Digital Addiction Pt. 1: Stop the Bleeding
Part 1 of a lifetime series on living with digital addiction
Happy 2024 🤜🤛
Typically, I finish the year writing a "year in review summary" - just like every other piece of media you subscribe to. It turns out that is easier to do when you do not have the most challenging and beautiful year of your life. My writing has been fewer and far between, but more important things have needed my attention.
Speaking of attention, In June of 2023, I set out to write about my relationship with "digital addiction" - a thorn in my side that has increasingly hurt me.Â
I know what you're thinking: "I don't need more condemnation for my shortcomings with technology." I agree, which is why I am writing to share my shortcomings. This series is a self-study to try and figure out how to have a healthy relationship with the digital devices in our lives. It's not a "one new practice solves everything" topic, and it's definitely not a "one time addressed in your life" topic.Â
I'm happy to report that 2023 was the year that finally addressed digital addiction, and I hope you find my journey helpful, as this is only the beginning.
How We Got Here
I want to introduce you to two important characters that will play an essential role in the Digital Addiction series: Bear Stearns and the Lehman Brothers. If those names are unfamiliar to you, in short, their failures uncovered a global financial crisis. Millions of Americans had to change their lifestyle because these two parties allowed disruptive consumer behavior, and it's a crucial event to learn how Generation Z behaves today.
But it did not happen like history says it should have. I was 12 years old when Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers realized they were doomed in 2008. Flash forward sixteen years to today, and I had to Google to refresh myself on what happened to make the market crash. If I were 12 years old in the market crash of 1929, fifteen years later, I would cook beans for dinner that would have been stored in my pantry for years while simultaneously hoping not to get drafted into the D-Day mission in World War II.Â
Those two scenarios aren't remotely comparable, but 2008 isn't comparable to any other market crash either. Why is that? This was the first market crash with the Internet. Every other market crash forced distrust in the financial system that failed, but in 2008, the system was moving to the Internet. The power had shifted from a small number of people running the system into the hands of anyone in the world. Thus, history will look back at the 2008 market crash as less of a catastrophe to consumer's wallets and more of a seismic shift in consumer behavior.Â
The 2008 crash was the final straw of distrust, which caused so many to pursue life on the Internet aggressively. All the benefits were evident: a zero-cost solution that drastically simplified communication, information, socialization, and even personalization. This opportunity seemed like a cheat-code solution for life.
There is a fundamental business term used when a direction is chosen… It's called opportunity cost, which means something the decision-makers must give up to take a specific direction. For example, if you choose fashionable shoes over comfortable shoes, your opportunity cost is comfort for your feet to gain fashion.
It just so happens that 2008 was the year that I registered for Facebook. My Facebook profile still to this day says I was born in 1989 (In 2008, You had to be over 18 years old to sign up. I was 11). The opportunity was as clear as an HD TV in 2008 - I could now connect with and talk to everyone I knew who had a Facebook
But the opportunity cost is here to collect what we owe it. That is, since 2008, I have never known a world that did not require me to manage my online presence. As early as middle school, I remember walking into school with social pressures based on what had happened on the Internet the night before. My identity had a brand new threat.
Flash forward 16 years later, and here I am, still trying to figure out a healthy relationship with the necessity of digital devices and the influence of my identity because of it.
The Object vs. the Content
The last I wrote in the Digital Addiction series was an introductory note where I hypothesized that my addiction was actually to my device ("the object") and not social media ("the content"). I come to you with the scientific results!
From June 2023 until September 2023, I did not read a single tweet; I did not see an Instagram post; I didn't think about a Facebook post; I deleted my Snapchat; No TikToks were viewed. It was the longest time in sixteen years without checking social media.Â
Yay me.Â
But there was still one glaring trend even with my avoidance of social media:
My mobile screen time remained the same.
Four hours a day.Â
Now, not all screen time is social media time. If you are like me, you get the screen time report on a Sunday and immediately attribute it all to garbage scrolling on your phone. That's not the case at all! For me, there's a whole lot of texting, FaceTiming, podcasts, newsletters, and other time spent browsing my phone.Â
Yet, anytime I still had the urge (craving) to check a social media platform, I would find a way to substitute that time. If I wanted to see what was happening in the sports world, I would click on the ESPN, NFL, or NBA app instead of going to Twitter to see the headlines. If I wanted to see a news story, I would Google it and then spend time on Google with whatever else would present itself.
My point is that having a smartphone means I've got endless platforms available to satisfy my information craving. Fifteen minutes An hour can be killed regardless of the apps I have downloaded.
Thus, my summer experiment confirmed my hypothesis! The content is a byproduct of my addiction to digital devices, whether my smartphone, computer, TV, etc.
And now, for the sad part: I completely missed a whole summer of exciting/happy things in my family and friends' lives because of my incorrect perceived inability to control my social media usage. I had to learn about things secondhand that I easily could have known about and celebrated in my friends' lives. Instead, I was stuck in the dark, unknowingly sending a message of, "I don't care about your life."
The Problem: Digital Devices Are Necessary
The old saying goes:Â when the only tool you have is a hammer, then every problem seems like a nail. The logical next step to solve this problem is to dispose of all my digital devices for good, but I know that is not feasible. Unless I want to join our Amish brothers and sisters (a little enticing), I absolutely need digital devices to operate in this world.Â
As I wrote in the Introduction to Digital Addiction, I'm using elementary language to describe the cause and effect of the digital addiction problem. This is because no one has ever taught me how to live life with digital devices. All of this technology has been thrust into my life with the assumption that everything is now more accessible, efficient, enjoyable, connected, informative, and everything. I have to dumb this problem down.
