12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You - A Review

There is a moment of panic when you feel like you’ve lost something vitally important. It can cause a shot of adrenaline as you look around you, feel your pockets, and ask others if they have seen it. Usually after a few seconds your find where you left your phone, sitting on the counter or in the seat beside you. The crisis is averted. No big deal. Except it reveals one of the critical dependencies of our age.

Jacob Shatzer, in his book, Transhumanism and the Image of God, discusses the phone as an extension of humanity. He notes that smartphones and tablets often function as an extension of our minds, holding data, organizing thoughts, and becoming an essential means of retention and communication.

In his 2017 book, 12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You, Tony Reinke focuses on how smartphones are shaping our minds, our perceptions, and reality. As we seek to understand discipleship in this technological time, this book is a critical resource for parents, pastors, and teachers to see how this often helpful and seemingly innocuous technology is having an enormous impact.

Summary

Given the title, it is not surprising that the body of Reinke’s book consists of twelve chapters, to which he has added an introduction, conclusion, and brief epilogue. The argument is structured as a chiasm, with chapters 1 and 12 forming a pair, so that the whole book centers around two chapters that focus on identity, since identity is a question of perennial significance in the human experience.

Chapter One begins by observing that modern humans are addicted to distraction. This is not up for debate for those of us who find ourselves compelled to look at our phones constantly to see whether we’ve gotten a text, what has happened on social media, or simply because there is a dull spot in the movie we are watching. Chapter Twelve argues that because of this addiction we have lost our sense of time. That is, our present physical reality is absorbed into an ethereal “now” that causes us to neglect the world in our immediate vicinity.

The second chapter notes that our distractedness causes us to ignore the physical world around us. Surrounded by our friends, we find ourselves occupied in digital dialogue. Facing the incredible responsibility of driving a multi-ton machine down the road, we are more concerned with the chimes and chirps of our silicon companion. This is fleshed out in the eleventh chapter where Reinke observes that people are often less kind to others, both in person and online, because we ignore their humanity in the face of their digital avatar. There are real ethical consequences to our digital projection.

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Chapter Three argues that smartphones have increased our need for immediate approval. Delayed feedback is devastating. If the likes and shares don’t pile up immediately, then our digital existence is for naught. If we aren’t digitally amazing, then we are not really worth anything. Chapter Ten highlights the connection between this desire for approval and the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) that characterizes so much of online life. We are drawn to envy and deceit as we try to match everyone else’s highly edited digital reality. This is a dangerous condition for the human soul.

In the fourth chapter Reinke highlights the impact that smartphone addictions have had on literacy. When I worked at a Christian liberal arts university, I was surprised to hear faculty discuss the number of our students who admitted they had never read a full book. I was also shocked to hear students argue that they didn’t need to learn (i.e., memorize) anything because they could always use their favored search engine. The always-on tunnel of information that the smartphone enables has made people more ignorant and less literate. This, in turn, leads to a loss of a sense of meaning, which is outlined in the ninth chapter. Stories are one way that humans have captured and transmitted the meaning of life through generations. By cutting ourselves off from the ability to read, listen to, or watch whole narratives, we cut ourselves off from the ways that meaning has been communicated in previous generations. This is tragic.

Chapter Five focuses on the way that smartphones turn us into consumers who objectify the people we watch. This is true with the explosion of internet pornography mediated by smartphone technology, but also in the way that we watch models and celebrities on social media. Chapter Eight then outlines how the objectification of humans can lead us to secret vices like pornography, gossip, and other sins of various depth. It becomes easier to participate in some of these anti-human vices because the pixelated being on the other end seems much less human to us.

Chapter Six reminds us that we are shaped by what we “like” on social media. This is true in at least two ways. First, we become like that which we fixate upon. When we absorb media, it shapes the way we think. Second, to maximize traffic, the algorithms of social media and search engines are designed to feed us what we have already shown an interest in, which only perpetuates the transformation of our informational feasting. Chapter Seven turns this to show that this tendency leads toward isolation as we get narcissistically caught up in a self-shaped reality and turn away from the people around us.

Conclusion

I was expecting Reinke’s book to be much more technophobic. In fact, he recognizes that value, convenience, and, perhaps, the necessity of smartphones in our technological age.

And yet, this book provides a significant warning of the ways that we can and are being transformed by something that has become so ubiquitous that we may be tempted to ignore its impact.

This is an important book for people to read. It is balanced and well-researched. The time-bound nature of the research will tend to limit its direct applicability over time as technologies continue to advance, but the lessons in the book are timeless.

12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You is, like Andy Crouch’s Tech-Wise Family and Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows, a book that grasps the real challenges of our day and helps us navigate through the seismic shifts in society that cannot be ignored.

