by The season of Lent is upon us. This is a holy season for Christians who want to unite with Jesus Christ’s 40 days of fasting as he prepares for his later testing and crucifixion. In order to agree with Christ’s self-sacrifice, Christians often enter into a symbolic fast, giving up certain foods such as meat or chocolate or even giving up certain practices.
In recent years, fasting from the internet or other forms of technology has become popular. Fasting from technology is encouraged by many religious leaders as the perfect way for individuals to reflect on their daily dependence on technology. Sometimes called the “digital Sabbath”, it refers to the Christian and Jewish practice of setting aside one day a week as a holy day.
On such a day, secular practices such as using media to help believers focus on God and their faith are stopped. This is based on the premise that the best way to critically engage with technology is to unplug from it. It’s a way to remember that real communication is unmediated by technology and based on being with each other in the “real world”.
Some people may find it helpful to unplug from social media or limit one’s internet use for a certain period such as during Lent. However, my research, carried out over two decades, shows that some of the basic assumptions on which digital fasting is based may be problematic or misleading.
Technology, indeed, can be good for religion. The question is, how do we engage thoughtfully and actively with technology?
The media and immoral values?
First, let’s look at how religious groups interact and make decisions about new types of media.
In my book, “Networked Theology,” my co-author Stephen Garner and I discuss how some religious communities believe that the media primarily promotes immoral values and frivolous entertainment. Therefore, they argue that media interaction through digital devices should be regulated, just as during digital fasting.
In “Networked Theology,” we explain how media abstinence is based on an assumption often called “technological determinism.” It is a theory that argues that media technology shapes the way individuals think and act in society. Technology is presented as the central factor driving society, and its character is often described as selfish and dehumanizing.
This view presents the internet as a medium that creates environments that disconnect us from reality. For example, YouTube could be seen as promoting a culture of entertainment over wisdom, Facebook encourages self-promotion over community building and Twitter facilitates tweeting whatever comes to mind rather than listening.
People are not passive users
The truth is that digital media are part of everyday routines. People learn, do business and communicate with technology. Technology often improves our daily lives, for example glasses correcting vision or the telephone helping people communicate across time and space.
The problem, however, comes when we accept that people have only two choices: to resist technology and inevitably be seduced by it, or to refuse to use it to resist its power.
Digital fasting follows this second option. It presents individuals as slaves to technology. The occasional time-out is taken away from the omnipotent grip of technology to simply regroup and prepare to once again face its irresistible seduction.
In my opinion, such an approach places too much emphasis on the assertion that most people’s lives are now driven by technological devices. Nor does it take into account that technology users have the ability to make their own choices about how they go about it. So people can choose to use technology in ways that fulfill spiritual goals.
In “Networked Theology,” we argue that users can reshape digital technology. As others have written, we agree that people should take more responsibility for the time they spend on their devices.
Deepening devotion to technology
So, instead of turning against technology during Lent, individuals could use this sacred space of reflection to actively consider how to integrate technology to support their spiritual development.
Religious groups have the power to determine the culture that promotes technology, if they take the time to prayerfully create their own “theology of technology.”
I describe part of this process as “techno-selective”. This means thinking about the technology we choose and how and why we use it. It also means being proactive in shaping our technologies so that they enhance and not hinder our spiritual journey.
Digital Lent can be a reason to consider how our devices can help us do justice, practice kindness and show humility in our world. For example, people could ask if their posts on Facebook are helping to create a positive or negative life? Or, whether the apps they use or their mobile phone etiquette promote peace and social change?
Apps for social justice
For the past five years I have been working with a team of students at Texas A&M University to explore how social and mobile media are being developed that can support a variety of religious beliefs and practices. We found that there are religious apps to help people do just that. Internet memes also provide unique insights into popular stereotypes about religion within popular culture.
Memes can be invented to combat such misconceptions. For example, the wearing of hijabs, or headscarves, by Muslim women is seen as oppressive, but the wearing of the veil and modesty are themes that are often asserted in memes created by Muslims.
In addition, our research on religious mobile apps found that there is an increasing number of apps available that help individuals stay faithful to their religious practices on a daily basis. Apps can help read holy texts, provide religious study aids, help find kosher or halal products to maintain a holy lifestyle and connect people to places of worship and other faiths.
Prayer and meditation apps can help users remember when to pray and be more accountable in these daily spiritual practices.
Apps designed to encourage participation in social justice causes, such as TraffickStop, Lose Weight or Donate and CharityMiles, also help raise awareness of key issues and even help users connect their daily practices, such as what they eat, to micro-donations for social justice. organisations.
Digital Lent?
Lent is a great time for individuals and religious groups to pause and reflect not only on their own technological practices and how they shape our world but also on the ways in which digital resources can be integrated into their communities to support their faith
So instead of giving up Facebook for Lent, consider doing Lent digitally.
Practicing 40 days of techno-choice may have a longer-term social and spiritual impact on one’s daily life. It could even deepen religious devotion.
This article is republished from The Conversation, a non-profit, independent news organization that brings you reliable facts and analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Heidi A. Campbell, Texas A&M University
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Heidi A. Campbell does not work for, consult with, own shares in, or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article this article, and did not disclose any relevant connections beyond their academic appointment.
