Theology in the Raw - S2 Ep1029: How Social Media and Screens Have Hijacked Our Hearts and Minds: Doug Smith

Episode Date: November 28, 2022

Doug Smith is a passionate voice in the epic battle against screen addictions, especially through his award-winning book (and audiobook), [Un]Intentional: How Screens Secretly Shape Your Desires, and How You Can Break Free (https://unintentionalbook.com). Doug offers an insider's perspective on the power of technology, informed by over two decades of software development experience and a lifetime of Bible study. He also brings the practical experience of a dad of four grown daughters and a man who has struggled, fallen, fought, and by the grace of God, overcome the power of screens. As a software developer, Doug has served Fortune 500 companies, startups, universities, government agencies, and media personalities. He's currently an Android-focused engineer with Covenant Eyes, the best company around in the battle against pornography. Doug loves to help individuals and families break free from screen addiction so they can live out their God-given purpose.  Doug and his wife Lyneta are happy empty nesters and are blessed with four grown daughters. You can connect with Doug at https://thatdougsmith.com.  If you would like to support Theology in the Raw, please visit patreon.com/theologyintheraw for more information! 

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forward slash Theology in Raw. That's patreon.com forward slash Theology in Raw. The link is in the show notes. Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. My guest today is Doug Smith. Doug is a passionate voice in the epic battle against screen addictions. And he wrote a book recently called Unintentional, how screens secretly shape your desires and how you can break free. That was the subject of our conversation. We talked a lot about how technology, smartphones, social media is really doing a number on us. And honestly, I mean, he said some things that were pretty eye-opening stuff, I guess I've already kind of heard in some spaces, but to get them verified from him was a little eerie. Just how much big tech is in our houses and lives and pockets and in our minds and grabbing

our hearts. So we had a really good conversation about this really important topic. And I hope that you are challenged by it and that we all would make some better discipleship decisions with how we manage technology in our lives. So please welcome to the show for the first time, the one and only Doug Smith. Doug and I met briefly at the Exiles of Babel conference last year. But we were just chatting offline and Doug's been listening to the podcast back when it was a 15-minute radio show. I mean, that goes back.

I think I started it in 2014. And I think it became a podcast in 2015. And it was kind of a both-and for a little bit. How did you even come across it? Through just the podcast app? It was through a podcast app. Yeah. Through just the podcast app?

It was through a podcast app. Yeah. You know, I think, like I was saying, I first ran across you through your book, Erasing Hell. Because I was following the hell conversation at the time. And that was such a great book. But I think I found your name through that. And I had been in that conversation. And so I'm an avid podcast listener. Okay.

It was just through a podcast app. Oh, that's great. It was fantastic. So your book is unintentional. Read the subtitle again, how screens shape your desires. Yeah. It's called unintentional, how screens secretly shape your desires and how you can break free. Okay.

I mean, I, I, and I've talked about this on the air. This is why I wanted to have you on because I feel like, and we talk about it a lot. I feel like people do talk about it. It's not a conversation. And I know Andy Crouch has done really good work and others. Oh, yeah. But it just seems – I don't see a ton of changes happening in people's lives. And I don't know. It just seems like the conversation needs to be louder. Do you find that to be true too? I mean, obviously, you felt the need to write a book when there are other books, I think, on the topic, but... Oh, there are a lot of other books. And you mentioned Andy Crouch's book. That's a great book. It's very pastoral and kind and gracious, and it's really real and humble. It's really

great. And I love his book. I decided to write a book in this space because I didn't really see the case being made as I get what I tell people is books like Andy Crouch's are more pastoral. Mine is a little more prophetic. It's a little more, this is really significant. This is really serious. And you really, really need to take it seriously. And so I have a lot, I make a pretty serious case. I come from a background as a lifelong software engineer. So I approach it kind of from a technical and a nerdy space. I also approach the subject from, you know, as a lifelong Bible student. And then, of course, as a dad of four grown daughters. And so all that kind of blends together with a lot of other things to make me very passionate

about it. But yeah, just like you said, I'm not seeing the changes. People, we hear about it, but still all the families are in the restaurant, all on their phones. You know, there's all, all these things are just happening around us and it's really hurting us. And I just want to really draw people's attention to it. What was the Netflix special that I thought was going to wake everybody up? Because everybody saw it. It was The Social Dilemma. Yeah. When you saw that, did you feel like that was pretty spot on? And do you deal with a lot of the similar things in your book? Or what were your thoughts on the movie? I don't have the knowledge base to say it was on or off. If it's even close to the truth, it was pretty eerie. It was. And it was, um, I, I only read about it. I didn't actually watch it. I don't actually have Netflix among my, among my practices

of, uh, kind of being intentional. I don't actually have Netflix, but I did read about it and I'm, I've read their work. Like I follow Tristan Ferris, um, and, and some of the others. So what they were saying is true. Uh, definitely true. I mean, so they approach what, what they were saying is true, definitely true. I mean, so they approach what they're talking about is the intentionally addictive practices of the industry. And that's a lot of what my first four chapters are in my book is talking about. Okay, they're doing this on purpose. I guess my problem with at least how I the way I read the documentary was that it was almost like, hey, we've done all this stuff. Yeah, we've made billions and billions of dollars out doing it. But sorry, there wasn't like a solution to that, you know, other than, you know, try to.

Well, Tristan is and he's doing a great thing, I think, in trying to call the industry to accountability. Right there. He's talking to the industry. Be more, you know, do the right thing. Be more like environmentally safe or whatever, you know, kind of green for technology. My project is different than that because it's my, mine's a Christian book asking Christians to, in fact, the reason I really wanted to talk to you, I mean, lots of reasons I've been wanting to talk to you, but the reason I really want to talk to you is that a couple of years ago, you mentioned you had, you interviewed the author of Analog

Church and you said that, you know, there's just not enough books on our discipling us with our technology. And I actually said to the podcast app, I've written that book, Preston. So anyway, that's what my book is. It's really about a kind of a wake-up call and then a discipleship about that. You used the phrase in passing about the intentional, addictive. What was that? And can you expand on that for people that might not be aware of that? Absolutely. So that's one of the big things. The reason my book is called Unintentional is that when I watch people and the way that they are approaching technology, the way that they just basically accept everything that comes along, you know,

we just get a new this and a new that, and we give our kids this, and we give our kids, you know, all the things. Everybody's doing it. Why? Well, they don't mean to. They don't mean to embrace a lifestyle that really becomes addictive. But the industry is very intentional in the way that they make their products addictive. And we're talking about, you know, hiring top neuroscientists,

behavioral psychologists, experiment after experiment, exploiting our, our behavioral psychology and, and, uh, neuroscience, you know, they're, they're the, the way that they're able to figure out what works and what doesn't is the, um, on the one hand as an, as a nerd, you're like, wow, that's amazing. And on the other hand, as a Christian and as a dad and everything, it's wrecking us. Look what it's doing. And so most people don't realize, why is everybody on their phone all the time? Well, because their phones are intentionally addictive. In fact, one of the talks I do compares big tech to big tobacco because their practices

are nearly identical. Really? Yeah, in terms of making their products intentionally addictive. Okay, you just said the phone. Are you talking about social media? Are you talking about even YouTube? Yes. Texting?

