becoming with human lives in such a short
period of time, it’s just changing the way
that we interact with people around us, with
the environment around us, what we value
in life, with how we experience reality, how
we experience experiences. All these differ-
ent things that are happening very quickly
- too quickly for us to really understand the
adjustments yet.
You even mentioned in the book that
there are some studies showing that it
could possibly be changing us even at the
neurological level.
and to enjoy long, complex novels and things
like that. It’s been a short period of time that
this change has happened. Long-term stud-
ies are only now beginning to come out with
a decade worth of change. Really, the ones
we need won’t be out for another decade or
two. There’s an author named Barry Akin,
I believe is her name, who writes on these
issues, especially related to children. She
says that if you want to wait another thirty
years for the really long-term studies to
come out and just risk it, go for it. But the
early signs are there that it is changing us
profoundly, and we should be a little more
careful.
Absolutely. Where does technology, espe-
cially technology today… I want to be
careful to point out the more high-tech,
smartphone type of thing… how does
that have the potential to impact our
spiritual formation?
How does technology affect our brain?
Yeah. So one of the first articles and books
to bring this idea out was Nicholas Carr who
wrote an article in The Atlantic called, “Is
Google Making Us Stupid?”, then followed
it up with a book called, “The Shallows,”
in which he highlighted that some of these
studies are starting to show that the way we
read on the internet is actually changing our
ability to follow long, complex arguments,
Well, I think that one way that it impacts
our spiritual formation is I think it just
shapes us to value convenience and ease
and access and all those sorts of things.
Often times spiritual growth, and espe-
cially growth in our relationship with God,
requires patience and time and sometimes
suffering. The way that our lives shape us to
not want those things, the more difficult it’s
going to be for us to grow closer to the Lord.
Also, we all experience distraction in our
lives and in our spiritual lives when we want
to pay attention to something, but we are
distracted by something else we that know
is less important, but it’s distracting to us.
The very phenomenon of… I don’t know
about you, but in my church, more and more
people are using their smart phones for their
Bible. I don’t think I could… that’s such a
distracting device! I don’t want to use a dis-
tracting device on something that requires
my attention like scripture and God’s voice
should. Little things like that are alter-
ing the way we engage with our faith and
the way we engage with God’s word. Even
“Well, I think that one way
that it impacts our spiri-
tual formation is I think
it just shapes us to value
convenience and ease and
access and all those sorts
of things.”
though these tools do make some things
more accessible, some of your listeners will
probably be listening to this podcast on a
smartphone, that can be a good thing, but
we also need to be ready to draw a line some
places. To say that brings distraction, and I
know that this is important and it requires
attention, so it’s something I’m not going to
do on the same device that I play words with
friends and get my facebook updates on.
I get your point. I know a lot of people
who like to read and do things on an iPad
or their iPhone. It does get you a little bit
in that mode. We’ve discussed it at our
church and I know a lot of people do read
their Bibles that way, but we’re not sure
if they’re using the Bible or they’re just
pretending to use their Bibles. The thing
is that you have so many things pop up.
That’s the problem when you’re trying to
write on the computer rather than using
the old pen and paper. You get emails and
this post…you get sidetracked like your
saying. If you’re reading the Bible on your
smartphone then you get three or four
pop-ups and an advertisement, pretty
soon it’s a less spiritual.
It makes it that much harder. We are called
in so many different directions. There are
spiritual forces in play as well. Paying atten-
tion to God and listening to God’s voice has
a profound impact on us. That’s one of the
promises of God’s work and the work of the
Holy Spirit. It’s not something you want to
be distracted from. I’ve just recently spoken
to some college students and was talking to
them about the Bible. One of the students
said, “what if you read your Bible on your
smartphone?” I just said, “That’s a bad idea,
but I don’t have time to talk about that.”
That’s an exaggeration a bit, I don’t want to
say that it’s wrong in every situation or any-
thing like that. But, it brings things with it.
If we don’t think about what it brings with
it, we’re being deceived.
Absolutely. In my earlier question where
I said I wanted to be careful about the
use of technology, I wanted to elaborate
on this a bit, maybe you can speak to it
as well. Technology, if you look at it his-