Because we become what we behold—either for our glory or our ruin—it is of the utmost importance for parents to have a framework which reorients the attentional life of a household away from the shallows of internet-connected digital technologies towards the depths of communion with the Triune God.

Abstract

Internet-connected digital technologies are having deleterious effects on children. In a world shaped by the digital, Christian parents have a moral duty to have an intentional philosophy of technology—a set of principles and practices—that will help their children flourish in Christ. In this essay, I propose four principles for a Christian-Household Philosophy of Technology to help parents understand how and why technologies shape children. By establishing the idea that we are what we attend to, I will connect the deformative effects of internet-based digital technologies with the spiritual deforming language of idols in Scripture. This highlights the importance for parents to protect their children’s attention and cultivate their children’s ability to attend, most notably to God, by integrating proposed practices into their own contextualized Christian-Household Philosophy of Technology.

In the 2006 film Idiocracy, Joe Bowers (Luke Wilson) participates in a military hibernation experiment gone wrong, finding himself waking up 500 years later in a dystopian future where the inundation of entertainment has made everybody idiots. Through a series of calamitous events, Bowers is arrested and is required to take an IQ test as part of the prison intake process. His IQ score is the highest in the world, which earns him a seat on the Cabinet of President Camacho (Terry Crews), a former wrestler turned Commander-in-Chief. To receive a pardon for his prison sentence, Joe Bowers promises to solve the worldwide crop failure. Bower’s proposed solution to the Cabinet is to stop watering the crops with Brawndo, “The Thirst Mutilator,” as the slogan says. In a comical depiction of capitalism run amok, Brawndo (a Gatorade-like substance) has replaced water for everything, the lone exception being the toilet.

JOE: For the last time, I’m pretty sure all that Brawndo stuff might be what’s killing the crops.

SECRETARY OF STATE: But Brawndo’s got what plants crave. It’s got electrolytes.

ATTORNEY GENERAL: (thinking painfully hard) So wait a minute…You’re saying you want us to put water on the crops? Water? Like out the toilet?

JOE: Well, I mean, it doesn’t have to be out of the toilet, but, yeah, that’s the idea.

SECRETARY OF STATE: But Brawndo’s got what plants crave.

ATTORNEY GENERAL: It’s got electrolytes.

JOE: Okay, look, the plants aren’t growing. So I’m pretty sure the Brawndo’s not working. Now I’m no botanist, but I do know that if you put water on plants they grow.

14-YEAR-OLD: Well, I’ve never seen no plants grow out of no toilet…

JOE: You wanna solve this problem, I wanna get my pardon. So why don’t we just try it, okay, and not worry about what plants crave?

ATTORNEY GENERAL: Brawndo’s got what plants crave.

14-YEAR-OLD: Ya, it’s got electrolytes.

(Joe’s about to lose it.)

JOE: What are electrolytes? Does anyone even know?!

SECRETARY OF STATE: It’s what they use to make Brawndo.

JOE: Ya, but why do they use them to make Brawndo?

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Cuz Brawndo’s got electrolytes.

The plants dying at the hand of a technological innovation serves as an apt metaphor for the primary problem this essay seeks to address. Just as Brawndo replacing water—a fundamental element of life—killed the plants in the apocalyptic Idiocracy, so too are internet-connected digital technologies—which are replacing fundamental virtue-forming habits—reaping harmful consequences on children.

I argue that because internet-connected digital technologies are having disastrous impacts on children today, Christian parents have a moral duty to develop an intentional household philosophy of technology to foster an environment for their children to be formed into Christlikeness.

I begin by drawing from the fields of Media Ecology¹ and theology to propose four undergirding principles that should guide a Christian-Household Philosophy of Technology (CHPoT). Then, reframing the work of G.K. Beale, I argue that we are what we attend to, and because the average child is attending to screens more than ever, that they are being deeply deformed by internet-connected digital technologies. Next, by showing the importance of (1) protecting children’s attention from being captured and (2) cultivating their ability to attend, I argue for the moral imperative for Christian parents to have an intentional household philosophy of technology. Finally, I propose practices for Christian parents to consider for their own CHPoT.

1. Defining Technology and Internet-Connected Digital Technologies

In modern parlance, technology has come to mean items that are electrical or have screens, but technology properly defined is much broader than that. Technology can be defined as anything that is used by a human to extend their abilities beyond their human limitations. Put more simply, technology is any extension of humanity. The cup extends the human capacity to hold liquid for one’s own consumption; the bicycle extends the speed at which a human can travel; the computer extends the human capacity to learn, create, and entertain in ways unparalleled in history.

