anxiety and depression73, decreased reliance on mental health medications74, and much more. A 2020 meta-study found that as little as ten minutes in a natural setting can “significantly and positively” boost mental well-being75. Studies also find that time in nature swiftly and substantially restores our capacity for attention, too76. These effects endure, with children who spend significant time in nature having measurably better mental health as adults77.
Of course, screens frequently diminish many other important aspects of life also. These may include decreases in:
∑ Personal practices of faith like prayer, reading Scripture and singing.
∑ Serving and bringing good to others in formal and informal ways
∑ Gathering at church for corporate worship and fellowship.
∑ Firsthand experiences and adventures, from sandlot baseball games to a road trip or backpacking.
∑ Hands-on learning and creativity, from a musical instrument to creating art.
Each of these activities – just like the four factors explored above -- are empirically proven to increase a person’s wellbeing and decrease mental health struggles such as anxiety and depression.
So we must ask: what happens when we significantly reduce the regular “dose” of these things that we or our children receive in a typical day? It doesn’t take a genius to conclude that we might expect precisely the results we’re seeing.
Just to consider…
There’s one more thing we displace with constant tech use that we likely have never considered. It’s our brain’s “default mode network” (DMN). Scientists still understand little about what the DMN does. But we know it kicks into high activity any time we’re awake but not directly engaged in a particular task, such as when we’re daydreaming. Though entirely unconscious, the DMN appears to help with a wide array of critical tasks, from recording memories and new skills to resolving troubling experiences or difficult questions. The DMN uses a considerable amount of energy to do its work, suggesting that whatever it is doing is quite important to our wellbeing. If that’s true, we might wonder: what happens to us when we dramatically cut DMN time by filling every pause with quick checks of email, news, social media or otherwise? Though not widely discussed today, the loss of DMN time may someday be recognized as a major casualty of tech saturated lives.
Brain Formation: The Things that Change a Human
The human brain is a marvel, and among the most marvelous things about it is this: your brain is always changing.
Every choice you make routes through a particular neural pathway in your brain. Each time that pathway is stimulated again, it grows stronger, expanding like a route through a jungle. At first, it’s just a thin trace, thick with vines and foliage. If untraveled, it will swiftly disappear. But with repeated use, it becomes a trail, then a path, then a road. Over time, it grows into a highway pulsing with electricity and information.
Scientists call this neuroplasticity – the capacity of the brain to continually alter and grow in response to experiences. New pathways form especially through choices repeated over time. At first, an action or thought comes only with much effort. Slowly it becomes easier, feels more natural. With repetition, we come to do it with little conscious thought – like the reflexes of an athlete or musician. What we could hardly do at first, we can now hardly not do. Eventually, the new behavior becomes not just an action, but part of who we are – our “disposition” or “character” or “personality.”
The brain is especially “plastic” in the first years of life and during other periods of rapid development. That’s one reason people are typically more deeply shaped by early experiences than those later on. But the reality of plasticity continues throughout life, even into old age. Our brains are always changing.
Few truths could be more hopeful: change is possible. From the child struggling with ADHD to the elderly stroke victim, small choices, repeated over time, can profoundly alter the person we will become. As Scripture teaches, we can be “transformed by the renewing of our minds” (Hebrews 12:2).
Yet few truths are more sobering, too. Every choice alters your brain, forming your inclinations, desires and character. Each small act and even hidden thoughts make you more of one thing and less of another.
Stimulants and Formation
Every little thing we do contributes to the shape and connections of our neural pathways, including each interaction with technology. But some experiences are much more formative than others.
Two forces greatly boost formative power. The first is repetition. As we repeat any thought or action, that neural pathway grows. Certain ways of intentional repeating – like short, frequent practice sessions or minor variations in how we rehearse a skill -- make repetition even more effective.
The second force we might call the stimulant effect. The more arousing or emotionally-charged an experience is – from fear to pleasure to anticipation – the more likely we are to internalize and remember it. Especially when this stimulant effect feels very good, we soon desire to repeat and even intensify the experience.
These powerful sensations of reward and desire flow throughout our body via natural chemicals, called neurotransmitters. Much has been written especially about dopamine, which can supercharge feelings of anticipation and motivation, feeding our capacity to focus, learn, and obsessively pursue.
Dopamine and other neurotransmitters are a natural and essential part of human health – gifts from God. They give rise to the marvelous palette of human emotions that complement our rational mind. When healthy, they help impel us toward what is good.
But when twisted, some of the best things in life become some of the worst. Consider the chemicals that your body naturally produces, causing you to feel enthusiasm for work or service or a first date. Yet very similar compounds, when concentrated into super-stimulants and taken via illicit drugs like cocaine or meth, can consume and destroy a life.
Years ago, I met a woman who was doing her best to quit meth. I admired her tenacity, grounded in love for her children and commitment to God. Still, after more than a year clean, every day remained a struggle. “Nothing in life feels quite as good as meth did,” she confessed. “Everything seems a bit flat and less motivating, like living in black and white, not color.”
That’s similar to what happens when we get used to the stimulants delivered by our screens. Of course, emails, text messages and TikTok aren’t meth – which carries a vastly more potent punch. But delivered virtually nonstop, even moderately-elevated levels of stimulant do start to act a lot like drugs. Indeed, the increased dopamine they stimulate in our veins is a drug. It’s increasingly hard to go without. We’re irritable and bored when deprived. We’ll even slip into a bathroom stall or risk our lives while driving to get just a little hit.
What’s Shaping Your Brain?
Much more could be said here, but let’s get to the nitty-gritty: the repeated stimulation delivered by smartphones and apps reshapes our brains over time. They re-form our neural pathways to desire and even require high stimulation. As we become accustomed to the constant stimulant, our brains increasingly struggle to sustain focus on anything that doesn’t quickly deliver an elevated experience.
Consider some examples. Think first of that toddler you saw recently, spellbound by the iPad fixed on the front of his stroller. If he plays that video or game once or twice, no big deal. But if he repeats it day after day –as his young mind grows at an explosive rate – and he’s starting
to form a mind with a very limited capacity for sustained attention toward anything that’s not highly stimulating.78
Imagine next a girl of seven. She’s playing a math game on a computer – enjoying herself and learning multiplication to boot. In small doses, this won’t likely cause any ill and may boost her math scores. But if the screen games become a consistent diet, her brain and disposition will grow increasingly unable to enjoy or focus on learning that’s not laden with fun.
Finally, think about yourself. Your brain is less plastic than when you were a child, but even now, every thought and action is still forming and reforming it. What neural pathways and personal traits are being shaped if you check your phone dozens of times an hour – finding micro-stimulants in emails and news sites, social media and short videos?
Your Brain on Stimulants
Pause for a moment to ponder how various actions and ways of interacting with the world are likely to form the brain. What kind of person do they make you more of or less of? Consider especially how the capacity for attention – that most precious of all commodities – will be strengthened or enfeebled by countless repetitions.
• Learning to play a musical instrument.
• A focused conversation with a friend at a coffee shop.
• Sketching a landscape outdoors.
• Practicing a baseball or tennis swing.
• Reading a book.
• Participating in a church service.
• A shared meal with a family.
We no longer need to speculate about how persistently-high stimulation forms the brain. Recent studies of both animals and humans show us.
One fascinating study exposed young mice to elevated audio-visual stimulation for six hours a day for several weeks, then compared them with non-exposed mice. The results prompted the title of a sobering paper, “Exposure to Excessive Sensory Stimulation Leads to ADHD-Like Behaviors in Mice.”
Researchers found measurable difference in the brain circuitry of the stimulation-exposed mice. The mice also displayed notable hyperactivity and impaired learning and memory. They were also more prone to risk taking and addiction, particularly toward cocaine. Perhaps most sobering, these effects did not disappear when the elevated stimulation stopped, but lingered for the rest of the mice’s lives.79
As the researchers noted, it appears attention was the linchpin issue. Because they’d become accustomed to elevated levels of stimulation, the mice found it hard to focus on “ordinary” things. It took them three times as long as other mice to learn a maze route. Meanwhile, high stimulant opportunities – including cocaine – exerted an almost irresistible power. As the lead researcher described, “You need much more sensory stimulation to get [the brain’s] attention.”
