{"id":22342,"date":"2019-03-19T11:30:50","date_gmt":"2019-03-19T18:30:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=22342"},"modified":"2019-03-20T06:22:27","modified_gmt":"2019-03-20T13:22:27","slug":"is-mayhem-at-your-door","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/is-mayhem-at-your-door\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Mayhem at Your Digital Doorway?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Cal Newport\u2019s Digital Minimalism<\/em> helps readers resist, adapt, declutter, reduce, detox, and hopefully become more effective within an otherwise messy digital construct of zero\u2019s and one\u2019s. The key comment by Newport that caught my attention was \u201cThe App Store” wants your soul.[1]<\/a> This post will examine Newport\u2019s ideas and claims while trying to extract and expose the nefarious schemes of mayhem that Newport describes as an unintended consequence after the introduction of Facebook (FB) and Apple I-phones. I will offer a short biography of my introduction to the computer age and then review Newport\u2019s ideas on digital addiction and detoxification while connecting his minimalism themes to my dissertation research on spiritual warfare.<\/p>\n

Mark and I have the retrospective benefit of being two of the more experienced members of the LGP8 cohort. In other words, we were around before the digital age. I remember beginning my introduction to the computer age by typing 0\u2019s and 1\u2019s on paper punch cards, stacking the cards, and then feeding them into a punch card reader that translated the 0\u2019s and 1\u2019s into a Fortran programming language that could do basic math problems. At that time in my life I was more concerned about my football letter jacket, cheerleaders, school sports, hunting, and outdoor sports like skiing over the present high school standard of texting, tweeting, Facebooking in the school hallways while worrying about who likes or dislikes my selfies and daily \u201cme\u201d updates on social media.<\/p>\n

Newport says that \u201cHumanity has grossly underestimated the impact of digital addiction.\u201d[2]<\/a> Furthermore, the side-effects of prolonged exposure to social media is causing moderate levels of \u201cbehavioral addiction\u201d that pattern and resemble chemical substance addictions. [3]<\/a> \u00a0I wonder and ask myself, why? What changed and how did entire Western societies get hooked and addicted to social media in less than 15 years? I think Galloway\u2019s The Four<\/em> that we read last summer gives some good insights into the problems facing us in a fast-paced digital age that is dominated by Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google.[4]<\/a> The marketing scheme reported by Newport, is how FB and Apple play upon people\u2019s emotional needs for positive reinforcement and social approval.[5]<\/a> People become addicted to checking their smart-phones, computers, and smart-watches to see their \u201cLikes\u201d and then get their emotional-physiological \u201cdopamine\u201d fix that they lack from contemporary real world of face-to-face interactions. Wow! Is this a form of a pre-Matrix evolution we are witnessing? While I am not sure if the devil is interested in changing us into batteries that power the machine world, I am certain he is interested in seizing non-saved souls, destroying our Christian witness, and creating mayhem wherever he can gain access. Satan even has mayhem commercials playing as another way to desensitize people to his real existence in the world. Watch “Mayhem Forbidden Apple”\u00a0 https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=K9OrEMlMrv0<\/a><\/p>\n

How would you feel if Maher had said \u201cThe Devil wants your soul\u201d instead of \u201cThe App store wants your soul?\u201d In this age of digitally numb consumers, it might just slide right by without much notice. \u00a0Some churchy people might feel uncomfortable, but it is more likely that most people will reject the notion as far-fetched and extreme in our modern world where mayhem is just another insurance commercial. Do you get the idea? These schemes are subtle, and the forces involved play the long game with our social media structures with an investment strategy to win total control of our spiritual portfolio.<\/p>\n

Digital detoxification is one of Newport\u2019s more trendy unoriginal ideas that follows the more common weight loss themes. His guidance it to voluntarily enter a 30-day digital free type of diet to free yourself from the craves and desires of technology gorging.[6]<\/a> In combination with the digital detox is his philosophy on digital minimalism that only uses tech on just a few select activities that personally support what you do and value; he recommends dumping the rest.[7]<\/a> To me, the best type of control for us Christians mixed up the digital world is to focus on the One that created the world and dwells within us, the Holy Spirit. I\u2019m pretty sure a close walk with the Holy Spirit will keep all of us on course and detoxed in the digital world.<\/p>\n

Artificial intelligence (AI), according to Galloway\u2019s assessment, is the emerging threat that is taking over our social media souls. AI is used by Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google to spy on your digital likes, dislikes, views, shopping, travel, personal biography and more. When all this data is analyzed by their quantum computers they have the closest thing to an all-knowing existence, outside the Omniscience of God of course. Within the evil schemes of spiritual warfare, AI gives the devil another destructive tool as the ruler of world. However, as a created being, he has limitations and is regularly restrained by God, but AI will boost his ability to be more predictive on our actions, patterns, and ways to be tempted. Sound scary, it is! That is why I am so concerned for the spiritual welfare for each of us, and anyone you love and minster to, to be armored up and wearing Christ as our defense against the advancing schemes of the devil.<\/p>\n

In summary, I like Newport\u2019s work and if he had added the Christ factor, it would be an outstanding digital self-help guide. I give him credit for revealing the devil in disguise through his metaphorical connections to social media agents who act like mayhem prowling the digital world for more 0\u2019s and 1\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Stand firm,<\/p>\n

Mike w<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Cal Newport. Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World<\/em>. (London: Portfolio, 2019) 11.<\/h6>\n
[2]<\/a> Cal Newport. Summary & Analysis of Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World<\/em>. (London: ZIP Reads, 2019) Kindle Location, 104.<\/h6>\n
[3]<\/a> Newport, Digital Minimalism<\/em>, 14.<\/h6>\n
[4]<\/a> Scott Galloway. The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google.<\/em> (New York: Portfolio, Penguin, 2017) 55.<\/h6>\n
[5]<\/a> Cal Newport. Summary & Analysis of Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World<\/em>. (London: ZIP Reads, 2019) Kindle Location, 104.<\/h6>\n
[6]<\/a> Newport, Digital Minimalism<\/em>, 70.<\/h6>\n
[7]<\/a> Cal Newport. “7 Tales Of Digital Minimalism.” Spirituality & Health Magazine 22, no. 2 (2019): 46.<\/h6>\n

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Cal Newport\u2019s Digital Minimalism helps readers resist, adapt, declutter, reduce, detox, and hopefully become more effective within an otherwise messy digital construct of zero\u2019s and one\u2019s. The key comment by Newport that caught my attention was \u201cThe App Store” wants your soul.[1] This post will examine Newport\u2019s ideas and claims while trying to extract and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1501,951,1500],"class_list":["post-22342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-digital-addiction","tag-newport","tag-spiritual-wafrare","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22342"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22349,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22342\/revisions\/22349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}