Our 6"x3"Jail Cell
In my few short years as a parent, I’ve become a strong believer in the idea that letting kids stare at a screen all day is one of the worst things we can do for them.
However, I will admit there are times here or there when my wife and I have so many pressing duties that we stick the kids in front of a TV show for 20-30 minutes so we can get things done.
This works because the screen has an almost hypnotic effect. Their drive to run, play, create, and imagine shuts off as they stare at the images moving across the television. Though it’s handy for a moment, that’s also exactly why it’s such a bad idea to let them spend much time seated in front of a screen.
But having seen this hypnotic effect on children, it hit me that the exact same effect works on us as adults, too.
Get a room full of adults with their phones left in their pockets and you can have interesting conversation, play fun games, and truly connect with each other. Get everyone’s phones out and everyone turns robotic and entranced.
The same happens on an individual level. Without a screen in my face, I get chores done, play with the kids, exercise, think, read, you name it. Turn on a show or hand me my phone and I shut down and zombify just the same way my 5 year old does. Needless to say, this isn’t healthy.
Like checking the fridge and the pantry when we’re hungry, we tap open Facebook or Twitter or Instagram when we’re otherwise unoccupied. But unlike the fridge and the pantry, those apps have new content every time we open them.
It’s pretty hard to stand in front of the fridge browsing for 30 minutes. In contrast, it’s pretty hard not to sit browsing social media for 30 minutes. One post leads to another, one reel or short video gives way to the next as the algorithm’s labyrinth pulls us further and further in.
And as we fall into these traps, something probably remains undone. A spouse or a child sits neglected as the world inside the little box is far more dopamine-spiking than they are. A Bible remains unopened, a prayer remains unprayed. House chores remain incomplete, making an uglier, messier environment for me and my family to live in. Even the friend we could encourage on a messaging app a few taps away remains unreached as we continue to use the phone to consume rather than produce.
I write this first of all to myself. The easiest thing in the world after a long, stressful day is to sprawl out on the couch and scroll. On my more disciplined nights I plug the phone in and leave it in another room so I can focus on my wife and kids.
Guess which nights leave both me and them feeling a greater sense of joy, gratitude, and ease? Guess which nights have left me with more memories?
When I lay it out like that and ask myself what I gain from the nights spent scrolling, the absurdity of the addiction is glaring. And yet every night I still have to make a conscious choice not to end up back on the couch hypnotized by the tiny, mesmerizing monolith of glass and metal.
It only makes sense that the two choices would reach such differing ends. God does not want us to be mastered by anything (1 Corinthians 6:12), smart phones included. He created us with vitality, creativity, and a need to produce. He made us to be active and engaged with the world.
Becoming passive and zombified destroys all of these instincts that give us purpose and joy. When we don’t have any time to be alone with Him, we begin to lose connection and are left to navigate life on our own.
When we don’t ever shut off the noise (literal or metaphorical) and let our minds do some thinking, we begin to lose the capability to think at all. The brain is a muscle that needs work, and phones are atrophying ours down to nothing. It is no wonder social media use is so often correlated to poor mental health.
In Psalm 90:12, Moses wrote, “So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” This corresponds well with James 4:13-16, where we’re told it is pure arrogance to assume we will have tomorrow.
Wisdom and humility require us to recognize that time is finite, and so we had better get a good return for it. There is a time for work, and a time for rest, a time to produce, and a time to consume. But if all of our spare time (and even some of our work time) is spent staring and scrolling, the time gets imbalanced in a hurry.
The key is to be deliberate in your time usage. Scrolling is fun. Keeping up with people’s updates is nice, and staying informed can be important. It’s when it gets out of hand and 10 minutes turns into two hours that things get out of control. So, here are a few actionable ways we can take control of our time in front of the screen.
First, use a timer.
Set a timer for 10 or 15 minutes, and when it goes off, the phone goes away. (There are plenty of apps that will even lock certain phone features after the time runs out.) This way we can actually enjoy the break social media is meant to be without feeling guilty, knowing we’re spending too much time and should be doing something better. If the time has been budgeted, there’s nothing wrong with spending it.
This also makes us consciously choose where we spend our attention. If there is no end in sight for our screen time, the algorithms masterfully suck us in and get us to keep clicking on the next mildly interesting headline. When you know time is short, you have to choose if it’s really worth watching 12 recipe reels in a row knowing full well you’re probably never going to cook any of them.
Second, get your phone out of the bedroom.
Outside of direct sins, there are few habits more harmful than having a smartphone right next to your head as you go to sleep and as you wake up. Going to bed scrolling through all of the world’s problems and waking up to pick them right back up again is not conducive whatsoever for setting our minds on things that are true, noble, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtuous, and/or praiseworthy (Philippians 4:8). Beyond the negativity, the light makes for bad sleep and the practice of falling asleep and waking up without letting our brains cool down short circuits our attention span and ability to think. There are zero good reasons to have a phone near your bed.
And, leaving it in a different room shouldn’t mean plugging it in and walking straight to bed, nor waking up and going straight back to the phone. Have some time to start and end your day away from the screen.
Third, come up with a positive way to use the phone every day.
Send an encouraging text. Share a scripture with a church group. Call somebody. Turn the device designed for passive, fake connection into one used for proactive, true connection.
This addiction is one of those things that really doesn’t seem like a big deal. But sometimes those are the most insidious ones. And as this habit stands to suck literal years off our lifespans with little to show for it, we had better develop the heart of wisdom to number our days and take our time back.
This article will appear in an upcoming issue of Think magazine at Focus Press
Excellent post. I particularly like your statement, "If the time has been budgeted, there’s nothing wrong with spending it." Budgeting takes forethought and discipline not to slide into deficit-spending.