Many long years ago, okay, 1990, I was pastoring a little church in the country. We regularly sang a song with the following line, ‘Enter into Canaan and possess your possessions for I will go before you saith the Lord.’ What has often come to me over the years is the question of whether we possess our possessions or they possess us. Now in the age of social media I believe that question is more urgent. Social media apps are designed to capture and keep our attention to make money for those who run them. Their presence in our lives is both pernicious and pervasive.
In line with this, years ago, I read some material from Dr. Carolyn Leaf about brain function and attention and she referred to the idea of multitasking as a myth. She called it ‘milkshake multitasking’ and her point was that neurologically we can’t focus on more than one thing at a time so when we attempt to do so everything is shaken up and done poorly. More recent research has demonstrated the cost of trying to multitask. A simple example. If you had 20 minutes to do a task at work and 5 minutes to check your personal email or other social media messages it could be done in 25 minutes, if done sequentially. If you attempted the same task by working for 5 minutes on your task, engaged for 1 minute glance with a social media app, then went back to your work task you lose time. Your brain takes time to refocus and transition from one task to another so your process takes longer than the 25 minutes allotted. Over a day it adds up to a lot.
Think of applying this to prayer. You begin, get distracted by something, come back, get distracted, and on it goes. Do you every really focus on the subject at hand – communion with the Lord?
Another issue is reading. If we do most of our reading on electronic devices we tend to skip over words more than reading on paper and we retain less information. Kindle devices seem to be a bit better and are more like reading a hard copy.
With this brief overview we can now look at how we can approach prayer and scripture. If your first impulse is to turn on or check our phone when you awake, resist the temptation. The social media apps on your phone are designed to capture and keep your attention. One of the inventions coming from the social media companies is infinite scrolling. When you finish one page another one automatically loads. They don’t have to function that way, they do because again, this helps to capture and keep your attention. With what they track and gather I am confident that for most of us the social media giants know much more about us and our likes and habits than our nearest neighbours!
My recommendation, set aside time in the morning to focus on prayer and worship, read a hard copy of your bible. Taking a few minutes doing it on your phone may seem more efficient, it isn’t, and will do more to fracture your attention. Scripture calls us to do a couple of things.
10 Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth! Psalm 46:10 (NKJV)
15 And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. Colossians 3:15 (NKJV)
These things require our attention and focus. The context of Psalm 46:10 is warfare and the message from Yahweh is to be still, relax and watch Him work. The context of Colossians 3:15 is setting our thoughts and affections on heavenly things and the result is His peace.
Doing these things require intentionality on our part. Distractions have always tried to turn us away from individual prayer and worship and our current culture works harder than any other time in history to draw our thoughts and affections to other things. If you are struggling, it a cultural battle not just an individual one. Seek His face for help and seek out help from godly friends.
Practically I know I check my phone and social media regularly during the day. I do this because I keep my notifications on mute 99.9% of the time. I only turn on the ringer on my phone on if I am expecting a call. Otherwise, I call people back. I know many years ago when I first had a work BlackBerry about a week into my having it, I walked across the street to the Rogers store and asked them how to turn off the vibrate on my emails. The staff person I spoke with was shocked. I explained that I received plenty of emails and I didn’t need to know every time I received one, I could simply check regularly.
These were simply strategies I used. I don’t know if this is an issue for you, I do know research says it is a growing problem in our culture so, commit some time, seek His face and decide if you need to make any lifestyle adjustments to focus your heart on Jesus.