I mean, just all of the texting? Or, I mean, emails? Or, like, when you say phone, are you primarily social media? And what would classify as social media? Yeah, that's a great question. This is a personal question because we've always said we don't allow our kids on social media. I wouldn't cat what would classify as social media yeah this is a personal question because we we we've always said we don't allow our kids on social media i wouldn't be don't but yeah um they do have youtube and they do like videography stuff and like but then i don't know i'm like well and we don't allow like interaction we just say no comments no interaction

you know um we'll see if they actually are doing that if you haven't checked a while but um i don't know i'm like i i even even as a household that we're fairly vigilant like i it's really coming for me to look around say we're all on our phones what the hell i'm on my phone you know like right but you didn't but nobody decided to do that you know and yeah i want to come back to that but that's that's the thing is that um what i often tell people is that so because the the average person when you look at the numbers the average average people, the numbers rose in 2021. I updated my book in 2021 to show that the average is people are spending eight hours a day consuming digital media. And yes, that's streaming video, social media and video games primarily.

So those are the those are the main those are the things that are really amped up in terms of the addictive quality. And so, yeah, YouTube does fall into that, right? YouTube has autoplay. And that's the quintessential unintentional feature right there. It's like, I don't know what to watch next, but YouTube knows what I want to watch next. And then how many of us have spent the time? You know, it's like, I only intended to spend five minutes, but now... So I tell people, did you mean to spend...

Did you grow up thinking, I wish I could spend the equivalent of a full-time job every week selling my most private, intimate, personal data to the most powerful corporations in the world? You know, I did not, we didn't want to do that. We didn't sign up for that. So we're unintentional, but the industry is intentional. And they talk, they talk about it very boldly. In fact, Selling data. Can you expand on that? Because I keep hearing this. Like, when my phone's open and I'm scrolling or whatever, is there somebody behind the

machine that's like seeing, or the machine itself that's like seeing how long I linger on this tweet or this Instagram post or this whatever? That's exactly right, Preston. In fact, it's just more than you can imagine. I tell people it's, it's this, it's an ongoing conversation between your device and what they call the cloud, the, um, the, the backend systems, the huge, huge server farms that are not only are they watching like to the millisecond level, how much did you linger? Did you like this? Did you not? Did you comment? Did you comment did you did you not um you just swipe on by did you play it how far did you play it what kind of video so they

build up this this basically your digital autobiography about you and what works on you and so then they'll try okay he's kind of like this he's probably about this age he's probably whatever what works on him did this work no so it's So it's a, it's, we're, we're in a Petri dish, right? We're under a microscope being watched and, um, and evaluated. And then, um, not only that, but they'll do experiments even, uh, to split that the, so, so with that data, then they'll say, okay, try this on, you know, 30% of our audience, try this on 30% of our audience and see what works better. And then one of the books I quote in on 30% of our audience and see what works better. And then one of the books I quote in my book is called Irresistible by Adam Alter. And he really chronicles this down to the brain science and so on.

He calls this weaponizing of the experience. So it's literally by running all these experiments. And again, social media, video streaming and video games are the primary ones where they're weaponizing this ability to exploit our behavioral psychology. Yeah. And then use that against us. So then we end up spending again, the equivalent of a full-time job. Yeah. That's crazy. When we didn't mean to, this is gonna sound even conspiratorial when I say it, but like, what about, cause I've had a couple of eerie moments where my wife and I will be having a conversation about like, would you ever want to go to Costa Rica? I've heard people say it's nice.

And all of a sudden I got ads of Costa Rica popping up. Like, is that, can the, I mean the audio, you can't see, can't be, I mean, there's, are you serious? Like it's, Oh, absolutely. Oh, absolutely. Whoever they are here, our conversations and are putting ads that connect with that. Absolutely. Yeah. When when people so you can turn off some of that. Right. But like Facebook asks for your microphone permission. You don't you don't want to give it that the like the Hey Siri and the, you know, the equivalent on the Android platform, you know, this kind of thing has to be listening all the time, right? So I won't have a smart home speaker in my home because they're always listening,

even though they say, oh, we're not, you have to always be listening or else if you said Alexa, it wouldn't wake up, right? So it's, yeah, they're, they're definitely doing that every possible way they can possibly sell you something they will. And I've had that experience. That's not anecdotal. It's absolutely a thing. Is it through Alexa or through my, like if I, my phone's on airplane mode right now. So right now they can't hear our current, I keep saying they, I feel like I'm in 1984 or something like big brothers. Right. I know. Where's my tinfoil hat? I know. But you're saying it's not like, this is not, this is not like, um, hidden. Like this is common knowledge. Oh, yeah.

They write books on it. They teach on it. Absolutely. I can see where you can geek out on it from a software perspective. That's crazy technology. It is crazy technology. Yeah. I did scramble my algorithms once on Instagram.

Because all kinds of stuff pops up. And I'm like, there's stuff I don't need to see, you know? And so I, I just started clicking on every single otter, a cute little otter video. Um, and next thing you know, I got just nothing but otters on my phone, but actually do like, I saw that. I'll just, I'll scroll otter videos. And now I'm sucked into that. Now they're probably going to sell me an otter or something. I don't know. I actually looked into seeing if it's legal and it's not in,

in America to buy an otter. I actually looked into seeing if it's legal and it's not in America to buy an otter. But that's awesome. My wife loves otters. Yeah. How can you not like an otter? It's an otter. It's so awesome. I know.

