Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve looked at the positives of digital technology and we’ve looked at the negatives. Clearly we need help to manage digital technology in a way that will maximize its benefits and minimize its dangers. Next week I want to introduce you to a number of practical helps towards this. But in the meantime, how do we detox, how do we wean ourselves and our children off digital heroin, and how do we minimize withdrawal symptoms and the chances of a relapse?

Let’s first define what an addiction is: It’s a condition that results when a person ingests a substance or engages in an activity that can be pleasurable but the continued use/act of which becomes compulsive and interferes with ordinary life responsibilities, such as work, relationships, or health.

That fits digital addiction doesn’t it?

Second, let’s identify diagnostic questions to help us figure out the nature and extent of digital addiction. This is a vital step towards detox. There are two main areas to focus on–quantity and quality. Use an index card and try to keep a daily record of these two measures.

QUANTITY

How many hours a day do I spend on my devices?

Include all your devices: phone, iPad, laptop, desktop, video game console, etc. Do not include time spent purely for vocational purposes. Include browser time, text time, and App time.

How many times a day do I use my devices?

Someone may not spend 10 hours a day online but they may be ruining their day by checking into Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and email fifty times a day. That’s not an exaggeration, by the way. According to Time magazine, the average American checks their phone 46 times a day and for the average teen, it’s 74 checks a day.

QUALITY

How useful/valuable/productive/healthy is the time I spend using my devices? This is not just a question about whether some activity is moral or immoral, but whether it is wise or foolish, important or trivial, valuable or worthless.

Even just recording this information should have immediate benefits. I’ve given this and similar exercises to a number of people, and every single one of them has said that they were shocked to discover how many times they were going online, how long they were spending there, and how most of what they were doing was such a waste of time. Just doing this simple exercise made an immediate impact on the quantity and quality of digital data they consumed.

DIGITAL DETOX QUESTIONNAIRE

But if you’re really serious about detoxing, then you need a more sophisticated tool. Try this Digital Detox Questionnaire. To make the best use of it:

1. Download the pdf.

2. Have a look at the questions to find out what to measure each day.

3. Complete the questionnaire at the end of each day.

4. Total your points to find out where you are on the digital addiction scale

• 100+ You are passed-out drunk on data
• 60+ You are drunk and disorderly
• 0-30 You are sober and almost tee-total!

5. Repeat exercise a week later to see if you are making progress in your digital detox.

The aim is gradual reduction and you probably need to do this a couple of times a month to keep on top of it.

Previous Posts:  Technology is Created by God, Technology is the Gift of God, Technology Reveals God, The Dangers of Digital Babylon, Digital Technology is Killing our Minds, Digital Technology is Killing our Health, Digital Technology is Killing our Relationships. Digital Technology is Killing our Productivity, Digital Technology is Killing our Souls.

Guest Post by Brian Hedges, author of Watchfulness: Recovering a Lost Spiritual Discipline

Many believers underestimate the evil one’s power to deceive. Evil sometimes feels more terrifying in fiction than in real life. People shudder at the description of malevolent aliens, vampires, and Black Riders but greet biblical warnings about the devil with a yawn. But though the Nazgúl in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings are truly frightening, the mortal enemy of our souls is more terrible by far. “Be sober, be vigilant,” writes Peter, “because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8).

Listen up, Christian. You have an implacable enemy whose single objective is to plant a victory flag in the soil of your vanquished faith. He wants to devour you, consume you, and destroy you.

Writing to the Corinthians, Paul says, “We are not ignorant of his devices” (2 Cor. 2:11). Are you? Do you recognize the danger of his deceptions, the malignity of his temptations, and the subtlety of his insinuations? Don’t underestimate the devil. As Richard Rogers observes, the devil first comes to us as a tempter and then as an accuser.  First he seduces us with the fleeting pleasures of sin. When he succeeds, he tallies up our transgressions and roars in our consciences in the hellish attempt to drive us to despair.

Sometimes he even injects evil, blasphemous thoughts into our minds. There is a scene in Pilgrim’s Progress where Christian passed through the Valley of the Shadow of Death and came to the mouth of a burning pit. Bunyan tells us that at just that moment, “one of the wicked ones got behind him, and stepped up softly to him, and, whisperingly, suggested many grievous blasphemies to him, which he verily thought had proceeded from his own mind.”  A wise friend once told me that the enemy speaks to us in our own voice and with our own accent.

The point is this: we have a spiritual enemy who is poised to make us fall any way he can.

For still our ancient foe
Doth seek to work us woe
His craft and power are great
And armed with cruel hate
On earth is not his equal.

