{"id":22363,"date":"2019-03-21T10:50:25","date_gmt":"2019-03-21T17:50:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=22363"},"modified":"2019-03-21T10:50:25","modified_gmt":"2019-03-21T17:50:25","slug":"digital-addiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/digital-addiction\/","title":{"rendered":"Digital Addiction?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two weeks ago, a distraught woman in my church came up to me with her 6th<\/sup>grade son.\u00a0 They had moved to our area a year earlier from Shanghai, China and they were struggling.\u00a0 While the mom worked at her well-paying high tech job, her son was floundering at school, and according to her, \u201call he wants to do is play video games!\u201d<\/p>\n

My sister is a Clinical Social Worker in the Bay Area of California.\u00a0 Last week, she sent me a link to a local resource that she had been using for teenagers and their families who are dealing with screen addiction.\u00a0This is an intensive outpatient program that is located here in my community.<\/p>\n

According to their website, \u201cMany families in the U.S and in the Bay Area are impacted by the stress of life. The teens worry about school, the parents are stressed by work and financial responsibilities. Our numerous electronic devices provide fast and easy access to the Internet, social media sites and video games. When this constant access becomes addictive, parents lose the opportunity and ability to guide their teens towards healthy goals and success.\u201d<\/a>[1]<\/p>\n

When I shared this resource and information with the youth director at our church, one of the things he said was \u201cIt\u2019s not going away, for sure, and adults are going to have to deal with it in their own lives before we really get anywhere with teens and kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

What a perfect moment to encounter Cal Newport\u2019s newest book, Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World<\/em>.\u00a0Newport writes that many books on this topic suggest various hacks and tricks, but, \u201cI\u2019ve become convinced that what you need instead is a full-fledged philosophy of technology use<\/em>, rooted in your deep values, that provides clear answers to the questions of what tools you should use and how you should use them and, equally important, enables you to confidently ignore everything else.\u201d<\/a>[2]<\/p>\n

The book is organized in two parts, with the first half laying out this philosophy of technology use, or the intellectual underpinnings of \u201cdigital minimalism\u201d, and then the second half explores what this would look like in practice.<\/p>\n

The Principles of Digital Minimalism as laid out by Cal Newport include the following:<\/a>[3]<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Clutter is costly<\/li>\n
  2. Optimization is important<\/li>\n
  3. Intentionality is satisfying<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    In explaining the idea that \u201cclutter is costly\u201d, Newport writes, \u201cDigital minimalists recognize that cluttering their time and attention with too many devices, apps, and services creates an overall negative cost that can swamp the small benefits that each individual item provides in isolation.\u201d<\/a>[4]<\/p>\n

    It is interesting to me that this first principle sounds a lot like the first step in a 12-Step program.\u00a0According to the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, the first step is that, \u201cWe admitted we were powerless over alcohol\u2014that our lives had become unmanageable.\u201d<\/a>[5]\u00a0 In a sense, the clutter of our digital lives, the compulsion we can feel to check our various apps and \u201ctools\u201d, to click and surf and mindlessly scroll, all of it can all feel very similar to the grip of a kind of addiction.<\/p>\n

    According to the Betty Ford clinic, \u201cTechnology addiction can be defined as frequent and obsessive technology-related behavior increasingly practiced despite negative consequences to the user of the technology.\u201d<\/a>[6]<\/p>\n

    Newport is not only\u00a0<\/em>writing about technology addiction, but it is a key component in why his writing is so forceful.\u00a0 As technology pervades our lives more and more, he is mapping out a way to think\u00a0<\/em>about technology use, and then, provides some practices to try out.<\/p>\n

    Some might call these practices a form of liturgy, whereby the words and beliefs and philosophy is made real with actions.\u00a0 Much like the liturgical \u201cwork of the people\u201d in a church, where the congregation prays responsively, or kneels, or greets each other with a holy kiss, there also ways to live out the philosophy of digital minimalism.<\/p>\n

    Some of the practices include admonitions like: spend time alone, don\u2019t click \u201clike\u201d, reclaim leisure, delete Facebook from your phone, and more.\u00a0 Newport writes in a way that draws the reader in and has you nodding your head as you recognize yourself or your family or your friends in what he is describing.\u00a0 In many church communities (like mine), where we observe the season of Lent, people will \u201cgive something up\u201d as a way to draw closer to God.\u00a0 Newport describes this as a \u201cdigital declutter\u201d<\/a>[7]and sees it as an entryway into a new way of life.<\/p>\n

    Maybe it is like going \u201ccold turkey\u201d in terms of other addictions.<\/p>\n

    This is a book to be savored and enjoyed.\u00a0 It is full of interesting anecdotes and very portable ideas.\u00a0 For my own context, I can see a group of people in the Silicon Valley reading this book and deciding to try and live it out together.\u00a0 I could also see this book as a simple resource for parents (or anyone) who wants to live with more intentionality. \u00a0My caution with a book like this, is that it not be used as a bludgeon or a way of shaming or judging others.<\/p>\n

    As a parent, I am keenly interested in how my children will encounter and use technology and I am aware that my own use of tech will be the largest influencer of their lives.\u00a0 So, even as I work on this for myself and maybe share this resource with others, I don\u2019t want to presume that everybody sees it this way or wants to make any changes.<\/p>\n

    Indeed, it is only in a crisis point that most addicts come to know that they have a problem.\u00a0 These are the people that my sister sees every day in her work.\u00a0 This is the reality for this young mom in my church.\u00a0 And maybe, this is what the future looks like: where everybody needs to take a hard and clear look at technology use, to make sure that we are using it in ways that serve us, rather than the other way around.<\/p>\n

    <\/a>[1]\u201cInformation About the Addiction to Video Games, Social Media and the Internet,\u201d Los Gatos Therapy Center, accessed March 21, 2019,\u00a0http:\/\/lgtcgroup.com\/iop<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    <\/a>[2]Cal Newport,\u00a0Digital Minimalism<\/em>\u00a0(New York: Portfolio\/Penguin, 2019), xv.<\/p>\n

    <\/a>[3]Cal Newport,\u00a0Digital Minimalism<\/em>\u00a0(New York: Portfolio\/Penguin, 2019), 35-36.<\/p>\n

    <\/a>[4]Cal Newport,\u00a0Digital Minimalism<\/em>\u00a0(New York: Portfolio\/Penguin, 2019), 35.<\/p>\n

    <\/a>[5]\u201cTwelve Steps and Twelve Traditions,\u201d Alcoholics Anonymous, accessed March 21, 2019,\u00a0https:\/\/www.aa.org\/assets\/en_US\/en_step1.pdf<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    <\/a>[6]\u201cTechnology Addiction,\u201d Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, March 16, 2017,\u00a0https:\/\/www.hazeldenbettyford.org\/articles\/fcd\/teen-technology-addiction<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    <\/a>[7]Cal Newport,\u00a0Digital Minimalism<\/em>\u00a0(New York: Portfolio\/Penguin, 2019), 59.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Two weeks ago, a distraught woman in my church came up to me with her 6thgrade son.\u00a0 They had moved to our area a year earlier from Shanghai, China and they were struggling.\u00a0 While the mom worked at her well-paying high tech job, her son was floundering at school, and according to her, \u201call he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":103,"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":[1359],"class_list":["post-22363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-cal-newport","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22363","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\/103"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22363"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22364,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22363\/revisions\/22364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}