Yep. So tell us about the first four chapters. You said that you deal with a lot of this stuff. So you're citing hard data and really kind of saying this is what is going on behind the scenes with the phone. I am. Yeah. I really did kind of geek out. It has 179 foot notes. So it's, it's pretty well researched. I mean, one of my, one of my best friends, so I, as I went through the book process and, you know, had it critiqued, I had my little critique group and, uh, one of my best friends was a kind of a friend who could say, um, uh, Doug,

that chapter's good, but it's not this book, you know, what, what, this is the kind of friend and the kind of critiques you need. And so one of the things he would do is he would say, uh, Doug, that chapter's good, but it's not this book. This is the kind of friend and the kind of critiques you need. And so one of the things he would do is he would say, Doug, who says? Because I would make a claim and he'd be like, well, back that up, back that up, back that up. So I just want to shout out thanks to Kevin for 170 and a half footnotes because that's why the book. So anyway, the first four chapters has a lot of that. So the first chapter talks about becoming aware of what's happening. So I really want to ease the on-wrap a lot of that. So the first chapter, um, talks about becoming aware of what's happening. So I really want to ease the on-ramp. One of the problems with a book like

this is that people don't really want to hear it, right? It's like, I know I probably have a problem with my screens, but I'd rather not even think about it. Right. So it's not, it's not, you know, it's kind of like, I want to listen to Jeremiah, but I actually really don't want to hear what Jeremiah has to say. So, so anyway, I try to ease people on, okay, this is probably what's happening. This is, um, not probably, this is what's happening. Did you realize you're spending this much time or most people are spending this much time? Did you realize one of the things I can bring to it because I am like Gen X or, you know, I can bring a perspective of, Hey, back in the seventies, uh, things were different. Did you realize that, you know, how much things have changed?

You realize that there's been almost 2 billion iPhones sold. It's like the most successful product of all time. And then, you know, how much time people are spending on their devices. And then, as you just mentioned, you know, things are coming up more all the time where it's the darkness of the content the sexualization the um you've even met you even mentioned in embodied in your book you talk about um the uh anxiety and depression and suicidality on the youth and and that can be traced back i i quote um jean twenge who wrote on this she's one of the experts on that right about i read that a while ago that was yeah

that was eye-opening yeah it's super eye-opening. And it's just, you know, you can just trace it right there. When iPhone or smartphone saturation passed 50%, we watched those poor mental health metrics just crank right up. And it's really disturbing. And so anyway, so that's the first chapter is waking us up to that. Second chapter prepares us by talking about the mechanisms behind it. So it's like, okay, Doug, what is actually happening? And so I get into mechanisms like the autoplay,

like I get into, so there's people who have written, like I've said, one of the authors is Nir Eyal. He wrote a book called Hooked, which is basically how to make technology addictive. And another author, one of the other authors is Chris Nodder. He wrote a book called Evil by Design. And his is really great. It was really great to find it because it actually patterns strategies on how to make technology addictive after the classic seven deadly sins. So he actually, and it's got the horns and everything. It totally

makes my case. And he's tongue-in-cheek. If you're a software engineer and you want to build an app and you want to make people love your app and be engaged, well, here's the strategies. Appeal to their pride. Appeal to their gluttony. Appeal to their lust. Appeal to their seven deadly sins. Here's how you do it. You make things feel scarce. You make autop, so then people are lazy. They won't make another decision. You, you know, so on and on and on. So I, I detail that. One of the things about chapter two that I, that I really like is I call this the double bind at the messages of our, of our, um, technology. And really for a long time have been this idea of go with your gut, do what you feel. How do you feel about this? Do you like it? Do you not? So we're always spending this time in our feelings, right? And whatever you feel is kind of your, becomes your identity. In fact, you know, that's kind of a thing, right? Where on the other hand,

they tell us what we should feel, how we should act on our feelings, what we should buy because of how we feel, how we should vote, you know, what we should laugh at, all that kind of thing. So I call this double bind. It's like this, you should act on your feelings. Here's how you should feel. And this is how, um, the mechanisms work and ultimately keep us working. And one of the, one of the things that's, uh, that also gets pointed out in that is one of the early Facebook investors, some of these people who are kind of splintering off and going, you know what, I'm out because this is just wrecking people. Um, one of the early investors was like, they're doing this on purpose. In fact, the reason people are more angry is that the algorithm optimizes for outrage. It's actually

optimized for outrage. So you hear people, you know, digital courage, they'll say whatever, like that's built into the algorithm because you end up seeing things that make you more angry, especially, you know, 2020, 2016, election cycles. We just got through an election cycle. So all that, it's bringing out the worst in us and to their profit and our expense. I wrote this down. I wanted to ask you about that because you've been talking about social media and advertising. But what about news outlets?

I have heard – I think this was – was this social? No, there's a journalist who wrote a book. I'm blank. I think her name is Batyar. Batyar? It's like a – I can't pronounce her name. But she wrote a book that – I heard her on a couple of podcasts talking about how the way the news has gone to a subscription base where they need people subscribing to get money and they know that outrage keeps them subscribing and that this has led to the model now shifting. I don't know when it shifted, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 years or whatever. It has just absolutely created these angry echo chambers,

which we saw just come to a head in 2020. Is that, can you, so that you're saying that that's, talk to us about how we, and maybe talk to us about how, how we, and maybe talk to us about how we should be suspicious of how we get our news through our phones. Right. Yeah. That's something I mentioned in chapter one, again, is that, is the idea that I think 67% or so people get their news through social media, but. But then a higher percentage don't even trust that, right? So they're building a distrust, but they're still getting it through their social media.