Watchfulness is necessary because we are at war and the stakes are high. This is surely one reason why Paul includes watchfulness as he exhorts us to prayer, following his exposition of the Christian armor in Ephesians 6: “praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints” (v. 18).

This suggests that watching is one means for putting the armor on. As Rogers says, “To have this armor ready to keep us and conduct us safely throughout our life in our practice of Christianity, this is to be done: we must watch continually and pray with heart (Matt. 26:41). This we must do often.”

Endorsements

Watchfulness: Recovering a Lost Spiritual Discipline by Brian Hedges.

“If you love your Bible, if you love the Puritans, and if you love your own soul, then this little book is a banquet awaiting you to come and indulge your spiritual appetite!
—Brian Borgman, Pastor of Grace Community Church, Minden, Nevada, and Author of Feelings and Faith, Cultivating Godly Emotions in the Christian Life, and Coauthor of Spiritual Warfare: A Biblical and Balanced Perspective

“In a sea of antinomian easy believism, Watchfulness is a five-alarm fire bell calling us all to work out our salvation with fear, trembling, and effort. It’s about time. In twenty years of ministry, I have not read a single article, let alone book, that deals with the urgent issue of watchfulness. This book is long overdue and desperately needed.”
—Todd Friel, Host of Wretched Radio and Author of Reset for Parents: How to Keep Your Kids from Backsliding

“Pick this up and start implementing it today.”
—Jason M. Garwood, Teaching Pastor of Cross & Crown Church, Northern Virginia, and Author of Be Holy: Learning the Path of Sanctification

“If you would enjoy Christ more, safeguard your soul with greater effectiveness, and live the faith-filled life more intentionally, devour these pages. It will do your soul good and sow seeds for a life of devotion to Christ.”
—Jason Helopoulos, Associate Pastor, University Reformed Church, Lansing, Michigan, and Author of A Neglected Grace: Family Worship in the Christian Home

“This book will elevate your pursuit of personal holiness as it brings to the forefront of your mind the eternal benefits of watching over your heart and being alert for your enemy.”
—Steven J. Lawson, President, OnePassion Ministries, Dallas, Texas

“A small gem of a book…with gospel-driven exhortation and warnings to busy Christians. Timely and necessary.”
—Derek W. H. Thomas, Senior Minister, First Presbyterian Church, Columbia, South Carolina; Chancellor’s Professor, Reformed Theological Seminary; and Teaching Fellow, Ligonier Ministries

“Brian Hedges makes the dead speak to us with a fresh voice on a neglected topic for the refreshment of our souls.”
—Ryan M. McGraw, Morton H. Smith Professor of Systematic Theology, Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

Blogs

The Many Faces of Legalism
“We are all born with a legal-heart, and the Christian life is one of discovering just how legal-hearted we continue to be. It’s not until we understand the right use of God’s law in its intimate union with the gospel that we begin to move away from every form of legalism. ”

Benny Hinn Says He’s Guilty of Taking the Prosperity Gospel Outside of What the Bible Teaches
“He explained, “When I was younger I was influenced by the preachers who taught whatever they taught. But as I’ve lived longer, I’m thinking, ‘Wait a minute, you know this doesn’t fit totally with the Bible and it doesn’t fit with the reality.’ So what is prosperity? No lack. I’ve said this before.”"

It’s not just you, everybody is exhausted
“The chaos of life and its collision with technology and tragedy has more of us feeling drained, frazzled and emotionally overrun. Put simply: We are exhausted.”

7 tips for learning biblical Hebrew from Miles Van Pelt
“Tip 6: Get enough sleep every night Another important tip for studying Hebrew is to make sure you get enough sleep every night for your brain to be working properly the next day. I understand that one of the biggest temptations is to stay up late and to get up early—and minimize your sleep. The problem is your brain needs rest in order to memorize and understand things. The more sleep you can get while you’re studying a language, the better you’ll learn that language and the faster you’ll be able to use it. ”

Build Your Social Budget Like a Financial Budget
“If that sounds like your life, then you need a social budget. Like a financial budget, a social budget allocates your available time towards both pre-determined commitments and “discretionary experiences,” and helps you determine how to spend your time in accordance with your values. Even if you’re pretty happy with the way your social life is going, a social budget can help you make more time for the people you want in your life, while spending less time on social events that leave you feeling bored or drained.”

The Pastor’s Self-Care in Four Easy Steps
“Self-care, is a realistic view of how to take care of the only bodies we have in this life; bodies which house our minds and our souls. Self-care is the physical, emotional, and spiritual equivalent of automobile maintenance. Change the oil, check the transmission fluid, check the air-pressure, and get weird noises checked out, then your car or truck should last. Ignore the “clunk, clunk” or the smoking tailpipe long enough and expect a costly repair later.”

