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Smash Your Smartphone, Part 2: A Tool Like Any Other?

Pastor Seth Hedman

In last month’s column, I began to make the argument for “digital monasticism,” an

intentional withdrawal from the temptations of digital technology into a more holy and human life. “But Seth,” you may reply, “Isn’t technology just a tool like any other? Can’t it be used for good or evil?” I argue that digital technology is different from other tools in two important ways.

First, to understand a tool we must understand its physical design. Even a tool like a hammer is not a neutral hunk of clay, as if it could be used to beat eggs and start a fire equally well. Its design is to hit and remove nails. This is its telos, designed by a designer to fulfill a particular purpose. One can say that the hammer wants to hit nails. The Toy Story movies articulate the idea of the telos of inanimate objects quite well: the toys want to be played with by children, that is their design, and they are not at rest until they fulfill their purpose. A hammer is a tool designed to hit nails. A gun is a tool designed to kill things. Clearly, a bicycle is not designed for a one legged man.

So what is the design of the smartphone? What do its physical qualities and hardware communicate about what it was designed for? What does the smartphone want? The bug-eyed cameras are secondary to its major design feature: the screen. Whether a phone, tablet, laptop, or TV, the blank screen communicates clearly its primary purpose: to portray images and be looked at. It wants your attention. In the same way the gun doesn’t care what it is shooting, the screen does not care what images it is showing. The same screen can show nature documentaries, meditation apps, and pornography. This open-ended potential of the screen is why most people’s gut instinct is to defend digital technology. Look at the potential! It can be anything! Like we were promised in the early 2000s, the world is at our fingertips. But this raw power is also dangerous. Like a fire, within certain parameters, it can keep you warm, but it can also burn your house down and kill your family. If we’re honest, most of our houses are on fire.

This is true on the hardware level of screens but also on the software level of social media. Social media is inherently designed to capture and maintain your attention in order to sell advertisements. Through carefully crafted feedback and rewards, social media is designed to trigger the same dopamine release and addictions as slot machines. When the product is free, as the adage goes, then you are the product. Is it any wonder that tech CEOs put their children in tech-free schools?

So digital technology, both at the hardware and software level, is not a tool insofar as its primary design is not to be used for a utility but to capture your attention. My invitation is to break your addictions, protect your children, and reclaim your attention for what’s most important. As Jesus said, “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness (Matt. 6:22-23).” So you become what you give your attention to. Endless scrolling and streaming are filling us with darkness. It’s time to “set our mind on things above (Col. 3:2).” Light a candle, say a prayer, read the Bible, go to church, read a book, play with your kids, start a garden. Maybe smash your smartphone. Next month, we will look at the second reason that digital technology is not a tool like any other: Artificial Intelligence.