And it just, like you said, it builds these echo chambers. It's so tragic. One of the things that breaks my heart, I've read stories of especially like boomer generation, people in their 70s where they believe all this stuff. They don't have a healthy skepticism toward these kinds of things. So it's really, really sad. But yeah, you're exactly right. The news media, I put it in quotes, news, right? What we have to ultimately remember is the goal of every app or website is to keep you watching. It's not to tell you the truth. It's not to help you. It's not to, you know, it's not to help you make wise and reasoned decisions. It's to,

what I've been saying more lately is it's to disciple us. It's to disciple us to want to become consumers of whatever they have. And so, you know, when we start relating to things on the right or the left We're just gonna get more of that and more of that and edgier more of that and on and on and on It works on the pornography world as well, right? I mean, it's like people get hooked on a little bit of in like you talked about I don't see that in stream Well, a lot of people do and then they want to see more and then they do and then they do and then it goes Down violent and horrible places. So it's all of that is again the one goal keep you watching so that then you become a consumer of whatever they want to sell you it was subtle like i i do a lot of like travel um instagram

pages like that have amazing amazing pictures of like my favorite my favorite type of geography is the the like the maldives tahiti that thata, that deep blue where you see the boat floating like 50 feet above water and it looks like it's floating in the air. Like I just – those sandbars. But I noticed after a while some of those, you know, oh, here's a girl in a bikini walking on the sandbar. And then another one, another one. That's when I started doing my otter thing or I started doing surfing videos, which so far's no like yeah surfers in string bikinis on some like 40 foot wave or something so so I still get my beach fix without all the the lingerie or whatever but um yeah it's it's just crazy I mean now that you know a little bit it's comical like I just like how you can just alter

stuff just by being like intentional about it but But I really want to camp out the news thing, though, because I think that this is – I mean, we saw that it created a discipleship crisis in 2020. And I think this – the news channels, they need to survive. Their ratings are down, and they're just trying to get people outraged, get them in the echo chamber. It's all for – we're just being used like pawns in some financial game. And it ripped the church apart in 2020. Is that too strong of language? I saw it anecdotally everywhere. And then the few things I've read, I'm like, oh, this is actually happening. This is actually happening. Like, this is intentional. No, it is. I mean, lifelong friends disagreed over, you know, and unfriended each other on social media because of their, they said one thing political that was offensive to someone else. And, you know, you think about 20, 30 year friends and, you know, and churches. Absolutely.

You know, it's, we've become so very sensitive to trigger words and things that, again, through the optimization, through that, ooh, that makes me mad. I'm going to comment on that. And things that again, through the optimization, through that, Ooh, that makes me mad. I'm going to comment on that. And so again, it is discipling us. It's teaching us how to not only what to think about, but how to respond to it, how to feel, yes. Rather than how to think, right. Um, one of the books I, I bring into my conversation is, um, I'm using ourselves to death by Neil Postman. I mean, that's such, you know, it's prophetic, right? I mean, it was written in the eighties and it goes against television, but it's so prophetic. And the new, his chapter on the news is just like, even back then, right. Cause he would just say his, the chapter on the

news is called now this. And, and, and what it just talks about, you know, you could hear about this horrible, you know, we have this, you know, there's this war in Ukraine. And then, oh, here's this hamburger commercial. And then here's this horrible tragedy and this famine in Africa. And don't you want a new car? And, you know, we're not building critical thinking. We're not building the ability. And then what do you do about it?

And it builds a numbness. So then that's all amped up now. Yeah do you so here's what i've been doing i i i either got rid of maybe they're still on my phone i i don't i used to have news apps they might still be on i took them off during 2020 um yeah but yeah i just i don't i do two things uh you probably if you listen to my podcast, the pour over podcast, it gives you seven minutes. Here's the major events. So I think it's good to be informed. Yeah, me too.

And it really is. And I know the guys who do it. And you can't pin them on where they are politically. They're really good at just, here's what's going on, you know? And then I just really like long form podcast conversations from people who are heterodox thinkers. Like they are very aware of, they're very anti-tribalistic. Most of them would probably be left leaning on social issues.

People like Barry Weiss and Andrew Sullivan would be rightly, but they're just, you get the sense they're honest thinkers, but they're having like long conversations with people. And they're willing to say, oh, that's a good point or push back. And it is more thoughtful. Is that all that to say? Because especially in the work that I do, I do want to be informed with that.

Do you have any other suggestions on what I should be doing so I don't sell my soul to the devil? Right. Handing my heart and emotions over to somebody that just wants to make me angry? No. You know, I think that's – as you're saying that Preston, I think podcasts are a really special oasis in our time of, in technology in terms of that. Because if you're listening to content that is thoughtful, I mean, you have to be choosy, right? And there's like, there's podcasts that are all about the, you know, the hullabaloo and everything, but the kind of podcasts you're talking about, I'm, I'm very, I'm very similar. You know, I like to hear long conversations. I

like to hear people I disagree with. I like to hear, but I want to hear their argument. I don't just want to hear the bullet. And so, yeah, I did subscribe to the pour over as well that based on your recommendation. It's fantastic. Uh, we, we love that. We, but yeah, to, to hear things cause, cause almost everything is, well, I could probably say everything is way more complicated and way more nuanced than we, than any headline will tell you. So, so I really think that listening carefully to conversations is a key way. The visuals, my, my wife and I, several years ago, we used to, we would go to, we had a membership to a gym in our neighborhood. And we didn't, I've, again, in the name of intentionality,

I haven't done cable, haven't done cable news for the longest time, but we'd be on the elliptical and there'd be CNN, Fox, MSNBC on the walls, but their audio is off. Oh. So, and I'm listening to a podcast, probably listening to you, on an elliptical, right? But the drama, like watching out, you know, Putin, dun-dun-dun, you know, and Trump, dun-dun-dun, whatever. It's like a movie scene. When you look at it without the audio on, you can just tell how you're being manipulated in the way that things are presented. There's no truth. There's no, it's just keep watching because in this episode of Destroying Our World, here's what's happening.

You know, it's just, ah, what do you do? And then so as a Christian, you're like, Lord, help me to have discernment. Help me have wisdom. What do I do in this cultural moment? What do you think about, this is going to change the channel a little bit, but Elon Musk and his whole Twitter takeover. Oh, wow. That's been entertaining.

Do you have any thoughts on that? Are you on social media or no? Just a little, a tiny bit. So I'm not, there are some people in this space that are, it's no. Basically, if you follow me, you'll hear me, you'll see me post things like you should be, you don't use social media, but, but it's a little tiny bit, like five minutes a week. Yeah, basically. Um, but yeah, I do just a little bit. Um, some, I use Twitter and Facebook basically. Um, just very, very little. Yeah. That's a really interesting thing. I think it's too early to tell. I think, again, it's kind of hullabaloo. I think, I think. Yeah, that's a really interesting thing. I think it's too early to tell.

