In the Digital Age (but Not of It)

By Navs Military — Here’s a riddle for you:

It knows everything about you
But you look down on it;
You think you know how to push its buttons
But it really pushes yours

What is it?

 Okay, okay, so maybe riddle-writing isn’t in my career future. If you guessed “Your phone,” you’d be right! Our phones go with us everywhere, we hold them constantly, and we use them to store our most intimate pieces of information. Our phones have become an extension of ourselves. Think I’m overstating? Think again.
 
A study by Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers showed that the average user checks his cell phone between 110 and 150 times per day. When was the last time you did anything that many times? 
 
Let me put it another way: A different study showed that during peak times, some smart phone users check their phones once every six seconds. The average adult human blinks their eyes every four to five seconds. Some of us are checking our cell phones almost as frequently as we blink.
 
Technology—and specifically, the smart phone-- has become as ingrained in our daily lives as breathing. There’s an app for everything from online banking to archiving our wardrobes. But as Christians, should this be true of us? Should we really be just as enthralled by technology as the rest of the world? How can digital natives live in the digital age, but not be OF it?
 
The question gets a little harder to answer when you consider the benefits technology has had for military families. We hear all the time about the snares of technology — easy access to pornography, internet addiction destroying families, the list goes on and on — but for most of us, the internet is a seemingly harmless diversion at worst, and a way of staying connected to loved ones at best.
 
I don’t know about you, but whenever I’m faced with this kind of question, it’s easiest to fall back on the “everything in moderation” response. But it’s possible that’s just a cop out; perhaps Christians really should approach technology in a radically different way, and I just don’t know it yet.
 
What are your thoughts on the subject? How would you define a healthy relationship with technology?