Hide, Replenish, and Go
“I am tired. Over the past year, I have found myself being stretched thin and out of energy. I tend to overwork myself and overload myself with productive tasks. However, I also find myself running on more energy than I have on my own. The last few months have awakened my need for hiding and resting. I do not mean that I am hiding from responsibility or people. Instead, I am trying to discipline myself to hide in Scripture. I realize I cannot do this on my own and it does not come naturally for me to rely on someone else. I have set out to discipline myself in three things: hiding in Scripture, being replenished in Scripture, and being sent by Scripture.”

Five Reasons Many Pastors Struggle with Depression
“These are the five primary causes pastors identified as the reasons behind their depression. Each of the causes is followed by a direct quote from pastors who shared with me their struggles.”

Kindle Books

Digital technology is not only killing our minds, our health, our relationships, and our productivity, it’s also killing our souls.

Digital Technology is Killing our Self-Control

The Great Disconnect: MegaHERTZ to MegaHURTS by Michael Wolff and Bradley Bridges.

Violent video games result in less activity in the prefrontal portions of the brain, which are involved in inhibition, concentration and self-control.

Digital Heroin

• Recent brain imaging research is showing that they affect the brain in exactly the same way that cocaine does.
• Technology is so hyper-arousing that it raises dopamine levels — the feel-good neurotransmitter most involved in the addiction dynamic — as much as sex.
• This addictive effect is why Dr. Peter Whybrow, director of neuroscience at UCLA, calls screens “electronic cocaine” and Chinese researchers call them “digital heroin.”
• The handbook of “Internet Addiction” by Dr. Kimberly Young states that 18 percent of college-age internet users in the US suffer from tech addiction.
• The immersive and addictive world of screens dampens and stunts key developmental processes.

“Once a kid has crossed the line into true tech addiction, treatment can be very difficult. Indeed, I have found it easier to treat heroin and crystal meth addicts than lost-in-the-matrix video gamers or Facebook-dependent social media addicts.”

The Addiction that’s Worse than Alcohol or Drug Abuse

In some ways, the psychological impact caused by Facebook, Snapchat and other digital platforms can be more difficult to treat than other recognised addictions, Driskell says. “It’s worse than alcohol or drug abuse because it’s much more engaging and there’s no stigma behind it,” he says. Driskell charges $150 per hour and works with patients on a weekly basis for at least six months.

Digital Technology is Killing our Purity

Multiple and manifold temptations and all in the privacy of our own homes.

Fight the New Drug

If you click through you’ll find peer-reviewed research on how porn harms the brain, porn affects relationships, and porn affects society. The Table of Contents is frightening enough before even opening the research.

‘She’d gone from a happy teenager to a wreck’: The day my daughter was caught sexting

Almost a third of teenagers have shared explicit pictures of themselves online and regularly share naked photos with each other via their smart phones, seemingly blissfully unaware – or in denial - of the pitfalls.

Porn 2.0: The Sexting Crisis

Teens and young adults said “Not Recycling” is more immoral than viewing pornographic images. They also placed “thinking negatively about someone with a different point of view” as a much worse activity than viewing pornography.

Why It’s Terrible News That Millennials Are Having Less Sex

Pre-marital sex is dropping. That sounds like a good thing until we find out that it’s largely because pornography and social media are disincentivizing young people from pursuing real romantic relationships.

Digital Technology is Killing our Spiritual Disciplines 

It’s killing communion with God as it usurps communication with him first thing in the morning, last thing at night, and throughout the day.

3 Reasons Why We Are Addicted to Digital Distraction

I surveyed eight thousand Christians about social media routines. More than half of the respondents (54 percent) admitted to checking a smartphone within minutes of waking. When asked whether they were more likely to check email and social media before or after spiritual disciplines on a typical morning, 73 percent said before. This reality is especially concerning

Thirty Seconds Alone with God | Desiring God

Tony Reinke analyzes the changes in our use of digital technology between 2015 and 2016. The clearest finding is “that our mobile devices, our tablets, and especially our smartphones are filling in more and more of life’s little gaps with perfectly sized bits of consumable media.” He warns us: “The worst of our compulsive social media habits in the empty spaces of our lives is corroding our prayer lives.”

In the little cracks of time in my day, with my limited attention, I am more apt to speak into social media than I am to pray. That’s the brute honesty of the situation. And because of this negligence, God feels more distant to my life as a result.

Time to Shut off our Phones and Go Deep with the Lord

I’ll tell you, one of the reasons we don’t go so deep and we don’t mourn so deeply and we don’t weep so bitterly and we don’t contemplate things like David did is because we’re so caught up in the trivialities of our – you know what, there’s a time to turn off your computer, turn off your phone…And if you’ve gotta take a 12-gauge shot gun and put a slug hole through the front of your television in order to get alone with the Lord, then do it.

