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| Ed Cyzewski/Photo Credit: EdCyzewski.com |
Ed Cyzewski’s book RECONNECT: Spiritual Restoration from Digital Distraction has a simple premise.
“Our digital devices and social media apps are limiting our ability to concentrate, to have conversations, to eat dinner with our families or friends, and to practice spirituality because they distract us, eat up valuable time, and train us to crave stimulation, affirmation, and passive amusement.”
As one who deeply appreciates spiritual formation and practices Christian meditation (Centering Prayer), Cyzewski sees the danger of over-reliance on social media.
“Our devices and social media have the power to shape us into a particular kind of people: distracted by many thoughts, reactive, compulsive, and impatient.”
He points to the combination of increasingly sophisticated smartphones, and apps that tie-in to a constant stream of social media as the culprit. “Disembodied technology can devastate incarnate spirituality. How can we experience ‘God with us’ if we aren’t even aware of ourselves in the present moment?”
After taking the time to establish the extent of the problem, Cyzewski then turns to solutions, beginning with explaining the basics of what spiritual formation looks like.
“It involves patience, focus, silence, solitude, stillness, community, and regular practice. Centering prayer helps us release distracting thoughts with a prayer word so that we can become present for God. Whether practicing centering prayer or silent breathing in solitude, the experience of contemplative prayer, which is the interior work by the loving presence of God, is typically associated with a measure of stillness and awareness of God in the present moment.”
As social media is designed to solicit and offer instant gratification, Cyzewski cautions that spiritual practice involves discipline with results coming surely but slowly. It’s the exact opposite of a quick-fix.
Cyzewski spends some time, early on, in explaining the psychological research that goes behind the creation of social media and smartphone apps and their addictive nature. However, he makes his aim clear. “I have no intention of telling people to stop using their phones completely, to use a flip phone, to dumpster dive as resistance to the consumer economy…Rather, I want us to restore an element of free choice in our use of technology, specifically creating more space to choose things that are good for us (and others), like spiritual practices and serving our neighbors.”
“Social media isn’t designed to promote the most accurate or the most carefully assembled information. On social media, a study that offers a careful, measured assessment of its findings will always lose out to the emotionally charged spin-off article from a partisan site that twists the study’s findings to confirm the suspicions and bias of readers—thus ensuring that the average person is more likely to miss the original study.”
Meanwhile, most high school students struggled to discern whether manipulated images were genuine, were unlikely to click through a link to evaluate a source’s credibility, and even when comparing the credibility of organizations, often struggled to figure out which was more reliable.”
So, is there hope? Cyzewski writes: “While there are opportunities for connection, community, and encouragement via social media notifications, those notifications can also serve as a source of insecurity that drives us back to social media for another hit of affirmation. (By the way, you can easily turn them off under your phone’s settings—click on “Notifications” to customize which apps can send them to you.)”
Turning notifications off on your smartphone is only one of a variety of practical tips Cyzewski includes in his book to help lessen the draw of social media on our lives. Here’s another: “Perhaps it would help to ask how we can become more present in our communities, addressing injustice and inequality while sharing the good news of God’s love, rather than policing what other Christians believe [and write via social media].”
The fruits of disengagement from social media and actively pursuing spiritual direction can be found in “silence, freedom from distractions and interpersonal conversations, writes Cyzewski. “The gift of the church for a world drowning in digital distraction is the spiritual restoration that comes from God’s always present love. If the church has one asset going for it, it’s the fact that it offers a physical space where people reliably show up every week. That physical space does not need video screens, smartphones, or other forms of technology to accomplish its purpose...”
Besides modified disengagement from social media, Cyzewski says we need discipline. “Making any kind of meaningful and long-lasting change to address digital formation versus spiritual formation calls for a clear and decisive choice,” he advises. “If digital technology is designed to be compulsive, addictive, and invasive and we struggle to put our devices down because of their appealing connections, then we won’t stand a chance without an intentional plan moving forward.”
What about social justice advocates, who rely on real-time information to fine-tune advocacy? Cyzewski says it’s possible to remain an advocate with limited social media use. In fact, including locally-based volunteer efforts where human contact is possible may prove to be the most satisfying of all social justice work.
What would a spiritually-infused version of social media look like? Cyzewski suggests that “perhaps our souls and the souls of others would be most encouraged if we prioritized gratefully sharing how God has shown up in our lives each day or the things that make us come alive. Living in greater awareness of the beauty and truth we’ve experienced will make us more prepared to pray simply because we’ll be aware of what God has given us.”
In summary, Cyzewski presents a very straightforward three-step answer to being overwhelmed and overinfluenced by social media:
“Protect your time.
Prioritize one-on-one interactions.
Restore your spirit with daily silence.”
Ed Cyzewski is one of the most coherent, intelligent and thoughtful writers I know. I highly recommend RECONNECT: Spiritual Restoration from Digital Distraction.
