Using Technology Without Losing Ourselves

The email from my student began: Hi Dr. Mulder…can I schedule a time to visit with you in your office? Emails like this sometimes set off warning bells for me, but not this time; the student immediately followed up this request with: It’s the book you have us reading in class. I’m not sure I agree with it…and even the parts I do agree with have me questioning so many things! I’m starting to think that technology has a pretty negative influence on culture, and maybe even on me as an individual. If so, what does that mean for how I should live my life?

I recently added Neil Postman’s 1992 classic, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, to the syllabus for a course I teach that is titled Technology, Identity, and Community. Although it’s an “old” book, Technopoly raises important questions about technology’s growing influence on culture and identity, questions that feel even more urgent today. Now, decades after its publication, Postman’s insights on how technology shapes our lives and societies remain true, particularly in an era dominated by digital devices, social media, and AI. His critique of our unquestioning embrace of technology still resonates in today’s world.

The question my student was really asking is the same one that I think we all should be asking: How should Christ-followers respond to an always-on culture with powerful digital devices?”

That, dear reader, is a really important question.

In fact, it is what prompted me to develop the Technology, Identity, and Community course as one of the Core capstone options for seniors at Dordt. I want my students—and all of us, really—to carefully consider the right role of digital technology in our lives.

My specific academic field is educational technology, and often I’ve described myself as a “technophilic edtech skeptic.” I love technology. But I’m also skeptical of so many of the over-the-top promises made by tech companies that “this will revolutionize everything!” Navigating these two impulses, I’ve been trying to develop a more nuanced, more thoughtful, and more faithful answer to that question about the right role of digital technology in our lives.

I suspect it won’t surprise you to hear that there are plenty of techno-optimists advocating that we should embrace all aspects of technology in our lives. But there are just as many techno-skeptics out there arguing that we should turn our backs on all things digital. How do we navigate this?

Concerned as I am about the potentially negative effects of technology, I’m also realistic: human beings have always used tools (technologies), and I believe that creating technologies is actually part of how we reflect the image of our Creator: we were created to create! And, as I’ve already admitted, I’m also a technophile. I like to think I take a somewhat more of a middle-ground approach rather than the all-or-nothing approaches. I am seeking a way of being that recognizes the potential benefits of the digital tools at my disposal, while also seeking to use them in a God-glorifying, human-flourishing way.

This sounds easy enough, doesn’t it? But I think it’s a thorny path to travel in practice. For example, on its face, social media seems to be the ideal way to connect people, treating them in more human ways. And indeed, social media tools do connect people, which is just what they are designed to do. However, I suspect everyone reading this who has spent any time at all on social media platforms can think of examples of how the technology supposed to bring people together in fact drives people apart. How often do people post things that they would never say if they were speaking face-to-face? It’s almost as if the technology supposedly designed to bring people together is in fact an outrage engine that causes us to treat our fellow image-bearers as somehow less-than-human. And I’m convinced that this is not God-glorifying, and it surely does not lead to human flourishing, for either the one receiving the message or the one sending it.

Perhaps the real question we need to consider is what it means to be a human being in a technology-rich world. I appreciate the wisdom I learned from Andy Crouch in his lovely book, The Life We’re Looking For: Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological World. Crouch uses Jesus’ own words. When Jesus is asked which commandment is the most important in all the Old Testament law, he answers, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ And the second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Mark 12:29-31) Crouch uses this to lay out his definition for what it means to be human based on this passage: “Every human person is a heart-soul-mind-strength complex designed for love” (p. 33). Crouch emphasizes that we are not fully human without all these aspects; you are not a body without a soul, and you were never meant to be a soul without a body. You are not a mind without a body. You are not a mind without a heart.

But Couch carries this one step further: he argues that the way we tend to want to use digital technologies is to give us superpowers in one or more of these aspects—often our minds. This happens at the expense of some other aspect, however. How easy it is to neglect our bodies when we spend too much time with technology! Or our hearts, or our souls. And most certainly of all, our capacity to love.

This has me looping back to my student’s initial concern: how should I live my life in a world full of technology at my fingertips? I don’t think that we can easily avoid technology’s influence in our lives, as it has become so interwoven with much of our work, education, and even our recreation. But I think there are a few practical, tangible things we can do—and I would suggest we should do.

First, let’s remember the human. When we are interacting with other people through technological means, keep in mind that there is another image-bearer on the other end. If it helps, reimagine your communication as the proverbial string connecting two tin cans. There is another human being pulling on the other end of that string! Better yet, if it’s feasible, communicate in a richer format than just text alone: a live video chat, a phone conversation, or—best of all—a face-to-face conversation are good ways to remember the human. If those options aren't possible, it may be worth considering whether the message needs to be sent at all.

Second, let’s consider Jenny Odell’s advice in her book, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy. Odell is a strong critic of Silicon Valley tech companies that are intent on hijacking and commanding our attention through the apps and devices we welcome into our lives. Her argument is intriguing if simplistic: we need to spend more time outside and actively avoid those little glowing screens’ impact on our time and consciousness if we want to wake up from big tech’s magnetic pull in our lives. If you find yourself “always on,” consider a tech-free walk for at least 20 minutes, and outside if at all possible. The fresh air and movement of your body is good for you. The opportunity to disconnect from a screen is likewise good for you. Perhaps this sounds like a scary challenge: leaving your phone behind while you walk!

Third, I suggest committing to doing something “the hard way” on a regular basis. Nicholas Carr’s compelling book, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains offers a well-researched and carefully articulated argument that the very structure of the internet, comprised of hypertext and short-burst communication, directly impacts the ways we read, interact with others, and expect the world to work: at our convenience and with low demands on us. The technology is designed to shape our behaviors and even our expectations into particular ways of being. Carr’s point about digital technologies influencing us to always expect things to be easy is one we should take to heart. For example, the hard work of writing something yourself instead of using an AI chatbot to do it is actually more satisfying, and more human. The promise of technology to give us superpowers runs at odds with our actual humanity.

These might seem like small steps to take, and in fact they probably are. But I think they might be real ways to begin to address my student’s concern. It’s not that we need to throw out all the tech completely, but we need to continually develop wise discernment of which tech we choose, when we use it, and how. The right role of technology in our lives promotes being more human, and not less, more loving, and not less. This is how we can use technology without losing ourselves in the process.