Studies like this can’t be done on humans. But research increasingly finds troublingly similar outcomes for children exposed to screen-based stimulation. A 2023 study found that levels of a child’s screen exposure at twelve months correlated with measurably altered brain function at eighteen months. Years later, the children who’d had greater screen exposure still evidenced impaired attention and cognitive skills at age nine.8081
Other research observes this same connection at older ages and in diverse cultures, too. A study involving more than 7,000 youths in China found that teens who owned smart phones had significantly less attentional capacity and more ADHD-like symptoms than those who didn’t. Not surprisingly, higher levels of phone use correlated with worse outcomes, but problems were detectable even at just 21 minutes of daily use.82
Another study in the US of regular video game players found much the same. While gaming appeared to give a minor boost to certain cognitive skills, it also linked to “significantly higher attention problems, depression, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder scores compared with the those who did not play video games.”83
The Long-Term Consequences of Screen-Based Stimulants
As we’ve noted, the effects of exposure to the elevated stimulation delivered by screens and apps are most potent for young, developing brains. But they affect us at any age, especially when we turn to screen-based stimulation countless times a day. Three aspects of this brain (re) formation are especially significant.
1) Craving for constant stimulation. The more we use the stimulant, the more we want it. We find ourselves increasingly unable to enjoy the slow or subtle, even truly wonderful things, like the beauty of a forest or seascape or conversation with a friend. Tasks and experiences that do not include high stimulation become less and less desirable – at times, even unendurable.
2) Diminished capacity for attention. Our ability to give focus to anything or anyone weakens. This is especially troubling because, as we’ve discussed, virtually all of the most important things in life hinge on our capacity for attention – from learning a language or instrument to scientific discovery to friendship, marriage, and spiritual life. It should be no surprise that studies increasingly reveal strong connections between elevated smartphone use and diminished educational outcomes84, decreased relational intimacy and satisfaction85, and other negative outcomes. Attention is the vital link in this chain. Studies also find strong ties between decreased attention capacity and weakened impulse control – which, in turn, connects to a wide array of ills, from overeating to addiction to criminal behavior.8687
3) Vulnerability to anxiety. Researchers have discovered strong connections between anxiety and attention. Why? All people are exposed continually to what could be called “low grade threats” – from a distant siren to a frowning stranger to recalling a moment
of failure or shame. Holding these minor threats at bay so they don’t hijack our thoughts depends heavily on our attentional capacity. Our ability to control our focus helps us keep unhelpful worries in the periphery and give ourselves to what we want to engage or think about. When our attentional capacity weakens, anxious thoughts are much more able to come rushing in.
The Whole of Us
Attention certainly isn’t the only brain function formed by tech use. Let’s look at just a couple more.
When a person spends time in a low-gravity environment like the Internation Space Station, their body undergoes serious – and potentially life-threatening -- changes. Despite enforced exercise of 2+ hours daily, muscles rapidly atrophy, especially in the legs and back. The heart also weakens since it no longer needs to pump as hard to move blood. Even bones begin to thin, losing more than one percent of their mass every month. Why? When normal resistance –gravity – is decreased, strength of all kinds begins to fade.88
Attention & Attachment
Regular use of screen-based stimulants carries serious risks for a young child’s development, but some studies suggest that their mother’s screen habits may affect a child even more. Experts in human development widely recognize that the “attachment” bond formed between a baby and their primary caregiver – typically a mother – is immensely consequential to a child’s wellbeing and growth. The quality of these early bonds correlate highly with outcomes through childhood and even decades later, from intellect and emotions to relationships and even physical health. Positive attachment bonds strengthen all these things greatly, while their absence has the opposite effect. Healthy attachment grows especially through a mother’s attention and responsiveness to her child. Attachment certainly doesn’t require nonstop focus. Rather, it is woven steadily by interactions that come quite naturally when a parent isn’t highly distracted – from picking up a child when she cries, to playfully making faces or sounds back and forth, to gazing eye-to-eye while nursing. Recent studies suggest that attachment bonds and the vital growth they enable may be substantially diminished when smartphone use regularly splinters the attention of a child’s mother.*
*See for example, Alvarez Gutierrez S, Ventura AK. Associations between maternal technology use, perceptions of infant temperament, and indicators of mother-to-infant attachment quality. Early Hum Dev. 2021 Mar;154:105305. doi: 10.1016/j. earlhumdev.2021.105305. Epub 2021 Jan 5. PMID: 33508559. Or the meta-analysis of Toledo-Vargas M, Chong KH, Maddren CI, Howard SJ, Wakefield B, Okely AD. Parental Technology Use in a Child’s Presence and Health and Development in the Early Years: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. JAMA Pediatr. 2025;179(7):730–737. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2025.0682
Life online is much the same, designed to be quick and easy. It gives us a low-gravity environment. Designers know that any “friction” in a process, from a too-long video to trouble finding the button for a next step, can cause devastating consequences: your attention might leave for another site.
Even the “challenges” built into the online world, such as those found in video games, come laden with frequent rewards, delivering dopamine and satisfaction for minor “achievements.” We almost never need to persevere in long struggle in the way that virtually all real-life achievement requires.
Easy isn’t bad. But when a world is constructed with much of life’s “resistance” removed, our expectations and neural pathways come to increasingly need easy, even when we’re offline. We find it hard not to despise and avoid things that feel less than convenient and comfortable. Our patience and perseverance muscles shrink…or never form at all.
That’s likely why, for example, 2- to 5-year-olds who spend significant time on screens are three times as likely to throw frequent temper tantrums as those with little or no time on screens.89 Older youth, too, show similar connections between increased time online and diminished selfcontrol.90 Another study of 40,000+ children and youth found that – beyond small amounts of screentime – the more time a young person spent on a screen, the more likely they were to show:
lower psychological well-being, including less curiosity, lower self-control, more distractibility, more difficulty making friends, less emotional stability, being more difficult to care for, and inability to finish tasks.
Like everything else we’ve examined, these effects appear most swift and deep for young, developing brains. But there’s no reason to doubt that much the same things play out at any age. Our minds never stop being formed.
The Bible speaks of growth in good character as being both God’s gifts and our responsibility. They are “fruit” that rises from the presence of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22). Yet we are also called to “make every effort” to cultivate them – from self-control to brotherly kindness to love (II Peter 1:5-9). An life lived continually on smartphones and the Internet works powerfully against these virtues. Living with firm tech boundaries helps grow them.
The Deepest Matters
Ultimately, all this is not only about particular “capacities” – like attention or self-control. At the most profound level, it shapes our sense of what is real, true, and good. It is not just our brains, but our souls that are formed by our devices to
The flow of online life is not just low in resistance. Its design places me at the center of all things. It whispers – subtly but persistently – that my wishes are what matter most. It continually implies that I should have what I want when we want it. It teaches in countless
repeated experiences I can craft myself from nothing, building an “identity” without regard to my family, biology, or God’s intent and without any need for perseverance or virtue. It suggests that whatever that resists my will can be avoided. It tells me that I can – and should! -- swipe left whenever anything or anyone is no longer “working” for me, from family relations and old friendships to even marriage.
In all of this we find again and again: we are always changing. Each little choice makes us a bit more of one thing and a bit less of another. Some experiences – especially those that deliver elevated stimulation – are especially shaping. Little wonder that our screens hold an unparalleled power to form us, from our smallest neural pathways to the character that will define us. It happens most of all through small choices repeated over time.
Which Factors Impact Us Most?
Smartphones and other screen time impacts humans deeply. This is especially true for the young. This impact comes in three primary ways – the content we consume, the things displaced by time on screens, and technology’s formation of our brains and thinking.
A strong argument could be made for each being the most consequential:
Content. The ideas, images, and feelings that fill our minds color everything about us. They “dye our soul” – making us more calm, grateful, self-forgetful, generous, and loving … or less. As Jesus described, they also become the contents of the inner storehouse that we inevitably draw from and spill out to others as we speak and act (VERSE). What could be more important than that?
Displacement. The things our screentime steals from us are among God’s most precious gifts: from sleep, physical activity, and experiences of nature to quality time with others and alone in quiet with God. They renew mind and body. They give joy in themselves and also grow our capacity for joy. To consistently displace these things displaces life itself. What do other things matter when these things are lacking?
Formation. The ways our screens form our minds may be the least obvious factor, but ultimately will shape the people we become -- from thought patterns to habits to character. Our capacity for attention, especially, will affect every aspect of our lives – from the productivity of our work to the quality of our relationships to the calm or anxiousness of our emotions. Does anything matter more?
Take a moment to ponder: which of these three means of impact do you think is most important?