Digital Technology is Killing our Churches 

8 Ways the Internet Can Damage the Church

I have young adult friends who spend most of their life secluded in front of a computer screen, often missing the relational blessings God intends for us. Isolation almost always leads to trouble.

It’s not uncommon to see a public tweet or a Facebook post that speaks positively of Christ, followed by a post that contradicts the kind of life Christ expects us to live–both from the same person. It’s not surprising that the world sometimes ignores our message of the transforming power of the gospel.

In addition to killing our minds, our health, and our relationships, it’s also killing our productivity.

Digital Technology is Killing our Time

So much time is being frittered away online, especially on social media.

The Great Disconnect: MegaHERTZ to MegaHURTS

8-10 year old children spend on average 8 hrs of media/tech time a day. Tweens or teenagers average 11 hrs or more

The typical person by their early 20’s will have spent more than 30,000 hours on the internet or playing videogames. That’s roughly 3.5 years on the internet, playing games or using technology.

Millennials and Their Phones

• We are spending more time than ever glued to our mobile devices — especially young people.
• 25% of millennials look at their phone more than 100 times a day compared with just 10% of baby boomers,
• Half of millennials look at their phone more than 50 times a day — three times the rate of boomers.
• One in four millennials spend five hours a day on their phones and 50% spend at least 3 hours.

Digital Technology is Killing our Working Lives

How Deep Work Can Change Your Life Forever

According to their 2015 report, distractions annually eat up 759 hours per worker. That’s just one hour shy of twenty complete 40-hour workweeks every year!

Tests of office workers reveal that they check email 30-40 times an hour, although they think it’s only 10-15 times an hour. 1 in 4 people check their smartphone every 30 minutes, 1 in 5 every 10 minutes.

Digital Technology is Killing our Workplaces

Why You Need Less Noise for Work and Your Health

A study at the University of California, Irvine, found that knowledge workers have focus periods of just eleven minutes on average, in-between interruptions. As Campbell said, “if you need to focus, ‘work’ is pretty much the worst place you could be.”

Digital Technology is Killing our Downtime

Working life is no longer limited to one place and certain hours, but we are always on from first thing to last thing at night, always contactable, even on vacation. 75% of 25-29 year olds sleep with their phones. 25% of employees say that they feel their job security depends on them being available beyond normal working hours.

Previous Posts: Technology is Created by God, Technology is the Gift of God, Technology Reveals God, The Dangers of Digital Babylon, Digital Technology is Killing our Minds, Digital Technology is Killing our Health, Digital Technology is Killing our Relationships.

Blogs

Did You Know That Charles Spurgeon Struggled with Depression?
“It comes as a surprise to some that Charles Spurgeon had a lifelong battle with depression. His reputation as a famed and powerful preacher, his cheery wit, and his cigar-smoking manliness might lead us to imagine there could never be a chink in his Victorian Englishman’s armor. It shouldn’t be a surprise, of course: being full of life in a fallen world must mean distress, and Spurgeon’s life was indeed full of physical and mental pain.”

Learning the Biblical ABCs of Emotional Intelligence
“As Christians, we have scores and scores of resources for renewing our minds and taking every thought captive to the gospel. Yet, as Christians, we don’t spend as much time thinking about, nor do we have many solid biblical resources on renewing our emotions or taking every emotion captive to the gospel. With this dearth of resources in mind, I’ve collated 6 of my writings on emotions into a free PDF document: ”

3 ways to disciple our children in an age of confusion
“The culture is speaking loud and clear. We must be louder and clearer. Three ways we can do this well is to tell, tune in, and talk:”

The Danger of Neglecting Beauty
“In my experience, many Christians are strongest in their desire for truth and goodness, with beauty running a distant third. But when we neglect the pursuit of beauty, we neglect pursuing one of the primary qualities of God.”

Wheaton College Wins Court Battle Over Obama’s Birth Control Mandate
“Another judge signaled a win for religious liberty by barring the federal government from forcing the christian school to pay for employee birth control.”

The Difference between Guilt and Shame
“Though Guilt and Shame are twins, born in the garden, only moments apart, they aren’t identical. Guilt is usually tied to an event: I did something bad. Shame is tied to a person: I am bad. Guilt is the wound. Shame is the scar. Guilt is isolated to the individual. Shame is contagious.”

Kindle Books

Why I Am Not An Atheist by David J. Randall $2.99.

The Work of Christ: What the Events of Jesus’ Life Mean for You by R. C. Sproul $2.39.

Adoniram Judson by Jason G. Duesing $0.99.