Becoming ALERT

“Becoming ALERT” by Arthur Boers

Today, many challenges and a good deal of our uneasiness have to do with how we relate to and rely on technology. But what is technology? Edward Tenner matter-of-factly describes technology as “modification of the natural world.”

You and I use technology every day. Even when I try to “get back to the basics” and head to the wilderness, I am immersed in it. Gear and clothes—often surprisingly fancy and expensive—are crucial. I carry insect repellant, sun screen, ibuprofen, and binoculars to enhance both my journey and my comfort. I have a life jacket for safety, a Gore-Tex hat for shade from sun and protection from rain and to retain body heat in the cold, and a nifty water bottle to prevent dehydration. Canoes too are amazingly sophisticated and technological, both in the design and in the materials used in their construction. I like Kevlar canoes, not because I am fascinated with high-tech material, but because they are light and easier to carry on demanding portages. In the wilderness, we are more aware of how vulnerable we are and how crucial proper equipment is for both comfort and safety. Without exaggeration, the right technology can make the difference between life and death.

Make no mistake: we need technology. There is no human culture or civilization without it. Cooking, growing food, clothing, and playing music all involve technology.

Sometimes our understanding of specific forms of technology evolves. Trains adversely affected natives and natural regions out West in the United States and Canada. But now many locals are train aficionados. Alain Botton reminds us that though windmills were once loathed (condemned for theological and aesthetic reasons), they eventually became a cherished part of Dutch heritage—not just on postcards but even celebrated in great works of art, especially Golden Age painters.

Nevertheless, the impact of technology on our lives warrants careful consideration. It is easy to find ourselves in the predicament Martin Luther King Jr. long ago described: “We have allowed our technology to outrun our theology.” We’re not so good at carefully weighing the price of technological progress.

The issue is not technology itself but the reality that we often do not reflect on how we are affected and formed by our use of it. I am not opposed to technology. No one is. Not even the much-maligned, so-called Luddites, nor the romanticized but misunderstood and occasionally mocked Amish. All of us can name many benefits brought to us by technology. Several of my own family members have been seriously ill, and medical know-how and amazing machinery both relieved their pain and prolonged their lives. So, yes, there’s much to celebrate in technological advancement.

However, we should learn to see the full impact of the ways we use technology. Some technological solutions may make problems worse. Communication devices were supposed to bring us closer to family by allowing us to work at home; instead, they often detract from time and attention for spouses and children. Computers and cybercommunication were going to help us become paperless, but we consume growing quantities of paper. Machines grow quieter, but we use more of them and so add to the noise. Devices are increasingly energy efficient, but we employ so many that we end up using more power than ever. While computers and online connections get faster, the time we spend on them keeps going up. The better we are at responding to email, the more we are inundated by it. While it gets easier to assemble meals and food becomes convenient, our society shows greater problems with obesity. People feel safer because of cell phones, but then, without much wilderness savvy and bolstered by an optimistic sense of the connectedness afforded them by their cell phones, they end up taking needless risks. […]

Too often our interactions with technology follow a predictable trajectory: because it is available we use it, then we think it is normal, and finally we expect or even demand that others employ it as well. […] Are we deliberately choosing the ways that we want to live, or are we just carried along with the bad habits of wider society? […]

Many of us overlook that simple day-to-day choices—about cars, microwaves, cell phones, email, internet, television, dishwashers, communication options—have great and detrimental impact on our quality of life. If we do not pay attention to these effects, then chances are that devices will shape us in ways that we would not consciously choose.

How do we begin to get a handle on what ought to concern us?

Six aspects of how technology affects us need vigilance. Whether we’re talking about relatively old-fashioned twentieth-century cars, televisions, or radios, or whether we pay attention to more recent devices (and who can predict what’s next?), these areas need special, constant, and devoted care. They warrant discernment. The realms of concern in our technologically dominated lives today are as follows:’

1. ATTENTION: What is the primary and ongoing focus of our awareness? Screes and virtual relationships? Family and neighbors? Voyeuristic television “reality shows”? Nature and our surrounding environment? Is our capacity to pay attention, dwell, and be aware diminishing? Are we so overwhelmed with information and stimulation that our ability to respond is affected? Are we moving from receptivity to expecting to control what we perceive?