We Have Been Harmonised - A Review

Our capacity to forget is pretty astounding, when you think about it. A few months ago the internet was blazing over the violence against freedom protesters in Hong Kong. National attention was drawn to the issue, in part, because of backlash against the general manager of the Houston Rockets, Daryl Morely. The NBA quickly came down on Morely and dozens of significant figures within the NBA (including Lebron James) stepped forward to call Morely ignorant and essentially denounce his assertion that the Chinese government might not be entirely fair to Hong Kong.

A few things were revelatory in that event: (1) The NBA, which is focused on “social justice” when convenient, completely backed down in the face of Chines pressure and silenced their players and employees of franchises. (2) Many of the players with sponsorships in China were quick to denounce as “ignorant” the comments, despite basic facts to the contrary. (3) People upset at the NBA have already forgotten (for the most part) and are back to watching the NBA, posting about it on social media, and pretending nothing ever happened.

All of this was orchestrated through financial coercion and propaganda by the Chinese government, which is really just a puppet of the Communist Party.

A recent book by German journalist, Kai Strittmatter, We Have Been Harmonised: Life in China’s Surveillance State, pulls back the curtain on the oppressive regime in China, how it has taken hold of many Chinese hearts and minds, and how China is working to expand its power throughout the world.

Summary

Strittmatter’s volume is particularly interesting because he spent roughly three decades as a correspondent in and about China. He has, therefore, seen many of the changes occur that have turned China into a house of technological horrors. Since the advent of the internet, smartphones, and face recognition technology in China, the state has begun to develop the ability to manage every aspect of the peoples’ lives.

At one level, this is a primary source on China’s shifting controls. On another level, it is a treatise that helps explain how totalitarian regimes rise, get control, and use their people to “voluntarily” enforce the will of the rulers.

Much of what Strittmatter writes marries up with dystopian fiction. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength, Huxley’s Brave New World, and Orwell’s Animal Farm are all mashed together in the horror that is contemporary China. The frightening thing is that, because of our willingness to adopt new technologies, many aspects of it may be coming to the global West, too.

China uses a mixture of old-fashioned control techniques and modern technology to anesthetize some of their population, terrorize some of the people, and extinguish the remainder. The state invests heavily in propaganda, papering cities with pro-Party references. Even though the messages are often implausible, the message is clear that the Part controls the bandwidth.

Although there are still privately held corporations in China, despite the rise of President Xi’s new authoritarianism, but because of the power of the Communist Party, companies self-censor. Social media apps (like TikTok) have teams of censors, thousands of company employees, who read and delete posts. They also write algorithms to automatically delete phrases that might be sensitive. Even Western corporations (like the NBA) will self-censor to appease the Chinese leaders and so retain access to the lucrative markets.

The internet in China functions more like an intranet. This means that the Communist Party has installed firewalls to prevent the people from getting to Western websites. Facebook is off-limits. Even Wikipedia is forbidden. The Chinese replace these sites with their own, but always under the government’s control. For example, the Chinese equivalent of Wikipedia has removed reference to the massacre in Tiananmen Square and has even removed the historical summary of the news in 1989 to erase that event from common memory.

Much of this is boiler plate totalitarianism, which is bad enough. However, the rise of AI, prevalence of closed-circuit cameras and other technologies like smart phones turns horror into hell.

Imagine a society where cash was being slowly restricted and all purchases were now being made by credit cards or apps on the smart phone. Every purchase would then be traceable and it would be impossible to step out of the system. Imagine that the government had access to the location on your phone at all times, could turn on the microphone or camera, and could study your behaviors. Imagine that your credit history was tied into the larger pool of information about you. Imagine if crosswalks had cameras with facial recognition software, which would document if you ever crossed on the wrong light.

All of this is occurring in China. And, people are cooperating, for the most part. There are obvious benefits to this. For example, it makes it easy to screen potential suitors. No need to even date a man who will not pay his debts. No need to check the credit on a person, because you can see their behavior is consistently responsible.

But all of the convenience has a dark side, too. Those that are deemed risky citizens can be monitored even more closely. They can be prevented from travelling or making purchases. Their family can be harassed when they do something that is considered untoward. In other words, the state gains the ability to coerce any behavior it deems appropriate.

That would be wonderful if the rulers were entirely benevolent. However, as the saying goes, power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. That is the growing legacy of China.

Analysis

Little of what Strittmatter reports has not been published before. Reports of the social credit system and state surveillance structures have made their way into Western media before this. However, We Have Been Harmonised puts the information together in one coherent volume.

This is not the easiest volume to read. At time the prose is a bit heavy, likely due to the fact it has been translated into English from the German. However, the work of reading the volume should not dissuade people from reading it.

We Have Been Harmonised is a critically important book. It is informative about the nature of the Communist regime in China. Many of these stories are not adequately discussed in Western culture. They should give us pause in what we purchase from China and how corporations deal with China.

More significantly, this book raises questions about the nature of community, the place of individuals within the community, the authority of the state, and the dangers of technology. Anyone thinking seriously about politics and technology in the contemporary age should read this volume. What China is doing by fiat, many of us are enabling voluntarily in the United States. This is a cautionary tale.

