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We are slaves to our phones. According to a 2016 study, the average person uses their phone 76 times every day, while the more obsessed users can average up to 132 sessions on their phone. Most surprisingly, the most common time to pick up our phones is from 7 a.m. until dinner time, lowering around 8 pm. And finally dropping off after midnight. In other words, we’re using our phones every moment of the day.
Unsurprisingly, social media and web browsing took the top spots for what people were doing during these sessions. And despite many people having 20+ apps on their phones, the majority of people would only use a single app on their phone during the majority of their sessions.
A time and place
Let’s think about this. Based on the times, people are picking up their phones as the morning progresses, which is when most people are meant to focus on work or school. However, people are much more likely to pick up their phones all throughout the evening when they’re home with their families. Whether they pull themselves away from work or family, we can see that people are most likely to busy themselves on social media or clicking through websites.
Many people like to take data like this and bemoan how far society has fallen thanks to technology. However, it’s important to realize that this is our world now. We live in an age where technology is increasingly present in all aspects of life, and to constantly complain about it is to allow ourselves to be ill-equipped to actually engage with life in a way that is not only meaningful but seeks to bring glory to our God.
At a basic level, there’s nothing inherently wrong with picking up a phone. It’s not as though there’s some magic threshold where, as long as we don’t pick up our phones this many times, we don’t have a problem. Instead, we need to think about why we’re doing something so that we can address our motives or stop altogether.
So what might cause people to regularly use things like social media throughout the day, sacrificing productivity or time with family to swipe their finger across a glowing screen?
What social media reveals to us
The popularity of social media like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter gives us a fascinating look at the hearts and desires of a large group of people. When we think about the problem with social media, we often think of those who create an online persona or regularly share problematic articles or images.
However, despite people spending nearly 2.5 hours every day on social media, many people aren’t posting or sharing several times a day. Even those who actively share things online don’t spend hours writing or clicking the “share” button. That means that, for the most part, people are watching others live their lives, mostly only engaging by sharing or clicking a “like” button.
We may try to dress it up by saying we just want to stay up-to-date with what people are doing, but we also know that scrolling through dozens of posts in a few minutes leaves us knowing very little about the lives we just peeked into. If we really wanted to get caught up with someone’s life, the best way to do it isn’t by looking at what they share online, but actually reaching out and engaging with them as human beings.
So what are we doing, really? Even if we rarely use social media, why are we so tempted to pull out our phones, mindlessly tap on a single app, and spend 2 or 30 minutes getting absorbed into something that, in the end, leaves us feeling as bored as when we started, or perhaps even guilty about how we’ve spent our time?
Craving distraction
For many of us, and I speak from experience, pulling out our phones is our attempt to simply distract ourselves. Think about it – when we pull out our phones, how often is it done with the intention of making the most of our time? How often do we use social media to truly get to know someone or get caught up with someone’s life in a meaningful way that fosters our relationship with them? How much of what we say and do online is truly beneficial, or even necessary, to our lives? Or to our growth as followers of Jesus Christ?
Instead, think about the times we’re most often tempted to pull out our phones. Either we’re bored, or we’re trying to escape an unpleasant situation. In both situations, we’re looking for something to take our minds off of our current circumstances. And more than that, we want something easy to fill our time with.
At work, there’s plenty of things we could do. But those things are often hard, frustrating, or just not enjoyable. When we’re bored, we know we have our Bible, projects around the house, a stack of books on our bookshelf gathering dust, or other productive things we could spend our time on. Even during family time, when we could deepen the bond with our children or spouse (or even our family pet), we instead choose to sit in a chair, open our phones, and close ourselves off to the world.
So much waste
There’s plenty of valuable things we could do with our time, yet our default choice is often to waste time on our phones. And I use the word “waste” because that’s often what we do. In the past I’ve discussed how our time and money are very similar – they are both finite resources, they are both gifts from God, and they are both things we need to be good stewards of.
If we want to use our money well, it’s wise to create some kind of budget so that we don’t waste important dollars on unimportant expenses. Time is the same way – if we aren’t budgeting our time well, we will spend an average of 5 hours every day looking at our phones with very little to show for it. It may not be a terrible experience while we do it, but rarely do we end a session of social media feeling refreshed, encouraged, and thankful that we used our time on it. Instead, we often feel the same way we do after eating fast food – it fills us up, but doesn’t satisfy us or benefit us in a meaningful way.
In the end, we take a gift from God and spending on meaningless distraction. We waste something that could have been used well.