2. LIMITS: What guides our sense of what is appropriate? Do we have the moral strength to recognize when something is beyond the pale and that we need to say no? Or does technology, which makes more and more things possible, including voyeurism, pornography, and gambling, also make all things permissible? Which taboos are worth guarding? How does technology free us from moral constraints and accountability? What is the relationship of technology to addictions? How does technology reinforce addictions? How is technology itself addictive?

3. ENGAGEMENT: How are we coping with life and its challenges? Do we approach our day and those we love with calm anticipation, eager to be and work together? Or do such rushed and harried attention spans lead us into being demanding and curt? How does technology speed encounters, making conflicts and misunderstandings more likely? Does planned and perceived obsolescence contribute to eroding commitments?

4. RELATIONSHIPS: Do our lives include rich networks of loved ones, supportive friends, caring confidants, and casual acquaintances? Are there people who know us in our fullness, care about our hardships, and challenge us to grow in virtue? Or are our lives characterized by growing isolation and loneliness, our relationships dispersed and fragmented? What are the implications of having relationships increasingly mediated by technology while opportunities for face-to-face conversations decline and in-the-flesh friendships decrease? How does technology reinforce casual approaches to relationships, ones that are easy to enter or exit but do not necessarily sustain? What kinds of communities are created by our technology use?

5. TIME: Do we have a sense that there is enough room in our lifestyles for the things that truly matter—work and play, rigor and rest, love and laughter? Or are we too busy to live according to our deepest and highest priorities? Do distracting demands and pressures lure us away from our highest values? How does engagement with technology make us busier? And how does technology erode and displace opportunities to pause and determine, reflect on, and honor ultimate priorities?

6. SPACE: How well connected are we with the geography and places where we are located? Are we rooted in neighborhoods, connected to the earth and our environment? Or is much of our life lived abstractly in “virtual” reality?

This is no arbitrary list. These were relevant concerns earlier last century when people encountered cars and radio and television for the first time. In fact, these were the kinds of questions that various “Old Order” religious groups (Mennonites, Amish, Brethren, Quakers) asked. I have heard people mock Old Order resistance to “progress,” but those groups correctly and perceptively anticipated many looming issues and problems. Such questions are just as relevant today as technologies multiply and rapidly grow more complex. Everywhere I go—previously as a pastor, now as a teacher, writer, and speaker—I hear from folks struggling with these issues. People face dilemmas and are not quite sure how to work with them. They look for direction but do not have a sense of where to go. We have not figure out how to think and talk about such matters.

People of faith have always asked these types of questions and raised these kinds of issues: Where do you look with your eyes, listen with your ears, focus with your minds and imaginations? When to you say yes and when do you say no? How do you relate to others—people, objects, nature, God—in a way that trusts that things move at their appropriate pace? How do you love others, God, nature, and yourself? Where do you invest yourself and your time?

These areas of concern are not completely and neatly separate. They affect and interact with each other. Where I pay ATTENTION influences where I look (LIMITS), whether I am enamored of those who are speedy or appreciate that important matters might go slowly (ENGAGEMENT), how much I prioritize friendships (RELATIONSHIPS), when I choose to listen, pray, or be silent (TIME), and how I relate to physical surroundings and location (SPACE). Each of the six realms is related in many ways to all the others. They are intertwined.

You may have noticed that the areas—ATTENTION, LIMITS, ENGAGEMENT, RELATIONSHIPS, TIME, SPACE—form an acronym: ALERTS. I am the first to admit that this might feel forced or corny, even gimmicky. Still, this is a helpful way to frame our thinking about the issues at hand. This list of six covers key concerns about how we relate to technology on a daily basis.

*Excerpted from Living Into Focus: Choosing What Matters in an Age of Distractions (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2012), pp. 69-75.