Andy Crouch argues all technology is borne on the wings of two promises: “now you’ll be able to” and “now you’ll no longer have to.”² With a microwave, now you’ll be able to eat popcorn in less than 4 minutes, and now you’ll no longer have to wait long to have a hot meal. With a car, now you’ll be able to drive longer distances in shorter amounts of time, and now you’ll no longer have to use physical exertion to get from one place to another. All technologies promise an extension of our human capacities—they take us beyond ourselves.

Internet-connected digital technologies are a subset of technology proper. For the sake of this paper, the purview of this category is wide, including things like: mobile devices (smartphones, iPads), social media (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat), algorithmic video platforms (TikTok, YouTube), and games (PokemonGo, Roblox, Call of Duty). All of these technologies to varying degrees use behavioral techniques responsive to instantaneous feedback loops to hook users into more use, pinging them to come back when they’re not using them.

With these shared definitions, I now propose four principles that will serve as a foundation for our CHPoT, three from the field of Media Ecology and one from theology.

2. Principles of a Christian-Household Philosophy of Technology

To lay the groundwork for our CHPoT we must understand a handful of philosophical and theological principles of technology. In this section, I first highlight three key principles from the field of Media Ecology. Summarizing the work of key thinkers in the field, I show that technologies (1) create new environments, (2) shape us, and (3) are biased. Then, from a theological position, I present a case that God is tool-agnostic.

2.1. Technologies Create New Environments

One key principle to undergird any CHPoT is to understand that technologies create new environments. In a lecture delivered in 1998, Postman argued, “Technological change is not additive; it is ecological.… A new medium does not add something; it changes everything. In the year 1500, after the printing press was invented, you did not have old Europe plus the printing press. You had a different Europe.”³ Another pioneer of the field, Marshall McLuhan, writes, “Any technology gradually creates a totally new human environment. Environments are not passive wrappings but active processes.”⁴ Though there is variability in degree, every piece of technology creates a new environment. From the clock,⁵ to the saddle,⁶ to the printing press,⁷ to the smartphone,⁸ cultures, peoples, and kingdoms are completely transformed by new technologies.

This does not mean that a hinge-point in history has occurred, such that a culture is changed by people because of the arrival of the new technology. When the advent of a new technology occurs, the technology itself creates a new culture which humans now interact within. Strate adds, “Cultures are produced by or emerge out of media environments, and as media environments change, so do the cultures that they contain; cultures in turn can influence the media environment, but it is the media environment that is primary.”⁹ The contemporary reader may find it difficult to cede this world-shaping power to impersonal objects, yet the same contemporary reader would be hard pressed to argue that the internet, for example, has not fashioned a completely new world.¹⁰

2.2. Technologies Shape Us

Because we inhabit new environments borne to us by new technologies, our technologies inevitably shape us. French philosopher Jacques Ellul highlights this interplay that the new technological environment has on man:

The machine tends not only to create a new human environment, but also to modify man’s very essence. The milieu in which he lives is no longer his. He must adapt himself, as though the world were new, to a universe for which he was not created. He was made to go six kilometers an hour, and he goes a thousand. He was made to eat when he was hungry and to sleep when he was sleepy; instead, he obeys a clock. He was made to have contact with living things, and he lives in a world of stone. He was created with a certain essential unity, and he is fragmented by all the forces of the modern world.¹¹

Philosopher Hannah Arendt expresses a similar idea: “The things that owe their existence exclusively to men nevertheless constantly condition their human makers.”¹² A key principle in our CHPoT is understanding that we shape our tools, and our tools shape us.

We have already said that every technology is an extension, but with every extension there is also an amputation. As we depend on technology for one thing, we usually get worse at doing that thing, because we no longer have to. Andy Crouch notes that just as technologies promise expanded capabilities and reduced burdens, they also bring about two consequences: “restricted capabilities and enforced burdens.”¹³

With every technology there is an extension, but there is also an amputation. Both extension and amputation shape humans. Sometimes this shaping is physical—like the significantly higher rates of back problems in the Western-world shaped by the chair¹⁴—and other times it is emotional—like the unprecedented rates of loneliness in a world shaped by the smartphone. Whatever the effect, it bears repeating that all technologies shape us.

2.3. Technologies Are Biased

Our third principle is that technologies are biased, or put negatively, technologies are not neutral. To say technologies are biased is not a statement on morality. Rather, it means every technology has a telos—an end. Every technology is created with a purpose to achieve a certain job.