We have been harmonised

By Kai Strittmatter

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Note: I received a gratis copy of this volume from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

Tech Wise Family - A Review

There are twin dangers in dealing with contemporary problems. The first is to assume that the world has seen nothing like a given issue and that wise solutions must be manufactured anew, independent of historical sources of wisdom. The second danger is to assume that there is nothing new about a given problem and that the solution is to go on about our normal course of business.

In his 2017 book, The Tech-Wise Family: Everyday Steps for Putting Technology in Its Proper Place, Andy Crouch avoids both dangers. He recognizes that current technologies threaten the to exploit human vulnerabilities in new ways, but that wisdom to navigate the threat can be found in historical explanations of human nature and the purpose of the family.

There is an abundance of data that shows that the new attention economy is straining the social-fabric of our world. The prevalence of social media has enabled hyper-individualistic communities to arise that are sometime relatively harmless, but sometimes allow socially caustic influences like racism, sexual revisionism, and collectivism to coalesce in unhelpful ways. Similarly, the constant pull to look away from others and toward our phones is damaging our families and our local communities. The social experiment of putting a supercomputer in our pockets and allowing constant access to limitless entertainment is a little over a decade old, and the early results seem to be far from positive.

Without wading too far into the argument of the potential benefits of technology versus its drawbacks, Andy Crouch proposes that families need to take steps to use technology appropriately. We need not avoid it altogether, but we need to ask the fundamental question, “What is this good for?” Then we need to adapt our usage of technology to get the best out of it.

Crouch’s approach assumes the value of the nuclear family, but also takes into account the broader value of the extended family and community, including the nature of the family as the church. The main purpose of community and family is not merely to continue existence and ensure entertainment, but to form people into responsible humans. He offers ten “Tech-Wise Commitments” to frame a balanced use of technology.

1.       “We develop wisdom and courage together as a family.” –– He recognizes the central purpose of families is to form humans.

2.       “We want to create more than we consume. So we fill the center of our home with things that reward skill and active engagement.” –– Notably, many homes are oriented around the television or computer, which often encourage passive entertainment. He offers practical suggestions to instill a culture within the home that encourages creativity and activity.

3.       “We are designed for a rhythm of work and rest. So one hour a day, one day a week, and one week a year, we turn off our devises and worship, feast, play, and rest together.” –– This is the concept of Sabbath woven into the fabric of the family. It recognizes that while often being passive forms of entertainment, electronics are often drains on vital energies. Turning them off helps facilitate true rest and recreation.

4.       “We wake up before our devices do, and they ‘go to bed’ before we do.” –– For many, the last and first thing they see each day is the blue light of their phones. There are studies that show teens being deprived of sleep (and brain development time) by the interruptions and temptations of their phones. Crouch recommends charging phones away from the bedside table.

5.       “We aim for ‘no screens before double digits’ at school and at home.” –– The Crouch family had no television in the home until their youngest was 10. They worked with their local school system to minimize the dominance of “learning technology” in the curriculum. This comes from the realization that much less learning than often promised usually comes from various techno-centric approaches to instruction.

6.       “We use screens for a purpose, and we use them together, rather than using them aimlessly and alone.” –– Again, the purpose of life is to grow toward something. The purpose of the family is to make better people. Therefore, isolation and idle entertainment are barriers to those goals.

7.       “Car time is conversation time.” –– As a public-school family, the Crouches use their car time to communicate with their children and each other in a focused environment. This may be less applicable to families that spend more time together.

8.       “Spouses have one another’s passwords, and parents have total access to children’s devices.” –– Open access to each other’s browser history is often a means to prevent sliding into unhealthy habits. This approach recognizes the importance of trust and honesty. It also recommends the unique dangers that electronics offer to young people.

9.       “We learn to sing together, rather than letting recorded and amplified music take over our lives and worship.” –– There is something quite powerful about unamplified human voices raised in songs of praise. This is something that has been minimized by the presence of easy everywhere music of unlimited quantity and variety.

10.   “We show up in person for the big events of life. We learn how to be human by being fully present at our moments of greatest vulnerability. We hope to die in one another’s arms.” –– Technology has an amazing power to build community and minimize the impact of distance. It has tended toward isolation. This is, perhaps, the most important of the ten commitments, because it recognizes the need for real, personal contact that cannot be replaced by digital connections.

One need not agree with everything Crouch proposes to find benefit from this book. Some of his proposals would be much easier to implement in a family that is not already techno-centric (so young parents take heed). However, even beginning to consider the place that technology should have in our families is a step in the right direction.

Even more than his practical suggestions for making a better use of technology, Crouch’s discussion of the purpose of the family is important for our consideration. We would do better to consider the reason why God formed families and what their function is. That would help us to value it, put it in its proper place, and enhance the flourishing of our communities one family at a time.

The Tech-Wise Family: Everyday Steps for Putting Technology in Its Proper Place

By Andy Crouch

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