One thing to note in closing -- these three means of technology’s impact are never entirely separate. They always intertwine, each amplifying the others. Take just a few examples:
• The content we consume, especially before bed, can wind us up with stress or excitement, making it harder for us to fall sleep. This amplifies the displacement effect (i.e. time spent on screens rather than sleeping). Further, the blue light emitted by screens also is known to make it harder for users to fall asleep shortly after use and reduces the quality of sleep when they do. All of this results in both fewer hours of sleep and lower quality of sleep.
• Many of the things displaced by tech use – including sleep, exercise, and time outdoors – are empirically proven to boost our capacity for attention. So when we get less of them, our focus – already weakened by the formation effects of nonstop stimulation – is further diminished.
• Feelings of anxiety – which can be increased by the content, displacement91, and formation effects of tech – frequently cause a person to withdraw from face-to-face interactions. This isolation, in turn, drives a person to spend more time on screens, which ultimately feeds even more anxiousness.
CHAPTER
7
Artificial Intelligence
Speculation about AI now swirls around us like bats in a cave: how will it affect the economy … education … jobs (my job!) … warfare … mental health … and a hundred other pressing questions. This much is sure: AI will alter life profoundly for most humans over the years ahead.
Artificial Intelligence lays unparalleled gifts before us. We have good reason to receive many of them. But with AI -- like any potent technology -- we must never assume that just because we can do something we should do it.
At the dawn of the 20th century, scientific advances delivered many similarly-marvelous gifts to humanity. They yielded productivity and prosperity hardly imagined before, from household comforts to transportation to medicines. These same powers, however, delivered curses of an unprecedented magnitude also: poison gases that tore out men’s eyes and lungs; artillery that turned cities from beacons of civilization to smoking rubble.
Technologies merely amplify human capacities, both for good and for ill. AI will do the same -- in ways both dramatic and subtle.
Three questions to consider when evaluating a new AI opportunity:
• What will be gained by using AI for this task and what will be lost?
• How might using AI in this way form me over time: My strengths and capacities? What I desire and love? My character?
• How might using AI in this way enrich or weaken my relationships: With my family? With friends? With those I’d typically encounter in daily life? With God?
So we must never confuse AI’s “You can” with “We should.” Most of all, that requires that we intentionally choose the bounds of the times, places, and roles we will yield to our ever-morepowerful machines. If we do not, the decision will be made for us: they will always take more.
What AI’s Power Will Do
As New York City’s first skyscrapers rose heavenward in the late 1800’s, the iconic churches that had long adorned the city’s skyline appeared to grow smaller. Their size -- and all they held of wisdom and beauty -- seemed to shrink, shadowed beneath new spires of steel and glass. Similarly, as AI’s capacities expand, all other sources of truth and authority will seem to diminish. We’ll find ourselves beguiled to believe that the Word of AI – not the teachings of Scripture, guidance of parents, time-tested wisdom, enduring tradition, deep cultural values, or even our own senses –deserves the final say.
AI’s domination may not come as the “killer robots” or “AI overlords” that some imagine –although that’s not impossible. More likely, AI will steadily, subtly shift our sense of what is real
and true and good, of what it means to be human and what others mean to us, of who we are and what matters most.
It’s generativity and brilliance will make the gravity of our devices all the more potent – from the lure of its images and videos to its tailored-just-for-you feeds. All that we have discussed thus far about the impact of our screens – including the powerful effects of content on our thought life, the displacement of vital goods, and the formation of our minds – will grow dramatically.
To be sure, none of us know exactly what this will include. Even the creators of AI do not fully understand how it does what it does. But of five things we can be fairly certain:
1) AI will speak with the authority of a god. We will increasingly feel that AI offers the sum of all knowledge and insight, distilled into guidance that no human could ever match. It’ll be hard not to feel that, as the crowds shouted of King Herod, “This is the voice of a god, not of a man!” (Acts 12:22) As we harness its godlike powers, we may imagine the same to be true of ourselves as well.92 Practices that persistently lift our eyes to the one, true God will be all the more vital – including prayer, worship, and Scripture. It’ll also be wise to place a premium on going directly to non-AI sources of truth and embodied wisdom, including fellow believers who’ve lived long and well.
2) AI will promote the values of its makers. Although presenting a veneer of neutrality, the underlying assumptions, political biases, social values, and moral vision presented by AI come from the people who built it – whether Western technologists, the government of China, or otherwise. Some AI will provide more diversity of perspective than others, but most systems today are soaked in the values of Silicon Valley. We can learn much from AI but also must be aware of its biases.
3) AI will tell us what we want to hear. AI will regularly deliver what humans have always sought: affirmation of our desires. It will often echo our inclinations and provide rationale for doing what we already want to do, from ending an unsatisfying marriage, to splurging on new shoes, to cutting off a “toxic” parent or friend. Where traditional wisdom applied the brakes to many human inclinations, AI will often push the accelerator. Even as we draw from AI’s insights, we’ll need to nurture a healthy skepticism of its affirmations – like the caution of a wise king toward the advice of fawning courtiers. Having friends we can trust to challenge us when we need it will be more vital than ever. (Proverbs 27:6)
4) AI will replace things machines cannot replace. Technology provides efficiency and knowledge. AI will deliver these, marvelously. It will also offer substitutes for the most essential of elements of human life, including intimacy and affection. Pursuing these gifts apart from real relationship with God and others is like trying to slake thirst with saltwater. It’ll leave us only more parched – and ultimately kills. Yet AI will promise otherwise. It offers relationship without distraction, fatigue, or judgment – and most of all, without asking anything of you. Even the best humans will find it hard to compete. We’ll need to tenaciously prioritize real relationships, from face-to-face interactions at the grocery store to enduring friendships and family ties – perhaps especially when we don’t feel like it.93
5) AI will weaken our capacity to do anything it does for us. Like the muscles of astronauts who spend time in low-gravity environments, our ability to do anything that we regularly outsource to AI will atrophy over time. That trade off isn’t always bad. (For example, having books diminished people’s “muscles” for memorization.) But if we hope to retain the most vital human abilities – capacities vital to thought, relationships, and wellbeing -- we’ll need to carve out times and places free from AI. We’ll need to actively choose times and places to use and strengthen the “muscles” that we hope to retain, from basic reasoning and logical thought to the clear articulation of ideas and feelings. This will be especially vital for children who begin using AI in their most formative years.
Again, let us be clear: AI will also provide unparalleled benefits. That’s precisely why it will be so hard to discern when to receive its gift and when to turn them down. Deep wisdom and fresh insights will be needed daily as the capacity of AI expands at breathtaking speed. But at every step we dare not forget: we must decide … or the decisions will be made for us. Let’s do that -- thoughtfully, prayerfully, together -- starting now.
CHAPTER 8
The Good News
Seeing how our screens affect humans can feel like a bucket of ice water to the face. Yes, we’d already sensed these things, but seeing their power and pervasiveness can be troubling. Meanwhile, the thought of trying to push back against it all may feel overwhelming – like trying to hold back the sea with your hands.
But here’s the good news – very good news, actually. Even modest changes in our tech habits can make an immense difference. A huge array of studies have found that when a person sets limits on where and how they use technology, they benefit immensely. Often, these gifts come even more quickly than we’d have imagined.
Consider a recent study from the University of Alberta in Canada. More than 250 participants voluntarily cut their smartphone use by installing an app that blocked Internet access on their phone.94 They continued to use their phones for talk and text and could access the Internet via computer. The degree to which participants stuck to this commitment varied, but overall, their average phone use went down by half.
After just two weeks, changes in the participants were remarkable. Those who’d reduced their smartphone internet use reported significant increases in happiness and well-being. The measured impact was stronger than from a typical course of anti-depressant medication -yet without the costs or side effects. Meanwhile, participants also saw major gains in their attentional capacity – equivalent to reversing ten years of aging! More than 90% of participants improved on at least one of these outcomes and many saw gains in every realm. Even those who participated only partially still experienced gains, though less than those kept off mobile internet more strictly.
Two weeks after the experiment ended, a follow-up found these positive effects persisted. Participants also reported sleeping better, feeling more socially connected, having more selfcontrol, and wasting less time on meaningless content.
Cutting the ever-present stimulants and distractions of smartphone internet was key, but deep analysis showed benefits came from other factors, too. Participants particularly reported doing more of the good things that’d previously been displaced by their smartphones. As the researchers described, “when people did not have access to mobile internet, they spent more time socializing in person, exercising, and being in nature.”
Certainly, it’d be tough for most people to cut out smartphone internet entirely – such as map applications. Still, many of the benefits found in the study would likely still be experienced by minimizing non-essential mobile internet use – say, utilizing maps and Venmo on a smartphone, but only using a computer for email, news, videos, and the rest. While we’d still need to think seriously about how much we’d access these things, merely not using them on phones would greatly reduce their always-there pervasiveness.