I think, again, it's kind of hullabaloo. I think both sides, again, when you listen to the conversations about what people are talking about with Twitter, both sides have something to say, the right feels suppressed by the previous way. And now the left are like, oh no. So now they're wanting to create their own alternative Twitters. And I guess to me, it's a little too early to tell, but it does show how influential those kinds of platforms have become that 148 or 296 characters, whatever it is, can have make such a difference and elevate things to such a degree that, that that's what we're talking about. Right. And then that again, is that really, it's so sad. I'll see people on Twitter and they're, about, right? Then that, again, is that really?

It's so sad. I'll see people on Twitter and you can just tell instantly the kinds of people that are just so addicted to Twitter. Like they just, they're tweeting all throughout the day. You can just tell they're angry and this and that. One of my favorite guilty pleasures right now is looking at people complaining about being shadow banned or like, can anybody see this tweet anymore? It's got like a thousand likes and they have like 15,000 followers. I'm like, can anybody see it? Like, yeah, a thousand people liked it. I don't

know. Oh, and there's like, so like, you know, it's like their whole world is kind of like crashing down. And I understand there could be a a place for if somebody it's like for a business purpose it is and that's what i've used it over the years you know um but even that i don't know like twitter i don't know it's it's i think it's yeah overplayed i read a study that said you know of the i don't know how many people have an account i don't quote me something like 20 maybe 20 of people in america but like 3% of that 20% are posting 90% of the content. So it's like a, Twitter represents a tiny percentage of like real life. And so when people live in that world, but they think it is real life and it's like, oh, it's so sad. Like I, you know, I've had moments where I'm like, I spent too long on Twitter and you just feel horrible. You just feel angry. But people that do that every

day and they're not like, that's so sad and they're they think they have these friends out there and they're fighting justice by tweeting things at trump or whatever i'm like oh my gosh like this it's just it is truly sad it's like ah the the app i use um sometimes i use hootsuite which is do you know yeah where you can i know what that is uh-huh that's great because you don't see anything you just post something it goes to facebook goes to twitter you don't see it you're just like all right your post your tweet was posted every now and then i'll look like a week later i'm like oh man man that didn't go over well you know yeah right but i don't i don't you know because i'm not just sitting there tweet it and five seconds later do anybody like

it you know but um right yeah i used to i used this is fun. I don't know if I ever said this on online, but, or live, but I used to use Twitter is probably years ago to rhetorically push the envelope as far as I could go to see what the line was. So people thought I was kind of like really edgy. I'm like, no, I'm just kind of using you as like a testing ground to say, okay, I want to say this in my book. Then it's like, well, that's too far. Okay, cool. No, no, no. I'll bring it back a little bit. So I would, I would just kind of like, yeah. How is this phrase being used? You know, how's it landing with people or not, whatever, but I don't stir it up on Twitter. Like I used to, but.

This episode is sponsored by One Million Home, an awesome organization dedicated to winning the battle to get orphaned kids home. Did you know that there are 5.4 million kids in orphanages worldwide? Did you also know that the majority of those kids, given the right support, could actually return to their parents or other family members? In the face of family separation throughout the world, God is setting the lonely into their families. And One Million Home is doing an amazing job creating pathways to reunify kids with their families throughout the world. You might remember that I had Brandon Stiver on the show from One Million Home a few podcasts ago. It was episode 989. And I was so blown away at the amazing work that he and One Million Home are doing.

that he and One Million Home are doing. So we are inviting Theology in Raw listeners, the Theology in Raw community to join the movement of family reunification for Giving Tuesday this year. That's November 29th, it's coming up. It only costs $250 to reunite a kid with their family. So that's what your Giving Tuesday gift will be going to. So if you have a heart for orphans, and if you're a Christian, you kind of should,

and you want to contribute to more effective and biblical ways of caring for orphans. And if you're a Christian, you kind of should. And you want to contribute to more effective and biblical ways of caring for orphans, then go to 1millionhome.com forward slash T-I-T-R. That's the number one, the million home, no spaces,.com forward slash T-I-T-R. Tell me about your kids. What did you do? How old are your daughters? And how did you guys handle social media? Were they old enough to where they were raised in the social media world? So we missed that a little bit. I mean, our kids, it's always hard to say the numbers out loud, but the oldest is 35 and the youngest is 26. The youngest is 26. So we did kind of miss it. I mean, Facebook was becoming a thing when the youngest were teenagers, but not to this degree.

We were late adopters with our kids. We were just very much late adopters. We had all kinds of practices in our home that I wish we'd have done more. When I wrote the book, I mean, I see all kinds of mistakes, things I wouldn't have done, like even flip phones, you know, could sometimes kind of go sideways depending on how they're, you know, how they're used and, um, the conversations I, now what I've learned so much more about it, I would have done a lot more discipleship around it a lot more. Um, and we did, but it's not, not at the level that I really would have wished,

but, but yeah, we did, you know, filters and, um, single TV in the home. A lot of things like Andy Crouch talks about, um, really in his book, we, we really did a lot of that kind of stuff, a single computer in a public location, you know, even as nerdy as I was, I didn't get my first smartphone until 2010. And that's when I started, you know, I noticed the impact on me even just then. And that's, that sparked a lot of things as my journey in terms of things. So that really made a difference. I've been generally, like I say, late adopter and careful, but I would have made some improvements over time. Okay. Yeah, it's so hard.

It is. It's like a rubber band where we keep pushing against the rubber band to set boundaries and that rubber band is just snapping back. It is. It is. And the pressure in the culture is so huge. And it's increased. It just seems like, and again, we always talk about 2020, it's going to be BC and AC, right?

Before COVID and after COVID, right? It's just like that emptied up even more and the pressure and all that to conform. It's so, so difficult. Do you have any opinions or thoughts on like content moderation? The whole debate about should big tech be censoring certain things or should it just be... I know Elon says he's a free speech absolutist. Obviously, you can't yell fire in a crowded theater or make verbal violent threats toward people, although you see that stuff still. Do you have any thoughts on that? Would you say that's not

in your main area? It's not in my main area. To me, though, those kind of ideas. So it shows the importance of the platforms that we care so much about what's on there. And so what I would want to tell people is, you know, especially as Christians, we need to care less about what's on there and spend less time. Why? I would be asking the question, why is it so, why does it matter so much? Whether this, I mean, because obviously, you know, Russian influence on elections or whatever, Spend less time. Why? I would be asking the question, why is it so? Why does it matter so much?