“Our digital devices and social media apps are limiting our ability to concentrate, to have conversations, to eat dinner with our families or friends, and to practice spirituality because they distract us, eat up valuable time, and train us to crave stimulation, affirmation, and passive amusement.”
As one who deeply appreciates spiritual formation and practices Christian meditation (Centering Prayer), Cyzewski sees the danger of over-reliance on social media.
“Our devices and social media have the power to shape us into a particular kind of people: distracted by many thoughts, reactive, compulsive, and impatient.”
He points to the combination of increasingly sophisticated smartphones, and apps that tie-in to a constant stream of social media as the culprit. “Disembodied technology can devastate incarnate spirituality. How can we experience ‘God with us’ if we aren’t even aware of ourselves in the present moment?”
The prevalence of platforms for mean-spirited memes contributes to social division. And the rewards (given in likes, impressions and pageviews) for the meanest seem to strengthen this connection.
“It involves patience, focus, silence, solitude, stillness, community, and regular practice. Centering prayer helps us release distracting thoughts with a prayer word so that we can become present for God. Whether practicing centering prayer or silent breathing in solitude, the experience of contemplative prayer, which is the interior work by the loving presence of God, is typically associated with a measure of stillness and awareness of God in the present moment.”
As social media is designed to solicit and offer instant gratification, Cyzewski cautions that spiritual practice involves discipline with results coming surely but slowly. It’s the exact opposite of a quick-fix.
Cyzewski spends some time, early on, in explaining the psychological research that goes behind the creation of social media and smartphone apps and their addictive nature. However, he makes his aim clear. “I have no intention of telling people to stop using their phones completely, to use a flip phone, to dumpster dive as resistance to the consumer economy…Rather, I want us to restore an element of free choice in our use of technology, specifically creating more space to choose things that are good for us (and others), like spiritual practices and serving our neighbors.”
“Social media isn’t designed to promote the most accurate or the most carefully assembled information. On social media, a study that offers a careful, measured assessment of its findings will always lose out to the emotionally charged spin-off article from a partisan site that twists the study’s findings to confirm the suspicions and bias of readers—thus ensuring that the average person is more likely to miss the original study.”
Case-in-point is the proliferation of bots, disseminating all sorts of falsity as truth, which can lead to intellectual illiteracy among youth who are most prone to spend large amounts of time on social media. “Even more disturbing is the finding from a Stanford study that more than 80 percent of middle school students couldn’t determine the difference between an ad and a news story.
So, is there hope? Cyzewski writes: “While there are opportunities for connection, community, and encouragement via social media notifications, those notifications can also serve as a source of insecurity that drives us back to social media for another hit of affirmation. (By the way, you can easily turn them off under your phone’s settings—click on “Notifications” to customize which apps can send them to you.)”
Turning notifications off on your smartphone is only one of a variety of practical tips Cyzewski includes in his book to help lessen the draw of social media on our lives. Here’s another: “Perhaps it would help to ask how we can become more present in our communities, addressing injustice and inequality while sharing the good news of God’s love, rather than policing what other Christians believe [and write via social media].”
The fruits of disengagement from social media and actively pursuing spiritual direction can be found in “silence, freedom from distractions and interpersonal conversations, writes Cyzewski. “The gift of the church for a world drowning in digital distraction is the spiritual restoration that comes from God’s always present love. If the church has one asset going for it, it’s the fact that it offers a physical space where people reliably show up every week. That physical space does not need video screens, smartphones, or other forms of technology to accomplish its purpose...”
Besides modified disengagement from social media, Cyzewski says we need discipline. “Making any kind of meaningful and long-lasting change to address digital formation versus spiritual formation calls for a clear and decisive choice,” he advises. “If digital technology is designed to be compulsive, addictive, and invasive and we struggle to put our devices down because of their appealing connections, then we won’t stand a chance without an intentional plan moving forward.”
What about social justice advocates, who rely on real-time information to fine-tune advocacy? Cyzewski says it’s possible to remain an advocate with limited social media use. In fact, including locally-based volunteer efforts where human contact is possible may prove to be the most satisfying of all social justice work.
What would a spiritually-infused version of social media look like? Cyzewski suggests that “perhaps our souls and the souls of others would be most encouraged if we prioritized gratefully sharing how God has shown up in our lives each day or the things that make us come alive. Living in greater awareness of the beauty and truth we’ve experienced will make us more prepared to pray simply because we’ll be aware of what God has given us.”
In summary, Cyzewski presents a very straightforward three-step answer to being overwhelmed and overinfluenced by social media:
“Protect your time.
Prioritize one-on-one interactions.
Restore your spirit with daily silence.”
Ed Cyzewski is one of the most coherent, intelligent and thoughtful writers I know. I highly recommend RECONNECT: Spiritual Restoration from Digital Distraction.
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