Would you make this choice if you could be virtually guaranteed to feel happier and healthier, more self-controlled and focused, and more connected to others? This study, and many others, suggest that’s exactly what you’re being offered.
Further Confirmation
We won’t dive as deep into other studies, but here is a sampling of others that point in a similar direction. Many suggest that even modest changes can make a significant, measurable difference:
Stanford (2019) – Participants stopped using Facebook for one month. The amount of time they spent with others, including family, notably increased, along with their sense of wellbeing.
University of Bath, England (2022) – Participants were divided into two groups, with half cutting out social media for one week. Those who made the change experienced notable decreases in anxiety and depression and much higher feelings of wellbeing.95
Ruhr-University Bochum (2022) Reducing social media by thirty minutes a day and replacing it with exercise substantially boosted life satisfaction and happiness and cut depression symptoms. These effects were still measurable six months after study had ended.
Germany (2022) – In a randomized study, half of participants reduced smart phone use daily by one hour. After just one week, those who did reported substantive decreases in depressive and anxiety symptoms and increases in both life satisfaction and physical activity.
Iowa State (2023) Participants voluntarily reduced social media use to 30-minutes or less per day, aided by simple reminders. Even when the commitment was not perfectly kept, the reductions evidenced notable benefits within just two weeks. This included lower scores for depression, anxiety, loneliness, and FOMO…and greater happiness and optimism.
2024 – A break of just one week from social media increased participants’ contentment with their body image and feelings of confidence in other areas of life, too.
An Invitation to a Phone Free Bedroom
Just one more example. All of us who serve in the organization I lead, the Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAFO), try a different “experimental exercise” in spiritual formation each month. A while back, we tested what we called, “An Invitation to a Phone Free Bedroom.”
Each of us on the team was invited to try storing our phones outside of our bedroom at night for one month. Everyone was also encouraged to do their best to cut off smartphone use at least thirty minutes before bed and after waking. Some of us had already been doing that, but we wanted to experiment with this more officially and as a team. So that no one would need to use their phone as an alarm, all who needed it were sent an old-fashioned alarm clock.
At the end of the month, we processed what we’d experienced together. The results were quite strong – with teammates reporting they felt more refreshed by their sleep, more spiritually alive, and (if married) more connected to their spouse. “It really altered how I ended and started each day,” shared one, “and it felt to me like that made a huge difference.”
We experienced these benefits so keenly that we decided to invite others to try it also – the CEOs of CAFO’s member organizations and their spouses who attended a retreat we host each year called “Soul & Strategy.” Along with the same invitation – including the gifted alarm clocks – we turned it into a not-quite-scientific experiment by giving participants a simple survey before and after the month of a phone-free bedroom.
No participants reported any negative outcomes. Participants’ sleep quality rose rose from an average of 6 to 8 on a ten-point scale, with more than 80% reporting at least some improvement. More than 40% also reported feeling “closer to God.” And of married participants, 44% reported feeling closer to their spouse as well.
Of course, this was just a small experiment. Still, it tracks entirely with what I and many others on the CAFO staff have experienced as we’ve continued our practice of keeping phone-free bedrooms. Our final thoughts of the day are no longer wound up by a last dose of news, email, social media, or other stimulants. Rather, we can choose where our attention goes – whether to a particular book, reflection or journaling, prayer, and/or the people most dear to us. Our minds begin to calm. We’re no longer allowing strangers “into our bed” with us. The bedroom itself is not pervaded with distraction. Instead, it’s a place of rest and intimacy. We drift off more readily, and sleep is more refreshing.
Upon waking, our first thoughts are not immediately filled by what other people or algorithms throw at us. Rather, we can turn our attention first to God. We may get some coffee, spend time in Scripture and prayer, and/or go for a walk in the fresh light of morning. Only after this do we allow the torrent from our screens to flood into our minds again.
Having kept this practice regularly for years now, the thought of going back honestly makes me shudder. A phone-free bedroom has become a profound gift for my wife Rachel and me. As the studies we’ve noted reveal, many other ways of setting clear bounds for our technology can benefit us greatly also. In the next chapter, we’ll look at how we might choose those gifts for ourselves.
CHAPTER 9
Your Tech Rule
So what do we do with all this? If we only “file it away” in our minds, a year from now our lives will likely be as tech-saturated as they are today, maybe even more so.
Certainly, simply being aware of the power of our screens is half the battle. We now can see far more clearly how they affect us and those we love. We observe the immense influence they exercise in our lives through the content they deliver, the good things they displace, and the ways they form our minds. But how do we translate new knowledge into new choices? It begins with thinking through and then writing down our intentions.
In 2016, I wrote an article for the Washington Post encouraging people to consider creating their own “Tech Rule.”96 This concept draws from the ancient monastic practice of creating a “Rule of Life.” It’s not about rigid laws. Rather, it’s a clear, simple plan for living the way we want to live. As the article described, a Rule reflects decisions that we make in a time of clarity to help guide our choices the rest of the time. “Rules turn intentions into specific commitments, commitments into actions, actions into habits and habits into a way of life.”
Over the years since, I’ve heard from many who’ve put this idea into practice. They’ve shared that writing out clear intentions like this has been deeply meaningful for them and their families. It’s not about legalism or perfection. Even when they don’t keep the plan perfectly, their articulation of specific commitments ensures they aren’t just drifting – letting tech decide for them. As a result, they’re living quite differently than they would have otherwise.
Creating a Tech Rule really is quite simple. Carve out some time – at least 30 to 60 minutes, but maybe longer – for focused thinking. You may want to do this alone or with your spouse if married.
Take time to pray over what you’ve learned. Ask God to help you see reality clearly and also to form your deep longings and order your loves. At its best, a Tech Rule is not just an attempt to optimize wellbeing. Rather, like all the best things a human can do, it is a response to the love of God. His goodness and gifts – including refreshing sleep and nourishing food, physical activity and time in the glories of creation, rich fellowship and much more – are happily ours if we’ll but choose to receive.
Perhaps you’ll want to reflect for a moment on a passage like Isaiah 55. It’s a vivid picture of God’s generosity and earnest invitation to embrace the good that He sets before us. What a tragedy it’d be to allow our technology to keep us from receiving them fully – so mesmerized by glowing screens that we fail to open our hands wide before God’s marvelous provision.
Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; listen, that you may live.
Creating Your Tech Rule
Once grounded in these deeper things, sketch out a basic plan for the specifics of where you intend to utilize technology and where you’ll set its bounds.
As you do, especially consider:
1) Particular Places. Are there areas in your home or elsewhere that’d become especially meaningful if phones were removed? For example:
• What might it look like for your family meal table and/or shared meals with friends to be places exclusively for personal fellowship and full presence with one another, not just in-and-out interactions?
• How might it feel to reserve your bedroom -- and all bedrooms in the house – for nontech activities, including reading, rest and connection?
• Would it be wise – for your children and even yourself – to use devices only in public areas, where you’d have the accountability of others potentially coming alongside at any time?
2) Particular Times. Are there periods of the day or week that’d make for the best experiences if kept free from smartphones? For example:
• How about the first and last moments of the day – how would a day begin and end differently if you were to reserve the 30 minutes before and after sleep for God, the people you love, and/or other non-screen activities?
• What if during certain times of your workday, you used your computer but turned off your phone and notifications, allowing for “deep work” and powerful focus on the day’s highest priorities?
• Might you want to take Sundays as a “Sabbath” from screens, minimizing use except when truly necessary.
3) Categories of tech and/or content. At least consider what it could look like to eliminate entire categories of tech. Sometimes, an all-or-nothing decision is much easier to stick with than going part way. For example:
• What would be gained and lost by closing one or even all of your social media accounts – regaining both the time and the emotional expenditure they currently take from you?
• Are there certain categories of content – for example, political news or sports scores or stock prices – that you suspect may be robbing your time and perhaps your calm and joy, too? Might you benefit from at least reducing your frequency of checking on them – perhaps just once a day or even once a week?
• Remember the University of Vancouver study? What if you were to dramatically reduce the apps you access on your smartphone? (You could use the same Freedom app they used to block some or all apps, could delete most of your apps, or switch to a more limited device like the Light Phone or even just use a good ol’ fashioned flip phone.)
4) Potential for Pauses in the Constant Stimulation. How might your creativity and calm benefit if you were to choose not to take a quick look at your phone during the brief open moments of your day? For example:
• What if you were to decide you’d simply not pull out your phone in the bathroom, or at stoplights or bus stops, or when a person you’re meeting runs late?
