Many if not most of us spend a frightfully huge percentage of our time hunched over our “smart” phones, staring and poking at them.
It’s not all bad. But it’s certainly problematic for many, if not most, of us.
For very many of us, it is confusing to sort out good uses of digital media from the worthless or bad. As someone involved still in ministry on college campuses, I am aware that a lot of students, even at elite institutions, are lost in a miasma of highly questionable sources of information. They get lost in comparing themselves, usually to the detriment of their mental and spiritual health, to other students who have more effectively curated themselves digitally than they have. They don’t know what to believe. In far too many cases, this has led them to wonder if there is such a thing as truth – or verifiable reality – at all. Today, democracy is seriously threatened by the resulting unhealthy skepticism that makes people more vulnerable than ever to disinformation and unfounded conspiracy theories. (In response to this crisis, I have created a ritual that has spread to campuses and churches far and wide: The Blessing of the Smartphones – use it freely!)
I believe that progressive churches and campus ministries – and other organizations and communities – have a very important role in creating and sustaining a culture of consuming and producing life-affirming, socially-positive digital media. To that end, I present here a “manifesto” on the subject. Feel free to use, alter, and spread it! (Special thanks go out to my friend Bernhard Poerksen, professor of media studies at Tübingen University in Germany. His book, “Digital Fever: Taming the Business of Disinformation” (2022, Palgrave Macmillan, inspired me to write this.) I hope this “manifesto” will be a conversation-starter in congregations. Please send me your suggestions for improvement on it.
Digital Wisdom: A Manifesto
- We will use our smartphones and other technology for the common good. We know they are public devices, and not just personal ones. We will be responsible and thoughtful users of digital technology, and prayerfully consider the impacts of our own consumption and production of media on other people.
- We will post about our personal lives only with honesty, humility, and kindness – without hype, sexualization, or excessive curation in the ways that we present ourselves and our lives to others. We will be highly sensitive to the possible negative impacts of posting anything about other people.
- We will limit our use of smartphones and other devices so that they do not dominate our lives to the detriment of face-to-face relationships, physical activity, creativity, and contemplative practice.
- For news, we will seek sources of information produced with high journalistic or scientific standards. We will seek news from outlets that employ professional journalists working collegially, subject to editorial oversight, making a clear distinction between factual reporting and opinion. We will not rely for information on public affairs from individual, independent bloggers or podcasters.
- We will strive as best we can to follow professional journalistic standards in producing and distributing digital content. We recognize that, for better or worse, the wall between professional journalists and the consumers of their information has broken down. As content-creators, we’re all “journalists” now, so we must aspire to their professionalism. We will seek out and subject ourselves to the counsel and scrutiny of people wiser than ourselves. We will make clear the distinction between facts and our opinions about them. We will be transparent about our assumptions. We will reveal our sources. If legitimate flaws in our content are pointed out to us, we will publicly admit our errors.
- We will avoid media sources that amplify outrage. We will seek verifiable information from sources that present facts without sensationalization. We seek news that is presented as clearly and dispassionately as possible, trusting ourselves to respond emotionally as appropriate.
- In our faith communities, we will support each other in living up to these commitments. We rely on our faith communities as safe spaces where we can openly and respectfully discuss public issues with our peers and get perspective on them from different points of view. We will seek wise counsel from each other in responding to what we find in social media and news media.