Digital media is the most powerful cultural influence on the planet. Who can deny the impact of television, streaming services, the Internet, social media, movies and video on demand, instant news, podcasts, advertising, the music industry, and more? Honesty requires us to admit that these things affect our beliefs, opinions, decisions, desires, jobs, recreation, relationships, and spending more than we realize. We can access digital media at any time, wherever we are, on multiple devices. To top it off, we carry every form of digital media all bundled together on one little device that’s with us 24/7.
But with all the benefits of digital media, it does little to promote either simplicity or biblical spirituality. Instead, like spiritual anesthesia, digital media dulls the sensitivity of the soul.
For instance, almost any form of entertainment on digital media will tempt you to laugh at something God says is good or normalize something God calls sin (see Isaiah 5:20). It frequently contradicts God, almost as directly as the serpent in the Garden of Eden (see Genesis 3:4). It saturates the mind of the viewer or hearer with the world’s way of thinking. Visual media (TV, movies, video, etc.) display a rapid succession of pictures that we passively observe (in contrast to forming mental pictures ourselves, as when reading), which causes our imagination to atrophy with inactivity. And this makes concentration and meditation on Scripture more difficult. Beyond all this, engaging with digital media simply takes time, time that we later say we don’t have for the biblical spiritual disciplines by which we experience and enjoy God. Other than the small percentage of resources consistent with a Christian worldview, where on digital media can you find a good example of what you want to be spiritually?
Beyond its impact on our spirituality, most digital media is no friend of anyone trying to simplify. In fact, its very existence depends upon an incessant parade of advertising intended to make us feel discontented with our experiences, possessions, relationships, and appearance. What author Wendell Berry said about television is true about digital media in general in that it persuades us to believe “that all worth experiencing is somewhere else and that all worth having must be bought.”1
I cannot pronounce God’s complete will for you regarding digital media. But as you seek Him on what is good for your soul in this matter, remember James 4:17—“Whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.”
Digital media may not have the power to kill the Christian soul, but it anesthetizes it by the hour. Wake up!
1 Wendell Berry, The Gift of Good Land (San Francisco: North Point Press, 1981), 156.