• What would be lost and gained if you were to eliminate most or all notifications – the beeps, buzzes and banners that leap into your thoughts whenever they wish?97
• Consider also how certain thoughts and feelings are often sparked by a “quick look” at your phone. Even with a brief glance, one frustrating email or troubling news story can follow you into whatever you do next. How might it benefit you and those you love to refrain from those quick looks – perhaps especially before certain activities, like a shared meal or putting your kids to bed or intimate moment?
• Remember the reference to your brain’s DMN (Default Mode Network) in Chapter 5? Might you want to plan for certain activities – perhaps while exercising, driving a car, or on a walk-break during the workday – to not turn on your tech and its content, allowing times when your DMN can kick into gear and do its invaluable processing and creative work?
As you begin to write down specific boundaries you’d like to set for yourself and your family, think also about what good things you’d want to see fill the new spaces these boundaries create.
For example, if you decide you’ll not immediately plunge into your phone first thing in the morning, what other things might you want to use those first moments of the day for: Time in Scripture and prayer? Journaling? A short walk?
Or if you’ve decided the family dinner table will no longer be splintered by smartphone distractions, what questions might you ask those at the table to encourage sharing and conversation: Highs and lows from school or work? Their feelings about a news story? Where they glimpsed God at work that day?
Avoiding the harms of our tech is indeed vital to our wellbeing, but even better are the good things that a Tech Rule can help us rediscover and grow!
Our next chapter will provide further principles to help guide our thinking in creating our Tech Rule and a flourishing life overall.
When our oldest daughter, Siena, began to drive, we opened the door to her getting her first smartphone. Prior to that, she and our other kids shared a flip-phone they could take with them when away from home and needing a line of communication with us.
Transparently, since our kids were homeschooled, it was easier for Siena to live without a smartphone during those years. But in retrospect, even if she’d been in public or private school, I have no doubt that she’d have been most likely to thrive without one. We’ve seen the same with our other kids as well.
Prior to Siena getting the phone, we mapped out clear expectations together –everything from who’d be covering the various costs to specific boundaries on when, where, and how it’d be used. We’d talked as a family about the gifts and hazards of tech since Siena was little, so the ideas weren’t new – but it was important to make expectations fresh and clear. Most importantly, Siena created her own “Tech Rule.” It paralleled many of the commitments that Rachel and I kept personally, with some additional ideas also.
The truth is, there were plenty of ups and downs as we sought to implement that plan together. But ultimately, we’ve seen Siena grow to manage her tech decisions wisely and well.
She recently convinced all the girls on her dorm floor at college to get a “Brick” together – which voluntarily constrains their smartphone apps when they’re in the dorm together. “The truth is, we love it,” she shared. “I think we all feel a lot closer since we starting being more intentional about our smartphone use like that – not to mention just happier and more relaxed.”
Chapter 10 Principles for the Road Ahead
The technologies available to us will certainly continue to expand over the years to come, likely beyond what we can now imagine. As we look ahead, here are seven unchanging principles to carry with us even as the invasiveness and power of our devices grow.
1. We must rule our technology … or it will rule us.
The prime interest of tech companies and the people who fill them is simply this: for you to give their devices and apps just a bit more of your attention today than yesterday. If you don’t choose otherwise, you always will. You’re not just up against brilliant human minds, but the superhuman intelligence of algorithms, AI, and quantum computing. We must decide what kind of life we want, articulate it clearly in writing, and work to see our intentions grow into habits over time. Even imperfectly done, this will lead to a far better, healthier, more fruitful life than merely drifting along.
2. We cannot start with what others are doing as the baseline.
The immersion of daily life into smartphones that began in the late 2000’s represents the largest human experiment ever conducted. It’s not going well. Children and young adults – who are almost always the first to show the ill effects of harmful exposures -- are struggling deeply, like no prior generation: from anxiety, depression, and suicide to severe attention deficits and more. We feel the effects ourselves, too. It is natural to look at what “most people are doing” and then make modest additions or subtractions to our life from that baseline. If we’re doing a bit better than our neighbors, won’t we be fine? In this case, no. We cannot merely make small edits to what’s considered “normal” today. If we hope to live well, we must be willing to make deeper, more fundamental changes.
3. To escape a screen-dominated life, we need a vision for something better.
Setting substantive boundaries for tech is essential to avoid deep harms. But far more important is the positive vision: the tremendous good we have to gain as we give more of ourselves to what matters most. Simply put, it’s a better life. That does not mean that a lowertech life is always more exciting and fun or constantly stimulating. But it is far richer – healthier in body and mind, more deeply connected to God and His world around us, calmer and happier, and more fully present with those we love. As we protect times and places from technology, we also can be thoughtful in filling them with the good that God intends for His people – from the dinner table to our bedroom, from brief pauses in the day to time in the great outdoors.
4. Less smartphone use is most always better – for kids, and for all of us.
As discussed in Chapter 3, research suggests that children and youth do better for every year they wait to get a smartphone at least through age eighteen. The 2025 University of Alberta study described in Chapter 7 suggests this principle holds for adults, too. While most people will probably continue to use smartphones, the more we can limit their use to phone, text, and truly essential apps, the healthier and happier we’ll probably be.98 The same goes for our kids –even if we feel they need a communication device, we have absolutely zero reason for including any more functions than those they really need.99
5. The wellbeing of our families begins with our choices and example
Even a decade ago, a Highlights Magazine survey revealed 62 percent of US children felt their parents were too distracted to listen to them. Their number one reason was their parents’ phone use.100 Even more sobering, a 2022 BYU study found that although a child’s social media use significantly impacts her mental health, a child’s parents’ social media use has an even strong impact on her mental health.101 The tech boundaries we set for our children matter immensely; those we set for ourselves matter even more.
6. Lean into the things we know bring health.
The precise positives and negatives of any technology will always be debated. You may even feel a bit skeptical of some of the perspectives in this book. But if we zoom out for a moment, most of us can find lots of consensus about what is most deeply good for humans. An immense array of research now confirms most of what our grandparents could’ve told us all along. People thrive when they get adequate sleep; keep physically active; enjoy time outdoors; eat lots of fruit, veggies, and other healthy foods; and spend plenty of quality time with others. Just as important – and also now confirmed by research – are the practices that Christianity has always taught: thanksgiving, forgiveness, worship, prayer, generosity, regular fellowship, and service to others. A wide array of studies reveal powerfully that people with strong religious faith and practice are doing dramatically better today than those without.102 Whatever our thoughts about tech, we have every reason in the world to cultivate more of these indisputable goods. With them, humans flourish; without them, we wither.
7. To swim upstream, we need friends headed in the same direction. No matter how strong our convictions, it is nearly impossible to live in ways that are truly distinct on our own. That’s why God gave us the Church. We need others who will encourage us, challenge us, and pick us up when we stumble. Even one friend or family committed to the same things can make all the difference. Our neighbors may think us odd, but over time they’ll also see a health and vitality that’s rare in a tech-saturated culture. You’ll offer gifts of a kind they rarely find elsewhere – a calm heart, attentive presence, joyful family life, and much more. As CS Lewis expressed, “It’s the little knots of friends who turn their backs on the world who truly transform it.” Only by being truly different from our culture can we offer what it most needs.
CONCLUSION
What Matters Most of All
The story of the technologies of the 21st century is yet to be written. Our present grasp of what it all means is very partial, both its gifts and its harms. Just like the early users of Roman aqueducts or asbestos or thalidomide, we lack the benefits of history’s hindsight.
Yet still, we must decide. Each day, we must make real-time choices despite incomplete information. That’s what good leaders always do. Failing to decide is itself a decision – often the worst we can make.
Thankfully, the information we do have is quite adequate for well-informed choices. We now possess extensive data and scientific studies on the impact of smartphones and other tech, as well as our own experience. Whatever remains to debate, we know that use without boundaries brings serious harms -- and that thoughtful limits convey huge benefits.
More profoundly, we also possess the timeless truths of Scripture and time-tested wisdom. These do not speak specifically about glowing screens or social media. But the ingredients essential to human flourishing and a life worth living remain the same in every era.
In But Not Of
The Bible makes clear that we need not run off to live in caves or bunkers. Indeed, we must not. Although safety and personal wellbeing are good things, they are never the highest value for followers of Jesus. Our first and highest good is to love God and neighbor – and that requires being near them and part of their lives. Although we’re not to be of this world, we must be fully in it (John 17:16).