Whether this I mean, because obviously, you know, Russian influence on elections or whatever, you know, all these allegations of these things that are really influencing and swaying things. Why? And are we OK with that? And then so sure, if we have content moderation, who's pulling those strings? To me, one of the things that breaks my heart is hearing the stories of the content moderators of Facebook that are just miserable because of the horrible things they have to filter even today. Right. I mean, cause they, they're, I mean, the mental health of those people, they see the worst of the worst and then, and have to, you know, you imagine just the

darkness that's out there and they just like doing that eight hours a day and they, it's, it's horrible. So so i i would be more concerned about de-emphasizing the power of these platforms altogether rather than uh let's let's give someone the ability to pull the strings and make the content okay yeah for me i i'm not it's not my i would it makes more as i listen to kind of people talk it makes more sense to be more on the free speech side. Sure. And it's like,

well, you didn't, you let all this stuff, you know, run, you know, all the hate speech, all this. And it's like,

well, what's the other option? You have some 22 year old in San Francisco. Tell me that my content isn't, you know, good or whatever. Like, right.

Right. It's just so subjective. I don't trust people at the top to like be the arbiters of truth and good and beauty, you know? So, yeah, that's so true. arbiters of truth and good and beauty, you know? So, yeah, that's so true. No, I think especially, I mean, you know, the, the, the debates around COVID for example, and we don't want to necessarily spend a lot of time on this, but there were a lot of reasonable, um, critiques of how things were handled, but those were suppressed in or, or labeled as misinformation. That is a problem that that's's a so i would i'm with

you on that i would definitely want that to be biased more towards the free speech side but it's still again man the power there that was that was that i feel like early on in covid and i who am i i don't know you know but um that was like oh this could be a good case for like okay let's let's censure misinformation because it's a global pandemic. We're all big neighborhoods affecting people. But then through COVID, you started seeing like the good people who were like in charge of whatever. You just started seeing weird stuff come out with them and not handling data correctly and just this, that. So it's like, okay, who do I trust now?

I don't want to wake up the COVID monster by saying anything. No, I know. Me neither. But I think that was a perfect example of like now two years in and we know a lot more information. Like, well, wait a minute. What we know now, that totally goes against what you told us was truth a year ago. That's right. And we're all learning, I guess.

I don't know. Right. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I'm not a fearful, like I'm more of a hopeful kind of person, but I am, I'm nervous about the, we just went through an election now. I didn't really pay much attention to it. I don't know who won, but the 2024 election, has the church learned its lesson or was this just going to be more? I mean, we already, major gaping wound in the church, right? Just totally wrecked havoc on the discipleship of the church. Families broken apart. Every single pastor I talked to said this was the hardest year of my pastoring. It had little to do with like the fact that we had a pandemic. It was now, you know, if I didn't say the right

thing about wearing or not wearing a mask, people were leaving the church and leaving their families. And I saw just the church implode over stuff that had nothing to do with theology or like, I don't love Jesus anymore. I'm out of here. It's like, yeah, that's hard. But you guys are wearing masks. You're not wearing a mask. We're out of here. The pastors are just floored by this.

What do you think? I mean, have we learned our lesson? I don't know if we have. And how can think? I mean, have we learned our lesson? I don't think, I don't know if we have, and how can we? We need to start preparing. I mean, and I don't know if I have the right answer, but I think right now, Christian leaders need to start discipling their people in a better, more Christian way of separating, of seeing how you're just being used by these outlets and not just taking yourself off the steady drip of discipleship that is just pulling you away from the heart of Christ, you know, whichever side you're on, you know? Absolutely. That's such a good point,

Preston. I think I would say pretty confidently we have not learned our lesson. The problem is that we don't, I don't think we know it. We're not looking at what's happening with our acculturation to technology as discipleship. In my book, I spend a lot of time talking about Deuteronomy 6, which is, you know, the Shema. But then, you know, here, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. Then you shall talk about it, right? Talk about these words which I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall talk about it, right? Talk about these words which I command you today shall be on your heart.

Teach them when? When you walk along the road, when you sit in your home, when you lie down, when you rise up, put it on your gates, put it on your doors. What are we doing instead? So the point I make with that is that was God's plan to teach the slaves, the newly freed slaves, to disciple them in his ways. Immersion in the word. What are we doing instead? While we're walking, while we're driving, on our walls, as we travel along, we are being discipled. Why? How? We're being discipled by social media, we're being discipled by a constant feed of input, and like you just said, on how to respond to it. So that if a pastor from the stage says something we don't like,

we've been discipled. Oh, this is when I feel this feeling in my heart of that they're wrong, what I do is I need to make an angry comment. That's discipleship. Rather than, as you model so well, if I hear something I disagree with, I'll be like, huh, where'd you come with? What'd you come up with that? And, you know, what do you mean by that? You know, and having a conversation. So we're not doing that. We're just, as a church, we're sadly going along for the ride. We're still like youth groups are being managed on Instagram, right? Because all the kids are on Instagram. And I'm like, well, that's not right. What we're saying is, we're saying that these tools are okay, as long as you, but they're not recognizing the intentionally addictive properties to that and what it's doing to the kids. We're doing the same, it's the same way. We're not coaching people through how to live Christianly and think Christianly and follow Jesus with all our hearts and apply Deuteronomy 6 in our homes in a different way, like with the Word, with the practices, with authentic community.

And that's, I think, what we need to be doing instead of just going along with accepting what the culture gives us. Do you think, I mean, does this need to be preached from the stage, like to be doing a series on technology, technology news and discipleship? I mean, I know we always just punt to like do a sermon on it and that was solid, but I know pastors like, oh man, if I touch politics and I'm not saying, I'm not saying advocate for like a party or another, but like help people to be Christian disciples while living in Babylon where the leaders of Babylon are grasping at your allegiance, clawing at it.

Absolutely. And they have it. They have a huge – they've got a huge hand around your wallet, around your heart, and they're just squeezing it. And people don't even realize that. That's right. That's right. And you can preach all these sermons about love Jesus and live for Jesus. But if they're, if they have this steady diet of just stuff, that's just not that, then your sermons, I don't think you're going to do a whole lot.

