Book Review: "12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You"

                                        

I just read "12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You" by Tony Reinke, and I liked it so much that I'm doing a book review.  This is a Christian living book that encourages us to think critically about our smartphone use.  I read this book in preparation for an upcoming book club, and to be honest, I was hesitant to read a book about how bad social media / smartphone use is.  I like seeing what my friends are up to, I like showing them what I'm up to, and I feel like it's been trendy for years to bash it.  I know there are ways that social medias and smartphones aren't the best for us, but I wasn't really looking to dive into it.  

However, this book overcame my hesitations by being what I needed even if it wasn't what I thought I wanted.  It's got a really fresh take that is both deeply practical and theological.  It acknowledges that phones can be great tools for work, life, and friendship, and it's not urging most of us to give up our smartphones or even (necessarily) our social media accounts.  Instead, in a series of twelve short chapters, it helped me think critically about why am I posting, commenting, or scrolling at any given moment, and what effect is this having on me and others (both virtually and in real life).  The bottom line question it asks the reader to consider is, "What is the best use of my smart phone in the flourishing of my life?"

There is a ton of good food for thought in this book.  Here are just some of the quotes / points that stuck out to me while reading the book:

• Real Life v. Online Interactions:  When most of our social interaction is online rather than in person, we're losing some important things, so we should make a point of prioritizing in person gatherings.  "We gather to be seen, to feel awkward, and perhaps to feel a little unheard and underappreciated, all on purpose...This feeling of awkwardness, this leaving the safety of our online friendships, this mingling with people we don't know or understand in our local churches is incredibly valuable for our souls." (pgs. 72-73)
• Approval junkie:  Most social media networks don't let you post without some kind of metric of approval attached, and it's really hard not to pay attention and start posting in ways that drive up the likes - we should pay attention to how much we're chasing approval as we post and comment.  "We will go on reproducing ourselves, bingeing on man's approval, and starting each day with an approval hangover.  Then we need the antidote of new affirmation from our friends to keep convincing ourselves that our lives are meaningful." (p. 76)
• Deep thoughts / wisdom v. the trivial:  I really want to spend my time and attention on thing things that make me able to think better / deeper / wiser thoughts, and scrolling through newsfeeds is just not a great way to do this - we should pay attention to when we've moved past actual friends giving actual updates, and on to filler.  "Online information is increasingly hyperpalatable, akin to alluring junk food.  Breaking news, tabloid gossip, viral memes, and the latest controversies in sports, politics, and entertainment all draw us to our phones as if they were deep-fried Twinkies held out on sticks at the state fair.  Digital delicacies are eye grabbing and appealing, but they lack nutrition." (pgs. 146-147)
• Emotionally shallow:  When you scroll through a newsfeed, you might jump straight from someone announcing a death (deep sorrow), to someone making a birth announcement (great joy), to a political post that makes you angry - we feel each of these things very briefly, and then keep scrolling to the next post and the next emotion.  Little by little, this takes away our muscle memory for feeling deeply those things that should be felt deeply and dwelt on for more than five seconds.
• Hope v. Despair:  A focus on God's promises helps us look to new mercies every morning; a focus on the news or newsfeed will instead show us new tragedies every morning (whichever side we are on), and get us caught up in the here and now.  This isn't to say that we should never act, vote, or speak up on behalf of injustice - this is more a question of whether we are allowing ourselves to drown in the despair of the temporal, or if we are being lifted by the hope of the gospel.  

These are just a few sample thoughts that I found especially helpful.  There are chapters about distraction, about time waste, about the bad roads that bad content can lead us down, and much more.  This all sounds pretty doom and gloom, but the good news is, much of this can be helped by thinking critically about how and why you're using your phone (which is what this book helps us do so well), and changing things up when you find things you don't like.  

For example, this book has encouraged me to edit what posts I'm seeing (getting to the hope v. despair point), and to pause and feel it or reach out if I see something that merits a deeper emotional response (getting to the emotionally shallow point).  I'm still working on reducing the amount of time I spend mindlessly scrolling after I've gotten through updates that I really want to see, and the approval junkie thing is still a big struggle for me. Those are both going to be hard ones to break, but it's a good start to even be thinking about it.  

I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to think through the theme of the book:  "What is the best use of my smart phone in the flourishing of my life?"