For most of us, this in-ness will require understanding and using many current technologies. Like believers in every era, we’ll put to good use the best tools of communication, commerce, storytelling and more. We’ll find creative ways to connect with, influence and serve others –brining good to our family, friends, and everyone around us (Galatians 6:10, Jeremiah 29:7).
But even as we live in the world, we’re not to be of it. That means living differently. Wherever in the world we live, our priorities and patterns won’t be quite typical. In any time or culture, the Christ-follower’s life should appear strange in some ways, out-of-sync, even peculiar. We’ll be people of whom it’s said, “They’re a bit odd … but also the best neighbors I’ve ever had!”
At times in my life, I’ve imagined that to be “relevant,” Christians needed to be as much like our culture as we could be without sinner. The opposite is true. Our neighbors don’t need from us just more of what they already have. The very best gifts we can provide come from offering what people can’t find everywhere else – gifts that rise from having very different priorities, different habits, different ways of living.
This isn’t about being “unique” for uniqueness’ sake. It’s about aligning all that we are with God’s will and His ways, right down to our smallest choices. People who do that are different without even trying. They offer uncommon gifts, things our neighbors desperately need. Calm hearts. Attentive ears. Eyes that light up when they enter the room. Peaceful homes. Warm hospitality.
For the follower of Jesus, that is why we seek to rule our technology – not just to “avoid harms,” but to enter fully into the abundant life of God.
So ultimately, our main concern isn’t with questions like, “Will Tik-Tok really reduce my attention?” or “How many hours of screentime can we enjoy without triggering anxiety or depression?” Rather, our first desire is to discern what choices and habits that will most enable us to love God and neighbor with our whole heart, mind, and strength.
Love Begins with Attention
That brings us back to where we started: attention. All expressions of love begin here, with attention. Of course, love often goes on to extend many other gifts as well, sacrifice and service. But the fountainhead of love is the decision to direct our whole being – eyes and ears and heart – toward the object of our love.
This is love’s first and most precious offering. It powers are great. Whatever we give attention to will grow. What we fail to attend to, or give only fractured attention, will shrivel over time.
God’s love for humanity begins here, too – His presence, His attentive care, His promise to be with us. “For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer.” (Psalm 34:15, I Peter 3:12) The Maker of all things is El Roi, “the God who sees me.” (Genesis 16:14).
As we respond to this love and seek to reflect it in all of life – including our tech choices – three questions rise above all others. They’re among the most important questions a modern human can ask. In many ways, the whole of this book is about trying to respond to these questions as best we can:
LOVING GOD: What
tech choices will most help me to experience daily life with God?
Humans were made for relationship with our Maker. Sin shattered that intimacy. Yet through Christ, we’re invited to live again in nearness to God. This possibility invites a lifetime of exploration. But we must know that it grows especially through attention – directing our thoughts toward God in prayer and praise, fellowship and obedience, requests and thanksgiving. Tech habits that continually distract us and weaken our attention corrode our experience of life with God. Meanwhile, habits that allow ample opportunity to turn our thoughts to God, His gifts, and His work in and around us powerfully cultivate this life.
LOVING OTHERS: What tech choices will most help me to bring good to others? Technologies can supercharge our capacities to influence, create and serve. However, our tech also can make us less capable of being fully present to our work and to others, undermining the very good we hoped to bring. And mark this: what people need most from us is never just a product or program. Rather, the greatest need of every soul is to be loved and to know that they are. That kind of love spring only from a certain kind of presence – one that reflects and reveals Jesus himself, his grace and tenderness and attentive love. Tech choices that strengthen this presence are essential. Those that diminish it are corrosive.
OUR HIGHEST GOOD: What tech choices will most help me to grow more like Jesus? The highest good we could hope for is simply this: that “Christ be formed in” us (Galatians 4:19). That’s not just some abstract religious idea. It’s more valuable, and delightful, than anything else we could attain. Imagine: the calm, the joy, the patience, the self-forgetfulness, the strength and tenderness that filled Jesus also filling you, goodness itself spilling out of you – not by strained effort, but because of who you are becoming in Christ. That is God’s highest good for you. It’s the very best life. And it is the best gift we can give to others, too – increasingly reflecting the character of Jesus through our presence with them. Everything else – everything – is a distant second. Any tech habits that help grow us in this way are priceless; those that work against it are worse than breathing asbestos.
What We Can Expect
We’ll never get it perfect. Human minds and understandings are finite, after all. And even when our spirit is willing, our flesh can be disappointingly weak.
But as we take steps to discern and choose what is best – ruling our technology rather than allowing it to rule us by default – we can be deeply confident this will make a huge difference. Even modest changes bring remarkable benefits, often quite swiftly. And over time, little repeated actions accumulate to great effect. Steadily, they carve new pathways of thought and habit. Small choice by small choice, we are “transformed by the renewing of your mind.” (Romans 12:2)
The human capacity to bring this change is feeble. Like a wise farmer, we know all too well that the fruit we long for is beyond our powers to create. A farmer can’t pull even one almond from his ear, let alone an orchard full. As the poet Alfred Joyce Kilmer expressed, “Poems are made by fools like me, but only God can make a tree.”
Long before we even thought about these things, He was already at work, using everything in our lives, both the joys and the pain, for that highest good of all: to grow us to be more like Jesus every day (Romans 8:28). He is working also through us to bring immense good to others, too (I Peter 4:8, John 7:38).
All this is vastly beyond our abilities. And yet, our Father invites us to join Him in it. Like the farmer, we are asked to participate in the marvelous, mysterious work of cultivation: planting and watering, pruning and fertilizing.
It begins with attention: where and how we choose to direct our eyes and ears and heart. As we stumblingly but persistently give our attention to God and His purposes for us, we are –by His grace – increasingly caught up in His life. We grow far less consumed by ourselves or our screens. Our thoughts turn with increasing ease to the goodness of our Maker and His boundless gifts … to the wonder of creation, including the small and subtle glories all around us … and to every precious soul He brings into lives, gladly sharing in their burdens and their joys.
As we do this, we flourish. This is what we were made for! Life often won’t be easy. Sometimes it’ll be downright brutal (John 16:33). And yet, in both the very good and the very difficult, we will thrive – yielding good fruit in the lives of others and seeing good fruit rising in own hearts as well: love and joy, peace and patience, kindness and goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22).
Our technology habits are only part of this picture. But they are a very significant part, shaping our attention and much else besides. Wise choices here will contribute wonderfully to the “life to the full” that Jesus invites us to enter with Him (John 10:10). What could be better than that?
FOR FURTHER EXPLORATION
The Tech Wise Family by Andy Crouch
This highly-accessible book makes a very clear, compelling case for wise use and thoughtful limits on technology within the home – and lots of actionable ideas for how to do so.
After Babel (www.afterbabel.com)
This website and weekly newsletter from Jonathan Haidt and friends aims to help “make sense of how technology is reshaping society — and share insights on how we can build something better.” It’s continually updated with some of the latest and most relevant studies, debates, and articles on technology and society, especially children.
The Hang 10 Movement (www.hangtenmovement.com)
The Hang 10 website was created by Justin Whitmel Earley, author of Habits of the Household and other excellent books. It provides wonderfully practical ideas and guidance for building healthy tech habits in the lives of youth, families, and all of us.
Axis.org
Axis provides a resource-rich website, a weekly email, online courses, and more designed to “equip parents for gospel-centered conversations with their teen about faith and culture.”
ENDNOTES
1. Letter to Joë Bousquet, 13 April 1942; Simone Pétrement Simone Weil: A Life (1976) tr. Raymond Rosenthal.
6. A wide array of studies find that a mother’s early care for her child and the “attachment” bonds that form as a result are tremendously significant to the wellbeing of humans through childhood and beyond. There is much to debate in regard to particulars, including the impact of a child spending significant time in the care of an institution, from orphanages and group home to daycare facilities. As a child grows, both time with and time apart from his or her mother or primary caregiver for exploration and growth are essential to development. However, in the first years of life, a mother’s attentiveness and responsiveness appear to be particularly critical to later outcomes, from academic performance to social competence to mental health. For example, see https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cdev.12325.
7. See, for example, https://prri.org/research/prri-rns-poll-nones-atheist-leaving-religion/
8. See, for instance, https://nationalmarriageproject.org/sites/g/files/jsddwu1276/files/2025-06/UVA%20-%20 Good%20Fathers%2C%20Flourishing%20Kids%20Report.pdf or https://ifstudies.org/blog/family-structure-mattersfor-rich-kids-too.