I don't know. I don't want to be cynical, but I'm kind of cynical. I mean, you've got 30 minutes once a week versus eight hours a day. You know, you just, the numbers don't add up. And what those eight hours a day are doing in terms of priming you to not think deeply. And then what is that replacing? It's replacing deep prayer. It's replacing silence. It's replacing reflecting on the word, memory. It's replacing actual face-to-face conversations. It's, you know, all the things we're losing because we're giving it to our

technology. So, I mean, yeah, I would love to think that churches need to be teaching these concepts about what technology is doing, because that really is, in terms of framing it in terms of discipleship, just so that they can understand this is, discipleship works. It's the content and the method, right? That's why we're all, that's why the stats, we've been discipled to think everybody needs a phone and this is how you should use it in your life. And when you're tired, you should turn on, you should have a TV in your bedroom and you should turn it on. And, you know, like these are, we've been, you know, and I want to just relax. What does relax mean? It means turn on the, turn on something and, and, oh, you know, rather than, you know, oh, I want to see how someone's doing,

I'll go on Facebook as opposed to call them. You know, this is discipleship, and it's new. And it's, again, intentionally decided. That's the thing that, again, as people dig into that, the reason these things come to top of mind. Oh, gosh, I'm bored. I wonder what's happening on Platform X. That's by design. They wanted to be the first of mind. That gosh, I'm bored. I wonder what's happening on platform X. That's by design. They did that. They wanted to be the first of mind. That's a habit that has formed. And those are the things. That's what I would hope churches would start talking about as opposed to, Lord, I'm afraid. What should I do? Oh, I have not given you a spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind. Like if the word was there instead of, oh, I'm afraid, Google it. You know, that's discipleship.

That's the contrast between what we're being taught in the culture between what God would want us to be doing. Interesting. Do you think that churches should use – I think there's probably two different approaches to this. One would be churches or Christian leaders helping people to just wean themselves off of these platforms. Or the other approach is they're going to be on Instagram anyway. What if we as a church sent out like daily devotions through Instagram, or maybe you had a podcast where they can, you know, have a two hour conversation after this, you know, on Monday morning where pastors are bantering around about the passage they just preached on or something, or maybe a whole

different thing. It's not sermon related. Should we be using the channels they are already on or trying to tell them to get off the channels as a whole, or is it kind of a both? I would be much more in the lines of, as far as the addict, not using the addictive technology to try to get our mission done. There's a, there's a debate over, should we be sharing the gospel on TikTok, for example? Can you share the gospel on TikTok? Well, Marshall McLuhan said, the medium is the message, which means what you have to do to succeed on a platform is to be the way that platform is, to put yourself in the mold of what that platform does. The way that platform works is short attention

span, quick hits. Nobody's going to, again, it's not about reason, it's about feeling. So what are you going to do? You're going to be sensational. You're going to be, you're going to have to get their attention. What do I have to do to get their attention? Well, you have to be obnoxious. You have to be, you know, you have to, you have to push the envelope. You have to do whatever. obnoxious. You have to be, you know, you have to, you have to push the envelope. You have to do whatever. For me, I'm like, this is intentionally addictive technology. We need to, we need to reject it. And we need to go towards platforms of like podcasts and that kind of a thing. The problem with the church using this technology, again, this is based on my research. The, the problem with the is, so let me just take a quick step back. There

are a lot of books and a lot of people trying to talk about technology as a tool. It's, it's amoral, you know, it's just how you use it. Right. But that's, that's not true, right? We've already kind of, it is not true, Preston. It's not true. I mean, yes, a pencil is a tool, right? Um, the printing press made a huge impact on the culture. It was not designed to be intentionally addictive. TikTok is designed to exploit you. Instagram is designed to be intentionally addictive. These are very big different things. So we have to understand, it's kind of like, you know, all the kids are sitting around smoking crack. Should I go and smoke crack with them and share the gospel? Well, okay. Jesus would probably

go and talk to them, but I don't think he would be smoking crack. And so it's kind of that, it's that same. And, and in fact, the, some of the books I cite, it's the same, the brain chemistry, the dopamine cycles, the, the things that are happening to kids, especially, but also adults on social media and video games, it activates the same systems in the brain as heroin and drugs and and and and, right? So no, I would say the church needs to understand that this is not just a tool to be bent to our will. This is not the tool you're looking for. The tool you're looking for is authentic relationships, conversations, face-to-face conversations, and real discipleship. In fact, I love what you said.

I just was preparing for this conversation, refreshed on Embodied. You talk about if people don't have authentic communities, they're going to look to the internet to find it. That's what the church needs to be about. And what you said, going back to the medium is the message. I always thought that was, who would you say came up with that? Marshall McLuhan. Oh, okay.

I think it's quoted in, what's the book you quoted earlier? I see my brain is... Oh, Amusing Ourselves Today. Yeah, I think he... Oh, yeah. Okay. Yep, he's quoting McLuhan. Okay, okay, okay. Is that why something like sharing the gospel on TikTok is, it's designed to be short attention span, get your attention, boom, and get out of there.

And that communicates something about the gospel itself when you're presenting the gospel in 15 seconds, whatever. Is that kind of the argument that the very medium here, in a sense, cheapens the message you're trying to communicate? It's not even that it cheapensens it packages it so that it says something different. It's, it's, it's, it's trivializing it, but it's also, so it's imagine what you're doing. Um, I, I, as a, as an experiment, I use Tik TOK for five minutes and uninstalled it just because as for my work for my day job, I'm a software engineer for covenant eyes Eyes, which is one of the largest internet pornography accountability software. So I was doing an experiment, and I hadn't installed TikTok before.

And I actually wrote a big article on my blog recently to kind of describe what's going on with TikTok, for example. The other platforms are doing it, too. In fact, Instagram and YouTube want to be TikTok because TikTok's being so good. Like, everybody's becoming more TikTok-like because has figured out on the next level of addiction. Um, but so I installed TikTok. You put in your name and your birth date, nothing else. No, no gender, nothing. First video that comes up is two women in bikinis. One of them grabs the other one's shirt and tries to pull it down. I swipe away. No. Okay. Next video, cute dog video. Next video. It's all about swiping videos.

And again, it's analyzing that. So imagine you're swiping along, you're swiping along, and there's a pastor sharing the gospel. And then you swipe and you see, and then you swipe, and then you see, and you've forgotten, right? My contention is that platform is designed for one thing. It's designed for addiction. It's designed to be distracting. It's not designed to share the gospel. And even in the case of doing that, I mean, the argument is, there's 2 billion people on this platform, so we need to be there. Well, the only reason, like I said, the only reason you really need to be there is to tell them to get off of that and live and understand what's happening to you.

