Some Appreciative Words
In his book PloductivityPastor Douglas Wilson sets forth a biblical case for how Christians ought to view technology. His basic argument runs thus: even though the Bible doesn’t have any verses about how to use an iPhone, we are not left up a creek without a biblical paddle. Rather, we should view technology as a form of toolmaking, and tools are a form of human wealth, and the Bible has lots to say about wealth.
In framing the discussion this way, Wilson is able help Christians think theologically about issues of wealth, tech, and productivity. This kind of biblical reasoning is incredibly useful. It frames tech as, to rephrase the principle, a form of gift-wealth. It’s a gift from God, a form of wealth, and something to be stewarded. This line of thinking helps to guard against a couple of tendencies.
The first is techno-utopianism. We live in a day when people literally think technology can solve everything. To be fair, maybe it can’t yet. But the time is coming when we will solve global warming, life on Mars, and human mortality, all with the help of Elon Musk and friends. But if the tool-making wisdom needed to advance technology is a gift of God and form of wealth granted by him, then as Christians we can see from the get-go that all of our advancements will meet with certain limits: as Solomon once asked, who can make straight what God has made crooked? Not you, not me, and not Elon. Technology can improve our lives. But it won’t fix them at a fundamental level.
The second danger a gift-wealth view of tech can guard us from is the danger I am far more inclined to: Luddism, or the demonization of tech as such. It is easy for me to look at the world around, frayed as we are, distracted as we are, anxious as we are, and conclude that if we all smashed our iPhones and laptops the world would be a merrier place indeed. But such would be akin to taking a talent and burying it in the soil (Matthew 25:25).
But…
As Wilson gets close to wrapping up his book, he turns to the topic of the New Media. How should Christians interact with this media landscape? Here, on pages 105-107, Wilson turns to the example of the Apostle Paul. Did he want to interact with people in person? Yes, he preferred it. But he didn’t allow that preference to stop him from sending letters when that got the message to the people.
What should we do as people adopt new technology? Well, Wilson’s reasoning goes, we ought to adapt the advice of bank-robber Willie Sutton, who robbed banks because, “that’s where the money is.” Christians should interact with social media by being there as Christians because that’s where the people is, if you catch the drift.
If I were going to write it as a syllogism, I’d put it this way:
Premise A: Christ is the Lord over all persons, and over all forms of communication between those persons
Premise B: Christians should proclaim Christ’s Lordship via all mediums of communication currently in use
Premise C: Social Media is a form of communication technology
A + B + C = D
Conclusion (D): Christians should use social media to proclaim Christ’s Lordship over the medium and the users of that medium
It follows. The logic isn’t the problem. But premise C is faulty.
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Social Media Isn’t What You Think
Social media platforms are not merely mediums of communication in the way that letters, books, newspaper articles, or even television were/are. They might function that way as mediums for sending content. But not for its receipt. Rather, what you must understand as a user of “free” social platforms is that you are the product. Your information, data regarding your preferences, habits, and interests is being bought and sold. Because this is the profit model, the incentive structure for social media platforms is not to facilitate the free-flow of information, but to keep you hooked to the system. The big danger of social media is not the boogey-men thrown out by the left or the right - censorship or disinformation. Rather, the danger is the monopolization of your attention by the trivial.
The deluge of triviality will also affect the way you interact with good, true, and beautiful content which really is there. On page 105, Wilson wryly observes that if you tweeted a Proverb a day, you could go on for quite a while without running out of material. True enough. But I can guarantee that the truth in that Proverb isn’t going to have the same impact at the cognitive and emotional level when situated in the midst of political rants, airbrushed pictures of “perfect” lives, and banal self-help nonsense as it would it were encountered in its intended setting: real life. Worse, posting on your social media accounts can also give a false sense of “making a difference” or “doing your part.” But reading the Proverbs as a collection of wisdom, or communicating a Proverb in an appropriate moment to your straying son is qualitatively different than posting or reading it on X.
Social media is not simply a matter of one more way to communicate. It is, by and large, a distraction from the real business of interacting (and communicating) with the real people in your real life. And, let me repeat, this is by design. Social media platforms are designed to pull and hold your attention away from the responsibilities of your actual existence. To use an example that may seem silly to some of you, but hits a little too close to home for me, is it more important to engage in a online debate over the hypostatic union, or to read a picture book to my four year old? Is it more important to post a meme about how God helps us through hard times, or to sit and meditate on Psalm 23?
In short, I think Wilson is wrong about social media because I think he is naive about how it functions in the real lives of people - especially young people.
Conclusion
In his book, Digital Minimalism, Cal Newport has a helpful principle: we shouldn’t evaluate technologies and platforms simply on the basis of “do they provide some benefit.” If we didn’t experience some benefit from them we wouldn’t have to worry about it - we’d just drop what wasn’t helpful. The danger in social media is that there are some real benefits and some pseudo-benefits, which together are enough to keep us using and rationalizing even in the face of obvious negative consequences. We now have multiple generations of people with screen addictions that are essentially analogous to sitting at the slot machine. Occasionally it will pay out. Constantly it makes me feel like it will. And so, here we sit. Drinking our free fountain pop and eating our cheap buffet meals. Staring into our palms, hoping for the dopamine machine to save us.
A better metric for evaluating technological aspects of our lives (and really, any part of our lives) is to weigh cost and benefit. Don’t ask “does this have any value?” Rather, ask “does this bring enough value to be worth it’s cost in time and attention?” I can’t answer that question for you in particular, but to return to the casino analogy, let me remind you: there’s a reason casinos are big, expensive, fancy buildings. There’s a reason Meta and X are multi-billion dollar companies. And it’s not because you got that value out of the platform.
Ploductivity is a really good book. I highly recommend it. But when it comes to social media I simply think Wilson’s analysis is too shallow, and is therefore unhelpful.