Redeem the time
So then, be careful how you walk, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. (Ephesians 5:15-17)
Everyone is doing it. Our whole society is glued to their phones, wasting every minute they can on things that serve little purpose. We are encouraged to live in constant fear of missing out on news and events if we don’t regularly check things like social media or news websites. Stress and unhappiness continue to rise as people compare themselves to the hundreds of perfect lives they see on social media and wonder why their lives are so awful by comparison. We rely on funny or cute images to save us from loneliness.
Yet wasting time on our phones isn’t a neutral experience, but is actually damaging our spiritual health.
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice! Let your gentle spirit be known to all people. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and pleading with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, think about these things. As for the things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you. (Philippians 4:4-9)
Think about the bold parts of the text above. If this is what our lives in Christ should look like, we need to make sure our time is being used in a way that fosters this. We want to use our time well, spending it on things that will encourage, not damage, our walk with Jesus Christ. If you’re someone who wants to make the most of any time spent on your phone but don’t know where to start, this passage gives us wonderful guidance to know whether we’re glorifying God with that time:
- Does it encourage us to rejoice in the Lord or find out satisfaction in other things?
- Do we choose to display a gentle spirit, rather than getting into arguments or sharing things that mock or belittle others?
- Do we spend time on things that leave us anxious, depressed, or hopeless?
- If we are feeling that way, do we rely on distraction to bring us a sense of peace, or do we turn to prayer and find a peace that only God can give?
- Do we focus on things that are pleasing and honoring to God, or do we spend time scrolling through things that lead us toward thoughts and desires that are more in line with the world?
- Does the time spent on our phones encourage us to follow Christ more, or is it a distraction from our true purpose in life?
The time God gives us is a precious thing. We live in a world where we can spend that time on any number of pointless, foolish distractions. We can have every moment of our day filled with doing something. We never need to feel bored because our phones are always nearby. We can find freedom from stress by setting our minds on other things, ultimately turning things like Facebook into our savior from boredom.
However, we aren’t called to lives of distraction and busyness. We are called to serve and honor Jesus Christ in all we do. Our phones can be wonderful tools for that, giving us access to more biblical resources than we could ever consume in a lifetime. At the same time, those phones open us up to filling our time with things that don’t matter, and over time making us so enslaved to our phones that we will steal time from our job, family, and even God in order to feed our craving for easy, simple, mindless distraction.
It’s an incredibly difficult balance to find. There’s nothing wrong with social media, browsing the internet, playing games, or any number of other things we can do with our phones. However, all of those things can easily become distractions, tempting us to waste our time on unimportant things because they’re easy. Most of us know we don’t use our phones to the glory of God, but we must also trust that God’s goodness and grace mean it’s never too late.
Don’t waste time wasting more time
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)
The first step to redeeming our time, as always, is repentance. If we’ve been sinful with our time, it’s not enough to just “do better.” It’s only through the power of God that we can honor Him with our lives, which means that it all starts with getting our hearts right with Him.
No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it. (1 Corinthians 10:13)
The temptation to use our phones foolishly may be a lifelong struggle. Yet honoring God in the midst of temptation isn’t always about having the grit and determination to endure the full force of the temptation. Oftentimes we find ourselves giving in to temptation because we set ourselves up for failure. We keep certain apps on our phones, we don’t disable notifications, or we neglect planning for how we’ll honor God when we’re bored or stressed. If our phones tempt us toward sin, even something as “innocent” as mindlessly scrolling through Twitter instead of reading, praying, or whatever else we know we ought to do instead, then it may be time to revisit just how much access we have to the things that tempt us.
But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. (James 1:5)
God promises to give us wisdom when we rely on Him. This may be clear guidance from the Holy Spirit, a friend or teacher giving us insight, or any number of ways that God molds us into people who love and serve Him more today than we did yesterday. We must trust that He doesn’t want to hold wisdom back from us, but gaining that wisdom isn’t just a matter of God waving a magic wand over us. It can be difficult, and it will often take time, but God will give us wisdom.
Ultimately, the means of finding freedom from our need for distraction is the same thing that makes us want freedom in the first place. Everything comes down to Jesus Christ. We want to love Him by using the life He’s given us for His glory, and the only way we can do that is through full reliance on Him.
It can be easy to rely on the distraction of our phones to save us from things like stress, depression, anxiety, or even boredom. Yet when we remember that our purpose in this life is to serve Christ, not to be happy or busy, then we can start finding freedom from distraction and satisfaction in Jesus Christ alone.