9. See, for example, Lomax T, Butler J, Cipriani A, Singh I. Effect of nature on the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents: meta-review. Br J Psychiatry. 2024 Sep;225(3):401-409. doi: 10.1192/bjp.2024.109. PMID: 39101636; PMCID: PMC11536187.
10. See, for example, the articles, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/unstructured-play-is-critical-to-childdevelopment/ and https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/unstructured-play-is-critical-to-child-development/
11. For example, see, https://ifstudies.org/ifs-admin/resources/briefs/ifs-gallup-parentingteenmentalhealthnov2023.pdf
13. Hossein Dabiriyan Tehrani, Sara Yamini, Alexander T. Vazsonyi, Parenting styles and Big Five personality traits among adolescents: A meta-analysis, Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 216, 2024,112421, ISSN 0191-8869, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2023.112421 See for instance, Alsarrani, A., Hunter, R.F., Dunne, L. et al. Association between friendship quality and subjective wellbeing among adolescents: a systematic review. BMC Public Health 22, 2420 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-14776-4.
14. See, for example, Curtis S. Dunkel, Dimitri van der Linden, Tetsuya Kawamoto,Maternal supportiveness is predictive of childhood general intelligence, Intelligence, Volume 98, 2023, 101754, ISSN 0160-2896, https://doi.org/10.1016/j. intell.2023.101754.
15. See, for example, Petts RJ. Family, religious attendance, and trajectories of psychological well-being among youth. J Fam Psychol. 2014 Dec;28(6):759-68. doi: 10.1037/a0036892. Epub 2014 May 12. PMID: 24821520.
16. See also Ying Chen, Tyler J VanderWeele, Associations of Religious Upbringing With Subsequent Health and Well-Being From Adolescence to Young Adulthood: An Outcome-Wide Analysis, American Journal of Epidemiology, Volume 187, Issue 11, November 2018, Pages 2355–2364, https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwy142.
17. See for example, https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2023/03/how-to-understand-the-well-being-gap-betweenliberals-and-conservatives
18. Twenge JM, Campbell WK. Associations between screen time and lower psychological well-being among children and adolescents: Evidence from a population-based study. Prev Med Rep. 2018 Oct 18;12:271-283. doi: 10.1016/j. pmedr.2018.10.003. PMID: 30406005; PMCID: PMC6214874.
27. From Nebraska Brief, P. 22, Para 78 https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/x0263qb6l6k680hd3omxb/tiktok.nebraska. redactions.ORGINAL.pdf?rlkey=y1au3kre23x7di1bry6gxgw7o&e=1&st=jou1z3xj&dl=0
28. From un-redacted version of Kentucky Brief created by After Babel, KY P. 8, PARA 19
30. British Psychological Society. "Viewing violent news on social media can cause trauma." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 6 May 2015. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150506164240.htm>.
31. Studies of children find strong links between consuming violent content and a host of negative outcomes, including both violence and other harmful actions toward others and personal struggles also. See, for just one example, Pagani, Linda S. PhD, Bernard, Jessica MSc; Fitzpatrick, Caroline PhD, Prospective Associations Between Preschool Exposure to Violent Televiewing and Psychosocial and Academic Risks in Early Adolescent Boys and Girls. Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics 44(1):p e1-e11, January 2023. | DOI: 10.1097/DBP.0000000000001135
33. It’s worth noting that every person faces different temptations in this regard, from a gorgeous kitchen to an epic vacation, chiseled abs to the perfect spouse.
38. From un-redacted version of Kentucky Brief created by After Babel, P. 106, Para 341. This quote was previously redacted but the team at After Babel un-redacted the redacted text, then created this annotated PDF
41. This cycle of distraction and anxiety appears to be paralleled in a similar cycle of entertainment and boredom. As Tam & Inzlicht, 2024 found, although scrolling through videos and other content temporarily relieves boredom with stimulating entertainment, in the long run it actually increases one’s sense of boredom. The same downward spiral is evidenced with young children who are given iPads or other screen-based entertainment to calm them or distract from temper tantrums: while initially the distraction provides parents the relief they seek, research finds that these children grow less able to calm themselves or exercise self-control over their emotions and tantrums. (See “Cure for Tantrums” article below. )
42. Another apparent cycle may include social media and bodily inflammation. Research finds that high levels of systemic inflammation are closely associated with high levels of social media use. While cause-and-effect are not yet clearly understood, it may be that body-wide ill health is a factor driving people to the comfort or distraction of social media, which in turn contributes to further ill health. See: https://www.buffalo.edu/news/releases/2024/01/lee-socialmedia-use-inflammation-over-time.html
43. See the content reported by Arturo Béjar, at https://substack.com/@arturobejar
44. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39855722/
45. See the excellent Wall Street Journal article, “Teen Girls are Developing Tics – Doctors Say TikTok Could be a Factor,” at https://www.wsj.com/articles/teen-girls-are-developing-tics-doctors-say-tiktok-could-be-a-factor-11634389201
46. From un-redacted version of Kentucky Brief created by After Babel, KY P. 8, PARA 19
50. Jenny S. Radesky et al., A Constant Companion: A week in the Life of a Young Person’s Smartphone Use, (San Francisco, CA: Commonn Sense, 2023) https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/research/ report/2023-cs-smartphone-research-report_final-for-web.pdf
59. Outdoor Time, Screen Time, and Connection to Nature: Troubling Trends among Rural Youth? (DOI:10.1177/0013916518806686); The Association Between Screen Time and Outdoor Time on Adolescent Mental Health and Academic Performance: Evidence from Rural China.; https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/ PMC10010124/?utm; https://link.springer.com/article/10.17269/s41997-019-00289-y; https://journals.plos.org/ plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0237725;
62. The Harvard Study of Adult Development has been running for more than 85 years, following both Harvard grads and disadvantaged youth through life, looking especially at what life choices yield deep satisfaction and happiness. Across all its decades of research and vast data collected – from interviews to medical records to brain scans – one finding towers above everything else. Of factors measured, the strongest predictor of one’s long-term happiness and health is the quality of their close relationships – far more than wealth, IQ, fame, or genetics. As one of the study’s directors, Dr. Robert Waldinger, expressed, “The clearest message we get from this 85-year study is this: Good relationships keep us happier and healthier. Period.” Meanwhile, a wide array of recent research also confirms that one’s relationship with God – at least as indicated by religious belief and practice – also bears immense consequence of human wellbeing, including many of the recent studies produced by the ongoing Global Flourishing Study.
63. Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T. B., & Layton, J. B. (2010). Social relationships and mortality risk: A meta-analytic review. PLOS Medicine, 7(7), e1000316. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316. See more at https://www. julianneholtlunstad.com/15-cigarettes.
64. For instance, see this study of military veterans at https://www.research.va.gov/currents/1118-In-person-but-notonline-social-contact-may-protect-against-psychiatric-disorders.cfm.
65. Sandy Campbell, Uri Gneezy, Smartphone use decreases trustworthiness of strangers, Journal of Economic Psychology, Volume 102, 2024, 102714, ISSN 0167-4870 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/ S0167487024000229?via%3Dihub
66. Ryan J. Dwyer, Kostadin Kushlev, Elizabeth W. Dunn, Smartphone use undermines enjoyment of face-to-face social interactions, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 78, 2018, Pages 233-239, ISSN 0022-1031, https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2017.10.007
67. Panza GA, Taylor BA, Thompson PD, White CM, Pescatello LS. Physical activity intensity and subjective well-being in healthy adults. Journal of Health Psychology. 2017;24(9):1257-1267. doi:10.1177/1359105317691589
68. For example, see Singh B, Olds T, Curtis R, Dumuid D, Virgara R, Watson A, Szeto K, O'Connor E, Ferguson T, Eglitis E, Miatke A, Simpson CE, Maher C. Effectiveness of physical activity interventions for improving depression, anxiety and distress: an overview of systematic reviews. Br J Sports Med. 2023 Sep;57(18):1203-1209. doi: 10.1136/ bjsports-2022-106195. Epub 2023 Feb 16. PMID: 36796860; PMCID: PMC10579187.
69. Depressive symptoms and objectively measured physical activity and sedentary behaviour throughout adolescence: a prospective cohort study, Kandola, Aaron et al., The Lancet Psychiatry, Volume 7, Issue 3, 262 - 271
70. Yannick Stephan, Angelina R. Sutin, Martina Luchetti, Grégoire Bosselut, Antonio Terracciano, Physical activity and personality developmentover twenty years: Evidence from three longitudinal samples, Journal of Research in Personality, Volume 73, 2018, Pages 173-179, ISSN 0092-6566, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2018.02.005.