For the Christian, this reality squares with a theological worldview, because the Creator God creates with purpose—with intentionality. He created all things with a telos. As those that bear his image, mankind also creates technologies teleologically. A hammer is created for hitting (preferably nails). A chair is created for sitting. All these technologies were created with a purpose—an end—in mind.

Because a technology has an inherent bias does not mean that it can only be used in a certain way, but rather that the path of least resistance is that it be used in accordance with its bias.¹⁵ That’s why it’s easier to use a pencil for writing than for roasting marshmallows. Or it’s easier to use a hammer for hitting a nail than for raking leaves.

We need to know and understand that each technology imbibes the intent of its creator(s), but also that it can morph beyond the created intent. For instance, the iPhone was imagined by Steve Jobs to be an iPod and a phone rolled into one device. Over a decade later, the iPhone can still play music and make calls (original intent), but now it can hail a ride, order groceries, entertain for endless hours, and much more.

Understanding technological bias is a vital principle for the Christian parent. Too often, technology is viewed like a bicycle. The rider sits on the bicycle, and it only moves and goes at the pace and direction of the rider. Technology, however, is much more like a car; even when the driver is not accelerating the car is always idling forward unless the brake is pressed. All technologies are created by fallible people, and as such, they often have fallible biases. Understanding this reality allows the Christian parent to have an appropriate awareness that any technology created by mankind may not take them or their children towards the same ends that they—or God—desire to go.

2.4. God Is Tool-Agnostic

Our final undergirding principle is theological in nature; to establish a CHPoT, we must consider: What does God think about technology (or tools)?

We see technology (or tools) used all throughout Scripture, both explicitly and implicitly: Cain built a city (Gen 4:17), Tubal-Cain made things out of bronze and iron (Gen 4:22), Noah built an ark (Gen 6), people built the Tower of Babel (Gen 11:1–9), God gave his Spirit in Exodus to allow some craftsmen to use tools better than others (Exod 31), King Solomon built a temple (1 Kgs 6), Jesus used tools as a carpenter (Mark 6:3), and Paul used letters to spread the gospel around the world (2 Thess 3:17). A survey of Scripture would draw one to conclude that God is tool-agnostic. He does not care about the tools or technology but cares greatly about how humans relate to their technology.

Psalm 33:16–18 illustrates this reality:

A king is not saved by a large army;
a warrior will not be rescued by great strength.

The horse is a false hope for safety;
it provides no escape by its great power.

But look, the LORD keeps his eye on those who fear him—
those who depend on his faithful love.

The text notes two technologies here: a king’s army and a warrior’s horse. Though both “objects” are living beings, they become tools in the hands of their subjects. God does not prohibit the use of the army or the horse but warns against putting ultimate dependence upon them. A king’s massive army is not ultimately what saves, nor is the immense strength of a thoroughbred horse a true source of safety. The Lord is the ultimate protector (“he keeps his eyes on those who fear him”) and he protects those who “depend on his faithful love” (emphasis added). God is tool-agnostic; the real issue is whether one’s ultimate trust and dependence is placed in a technology or in him.

The fourth undergirding principle of a CHPoT propels us forward into the next section of this paper.

3. We Are What We Attend To

If God is tool-agnostic—caring less about what tool is used than the intent behind it—we may rightfully wonder, why should Christians care about our use of technology at all as long as our “heart” is in the right place? It is here that I reframe the work of G.K. Beale to show that we are what we attend to. This truth enables us to make sense of the argument that internet-connected digital technologies are having severely deformative effects on our children.

3.1. We Become What We Worship

In his seminal work, We Become What We Worship, G.K. Beale argues that “we resemble what we revere, either for ruin or restoration.”¹⁶ Beale’s work maps out Scripture’s warnings about the dangers and effects of idolatry. Expanding on Martin Luther’s larger catechism, Beale defines idolatry as, “whatever your heart clings to or relies on for ultimate security.”¹⁷ This idea connects to what we noted earlier about God’s tool-agnosticism; it is if our hearts cling to our phones, our social media accounts, or our computers for ultimate security that make their use problematic in God’s eyes.

Psalm 115 is a text that Christian media ecologists use as theological evidence for the formative power of our technology.¹⁸ Verses 2–8 read as follows,

Why should the nations say,
“Where is their God?”
Our God is in the heavens;
he does all that he pleases.
Their idols are silver and gold,
the work of human hands.
They have mouths, but do not speak;
eyes, but do not see.
They have ears, but do not hear;
noses, but do not smell.
They have hands, but do not feel;
feet, but do not walk;
and they do not make a sound in their throat.
Those who make them become like them;
so do all who trust in them.
(Ps 115:2–8)

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