This is the reason you're on here. And the reason you think this is awesome is because they've made it. They're exploiting you. You're being manipulated. It's hurting you. And it's not good when we say, okay, we're sharing the gospel on this platform. We're saying this is good. We're blessing it. We're sanctifying platform, we're saying, this is good. We're blessing it.

We're sanctifying it. We're saying, this is a thing. And my argument is we really need to watch out for that. We need to really be careful with that. But the same way, so I could hear, I think I would agree with you, or I don't know enough to agree or disagree, but I could see someone saying, well, yeah, that's still, you know, either they're going to be swiping on bikinis and otters or whatever. But then there's a pastor.

And then of the 10 million people who saw the pastor for 15 seconds, maybe a thousand clicked on it and they got another pastor, another pastor. They come to Jesus. So it's like it's it can kind of like the roadway signs, you know, repent or go to hell or whatever. Is that worth the money? Like it's like i can see someone saying like well it's it's something they see budweiser they see this ad this whatever then they see something about the god but yeah i i do tend i do think we need to reflect more deeply on the medium i yeah again just amusing ourselves to death was really i mean just the advent of the tv and what

that did to how we even get our information. It's just, I just recently read it. I didn't, I read it like a year ago. I was like, this, I feel like it was written like two years ago. It was. It's so powerful. It's so powerful. Too bad he's not alive anymore.

I'd like a 30 year anniversary version of it. So with the skyrocketing of TikTok and this shorter, everything's shorter, shorter, shorter, shorter tensions. And our attention span is so short. Why is it that some of the most popular podcasts are super long? I mean, you take someone like Joe Rogan who three or four hour, just sometimes just talk into his comedian buddies about nothing. I think it's 10 million views or other ones.

I was listening to one. It was a six hour podcast episode and I'm like four hours in, you know? And okay, that's, that's me. But are these two different kinds of people that are, some are actually wanting longer form things. And then the also people that just want the TikTok and there's no merging, or do you feel like deep down the person who is unintentionally addicted to this TikTok thing actually is longing for something more meaningful, something more thoughtful, something longer. Does that question make sense? I kind of cooked it up on the fly.

Like why is Joe Rogan so popular? I don't understand why he's – Well, I think there is a market for that. Certainly there's a market for the long form. Again, I would say the podcasts are – they don not, they don't fall into the intentionally addictive patterns. They're not exploiting your dopamine cycle. They're not, they're not messing with your behavioral psychology. They're not, you know, they're not looking at, okay, it's a conversation.

So I think that's why I think podcast, the medium is the message. So the podcast is the medium and you have a whole different way of doing that. And certainly you have different audiences. Churches should have podcasts, for example. I think that's totally the medium to share the gospel. Where TikTok is, again, it's a whole different thing. I think what's the goal? What's the reason for that?

So I would suspect it's different audiences in general. But the thing you ended with, are they looking for meaning? Absolutely. And that's one of the things that I really reach out to people in terms of their trying to connect with them in my book is that, you know, people wake up after however many years of addiction and they're like, you know what? I thought I'd be farther along in my life by now. I thought I'd be, I thought I would have done this and that. I thought I would have graduated. I thought I'd be married. I thought I'd be blah, blah, blah. But no, I've got high video game scores and

no, you know, but I'm still in my parents' basement or whatever. But no, I've got high video game scores and no, you know, but I'm still in my parents' basement or whatever. You know, it's, it's like all those kinds of things. It's like, this is not, this is, there is this sense of longing, but there, but then the, because they've been discipled into the use of this technology, they think the answer is there as well. When actually it's the problem. Do you, do you have any thoughts on, do you know about Minecraft, the video game? Do you know about you, do you have any thoughts on, do you know about Minecraft, the video game? Do you know about that?

Do you have any thoughts on that? I do. I do. Um, I mean, I know what, I know enough to be dangerous on it. Is that in the category of it? Cause my son loves it.

Yeah. And he would choose Minecraft over watching a TV show or movie. And I'm like, ah, I didn't want to, you know, he's just on video games. And then he even said like,

well, I'm actually, this is more creative than just sitting and watching a show. And you and mom are watching. Everybody else is watching a show or a movie or something. I'm like, that's not a good point. Like I think – I don't know. Or is it?

Yeah. So is there an addictive element there that we don't really see or – So my understanding with – it's been a little while since I've looked at it. But my understanding with Minecraft is that it has the option to have multiplayer mode and connect out into the internet. So he's not – yeah, he's not yeah he's not any of that yeah okay so that so on the other hand then if it's not that that was where i'd be the watch out would be the connect that i would want to you know be very concerned about that as a dad but otherwise it's much more like playing with legos i suppose the watch out the watch out is with and this applies to any video game.

If, is that like what they live for? Is this, that's the favorite, like if you could do anything, what would you do? It'd be, if, if that is the video, if the video game is the answer, then it is, then, then something is happening to make it more addictive. You know, Hey, you want to come out with me and go get some ice cream? No, I'd rather play. I'd rather play Minecraft. I would be really concerned about that. Okay. So that's, that's the watch out that I would have. I, but I would say

in general, you know, it's not Fortnite, you know, it's not going around and killing all your friends, you know, it's building stuff and imagination. And I, so I would, I would buy into that, but I would also go, eh, I'll watch out for the multiplayer and yeah, watch out for the obsession. Addictive tendencies. Yeah, no, that's good. So your book. Addicted to Legos. Oh, I play. Yeah, no, I did.

I was. Yeah. And even that, like I remember when I was a kid. Well, I don't know. Did I prefer Legos over anything else or was it just kind of if I didn't have anything else to do? I don't remember. It was decades ago, but yeah.

So again, say the name of your book. Unintentional. The subtitle is. Unintentional. The subtitle is? Unintentional, How Screens Secretly Shape Your Desires and How You Can Break Free. Okay. And it's on Amazon, I assume, or is it on your website? It is. It's on Amazon. I have an audio book. It's on Audible. So yeah, it's there. Doug, thanks so much for being on Theology in a Row. I learned a ton. And yeah, I hope you have a third version of this book in a couple of years.

Maybe you just need to be updated every couple of years. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Preston. I'm just honored to be on your podcast. I really appreciate it. Yeah. Thanks for all you do. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.