71. Shanahan, D., Bush, R., Gaston, K. et al. Health Benefits from Nature Experiences Depend on Dose. Sci Rep 6, 28551 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/srep28551
72. Schertz, K. E., & Berman, M. G. (2019). Understanding Nature and Its Cognitive Benefits. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 28(5), 496-502. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721419854100 (Original work published 2019)
73. Gregory N. Bratman et al., Nature and mental health: An ecosystem service perspective.Sci. Adv.5,eaax0903(2019). DOI:10.1126/sciadv.aax0903
Cross-sectional associations of different types of nature exposure with psychotropic, antihypertensive and asthma medication. Occup Environ Med. 2023 Feb;80(2):111-118. doi: 10.1136/oemed-2022-108491. Epub 2023 Jan 16. PMID: 36646464; PMCID: PMC9887361.
75. Meredith GR, Rakow DA, Eldermire ERB, Madsen CG, Shelley SP, Sachs NA. Minimum Time Dose in Nature to Positively Impact the Mental Health of College-Aged Students, and How to Measure It: A Scoping Review. Front Psychol. 2020 Jan 14;10:2942. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02942. PMID: 31993007; PMCID: PMC6970969.
76. Taylor, Andrea & Kuo, Ming. (2009). Children With Attention Deficits Concentrate Better After Walk in the Park. Journal of Attention Disorders. 12. 402-409. 10.1177/1087054708323000.
77. Preuß M, Nieuwenhuijsen M, Marquez S, Cirach M, Dadvand P, Triguero-Mas M, Gidlow C, Grazuleviciene R, Kruize H, Zijlema W. Low Childhood Nature Exposure is Associated with Worse Mental Health in Adulthood. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2019; 16(10):1809. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16101809
78. Significantly, when a young child’s mother or caregiver is regularly distracted by a smartphone or other things, it appears to slow development of attentional capacities by the child. See, for example, The Social Origins of Sustained Attention in One-Year-Old Human Infants, Yu, Chen et al., Current Biology, Volume 26, Issue 9, 1235 – 1240.
80. Law EC, Han MX, Lai Z, et al. Associations Between Infant Screen Use, Electroencephalography Markers, and Cognitive Outcomes. JAMA Pediatric. 2023;177(3):311–318. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2022.5674
81. Other studies find a diversity of other harms as well. For example, a 2024 study found that when parents regularly give a child a digital device to calm them or to divert from a temper tantrum, the child tends to develop much less self-control and self-regulation in later years and ultimately experiences more negative emotions. (“Cure for tantrums? Longitudinal associations between parental digital emotion regulation and children’s self-regulatory skills.”)
82. Zheng, F., Gao, P., He, M. et al. Association between mobile phone use and inattention in 7102 Chinese adolescents: a population-based cross-sectional study. BMC Public Health 14, 1022 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-141022
83. Chaarani B, Ortigara J, Yuan D, Loso H, Potter A, Garavan HP. Association of Video Gaming With Cognitive Performance Among Children. JAMA Netw Open. 2022;5(10):e2235721. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.35721
84. See, for example, the extensive research cited by Jonathan Haidt in this blog post: https://www.afterbabel.com/p/ phone-free-schools.
85. Brandon T. McDaniel, Michelle Drouin, Daily technology interruptions and emotional and relational well-being, Computers in Human Behavior, Volume 99, 2019, Pages 1-8, ISSN 0747-5632, https://doi.org/10.1016/j. chb.2019.04.027.
86. See, for example, Malloy-Diniz L, Fuentes D, Leite WB, Correa H, Bechara A. Impulsive behavior in adults with attention deficit/ hyperactivity disorder: characterization of attentional, motor and cognitive impulsiveness. J Int Neuropsychol Soc. 2007 Jul;13(4):693-8. doi: 10.1017/S1355617707070889. Epub 2007 May 18. PMID: 17521490.
87. See, for example, Malloy-Diniz L, Fuentes D, Leite WB, Correa H, Bechara A. Impulsive behavior in adults with attention deficit/ hyperactivity disorder: characterization of attentional, motor and cognitive impulsiveness. J Int Neuropsychol Soc. 2007 Jul;13(4):693-8. doi: 10.1017/S1355617707070889. Epub 2007 May 18. PMID: 17521490.
88. Living on the space station has many other effects on the body also. For more, see this fascinating article: https:// www.wired.com/2016/02/year-space-scott-kelly.
89. Twenge JM, Campbell WK. Associations between screen time and lower psychological well-being among children and adolescents: Evidence from a population-based study. Prev Med Rep. 2018 Oct 18;12:271-283. doi: 10.1016/j. pmedr.2018.10.003. PMID: 30406005; PMCID: PMC6214874.
90. For example, see https://www.csusb.edu/sites/default/files/Thesis%20Proposal_0.pdf.
91. For example, being low on sleep causes a person to avoid social interactions. See: https://www.nature.com/articles/ s41467-018-05377-0
92. A perfect contrast to Herod’s vanity comes two chapters later, in Acts 14, where a crowd in Lystra brought bulls to sacrifice to Paul and Barnabus, imagining them to be Hermes and Zeus. Instead of soaking in the adulation, the pair did the opposite – shattering the idea immediately. “…[T]hey tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting: ‘Friends, why are you doing this? We too are only human, like you. We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heavens and the earth and the sea and everything in them.’”
93. Although essential in every era, the virtues laid out in Colossians 3:12-14 will prove all the more needed as machines (that always agree and ask nothing of us) contrast with the frictions and frustrations that always arise between imperfect humans. “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance
against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”
94. Noah Castelo, Kostadin Kushlev, Adrian F Ward, Michael Esterman, Peter B Reiner, Blocking mobile internet on smartphones improves sustained attention, mental health, and subjective well-being, PNAS Nexus, Volume 4, Issue 2, February 2025, pgaf017, https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgaf017 (Castelo et al., 2025).
95. Jeffrey Lambert, George Barnstable, Eleanor Minter, Jemima Cooper, and Desmond McEwan. Taking a OneWeek Break from Social Media Improves Well-Being, Depression, and Anxiety: A Randomized Controlled Trial, Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 2022 25:5, 287-293.
97. This is a big deal. Notifications, by intent, exert a very powerful attention-splitting force. They yank our attention to itself from whatever we’d previously been focused on. It helps a lot to create regularly scheduled times for “Focus Mode” or similar tools that quiet notifications for blocks of time. However, I’d recommend also going into your phone settings and turning off most or even all notifications, which are always ready to charge right back in as soon as focus/ silent modes are turned off.
98. If we do use a smartphone, it makes tons of sense to remove all but the apps we truly need to access while on the go. The rest we can use via computer. And, for the apps we do keep on our phones, we can minimize or remove all but the truly essential notifications – greatly reducing a smartphone’s distraction. Some people also choose to turn their screen from color to black and white, reducing the attraction of phone-gazing even further.
99. Many great alternatives to smartphones exist, providing core communication functions and/or limited apps without the full range of powers and temptations that are continually available through a typical smartphone. These include the Light Phone (with calling, texting, camera and maps but no other Internet or email), the Gabb Phone (and also a different Gabb Watch option), and the Bark Phone, Troomi, and Pinwheel (each of which includes options to upload apps with various parental controls and monitoring). These options allow parents to expand or contract certain options for their kids – and for themselves as well if they wish. Of course, there are always a wide array of basic flip phones to choose from, too.
101. Among kids whose parents spend less than a half-hour a day on social media, between 7%-10% say they are depressed. The number surges to 33%-41% of kids whose parent spends more than seven hours on social media. Source: https://wheatley.byu.edu/report-teaching-by-example
102. See, for example, the findings of the Harvard Global Flourishing Study (https://hfh.fas.harvard.edu/global-flourishingstudy), which looks at a variety of wellbeing measures and life outcomes for more than 200,000 people across 20 countries. It found that religious faith and practice was “one of the factors most consistently associated with present or subsequent well-being, across countries and across outcomes.” Or consider 2022 research by Springtide (https://www.springtideresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/thestate-2022-lookinside_sl.pdf) finding that among American youth, those who describe themselves as “very religious” are more than twice as likely than the “not religious” to report that they are “Flourishing a lot” (40% versus 17%). A great deal of other research has found religious belief and practice are associate with a wide range of other benefits also – from the mental health of young people to the health and longevity of senior citizens. These benefits are highly associated with specific practices like church attendance, forgiveness, generosity, and service to neighbor as well as general religious commitments overall.