Below is the first smartphone I received when these assumptions began in my 7th-grade life (2009) - the Samsung Rogue:
Since that day, I've never had anyone tell me how to use this device properly. It's not anyone's fault, as we have all been on a journey to figure out how to use these devices, and it's not like I would have listened to anyone's opinion anyway. But the fact remains that it's been constant trial and error with digital devices.
The look, feel, and capability of smartphones have evolved since I had this phone, but the goal has remained the same: tech companies are doing everything possible to keep my attention fixed on the device.Â
I can whine and complain about the issues all I want. I can go through the seasons of, "I hate this phone," or "I wish I could just turn it off for good," or "I'm deleting x, y, and z," but I need my digital device to do all of the following:
Perform my job
Call people distant in my life (which I often substitute with garbage digital time)
Text people close in my life (again, bad at this)
Pay bills
Communicate via email
Search important information
Write this post
Schedule appointments
Store my information
Check the weather
Take pictures
Follow friends
Plan events
Sure, I could do all those tasks the old-fashioned way, but I can perform them more efficiently and effectively with digital devices. In reality, this list is endless, depending on how you have structured your life. In the early days of the app store, I always remember seeing many productivity apps. Productivity apps have only seen linear growth since then, as Statista is projecting 10 billion downloads of productivity apps in 2027:
Saving Time My Identity
The goal of productivity apps is to save us time. Some accomplish it, but very few of them stay in our lives. Why? When I find a helpful solution that saves me time, sadly, I substitute the time saved for more garbage time on my phone. It goes back to the original problem of my screen time remaining the same.
When I save time only to turn around and immediately waste it, I get a strong feeling of stress, anxiety, hustle, worry, or simply "being behind." You would think these feelings would be a deep enough issue to make me address it, but it has never been that way. Over time, a more severe problem has surfaced to make me address digital addiction:
An identity crisis
Quickly in life, you realize that who you spend time with is what your identity becomes. For a brief period, I wanted to be a technology entrepreneur, so I immersed myself in the minds of Silicon Valley's finest and even enrolled in a software cohort - my identity was in technology. When I was in a college fraternity, I spent copious amounts of time with other 18-22-year-old guys planning events and running the organization - my identity was a college frat boy.
The thing about time spent in different stages of life is eventually, that time ends, and your identity changes to the next stage.Â
So what about that four hours of mobile screen time every day? That time has stayed relatively consistent in my life for the past sixteen (!!!) years - same platforms, same routines, same content, different time periods. Four hours a day is way(yyyyyy) too much time not to take on the identity of the content I'm looking at. I found this study from 2019 showing the rise of daily digital media use:
And we know this has only risen since Covid.
In what feels like an instant, the problem (or opportunity cost) of digital devices shaping our identity has stoked the fire of a mental health crisis. Why is that? Because the content we consume becomes our identity.
For one thing, seasons of change and new experiences are good for us. We're human beings and not robots; we are wired to experience this Earth that we have been created to subdue (Genesis 1:28). With digital devices, you don't ever have to change your habits. These platforms are not going anywhere, and the amount of content you can consume is only increasing.
The scary part is realizing the content from our digital devices has desensitized our reality. It had to take a school in Nashville to be tragically carnaged until I realized all the time I spent playing Grand Theft Auto was so harmful. Maybe the presentation of our content changes, but when you step back and really think about it, we've seen it all, and digital content has been more damaging than uplifting to my identity.
This isn't a cry of, "The past had such wholesome, good content, and now everything is garbage!" No, none of that nonsense. This is a sobering realization of where I'm choosing to spend my time. A big reason I changed my publication to Project 21st and the messaging of my content was an effort to not contribute to the plethora of garbage content in the world.Â
If the fear of wasting time is not enough for me to tackle my digital addiction problem, I'm glad to finally realize the threat to my identity is a problem big enough to solve.
The Solution: You’re Not Alone
Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) has a famous 12-step program that helps people from the struggle of alcoholism. The 12th step is unique from the others as it states:
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
There is a study that shows over half of the participants who don't perform the 12th step of Alcoholics Anonymous will have a relapse. Why? Because the 12th step isn't about the participant. The 12th step is about going back and carrying the message to other alcoholics. It's about sharing one's story and continuing to walk with people who have suffered the same addiction, thereby constantly being reminded of the past you have pulled yourself through.
If eradication is not the solution to the digital addiction problem, how do we conquer this battle?
Accountability.
When something in your life is necessary but also harmful, you need to have accountability from a third party. Food is a gift to enjoy, but overeating can harm your health. Drinks are refreshing, fun, and tasty, but over-consumption can lead to many problems. Drugs are a miracle that allows us to treat various ailments, but drug abuse causes other issues. The same is true for the positives of movies, TV, social media, and all the forms of media content we have, but over-consumption makes us lose our identity.
My accountability came in the form of my now wife when I saw how disruptive my digital addiction could be during our time together. I would catch myself wanting to look at my phone while we spent time together; meanwhile, she was sitting there so present to me. There was this burden of guilt that I would get as I would try to escape into a dopamine hit on my phone. Finally, I realized nothing on my phone was ever more important than spending time with her. Â
Now, the accountability has evolved into thinking about my future family. I don't want my kids to see their dad always head down on a digital device. The message that I would tell them is time on my device is more important than the time we have together. There is a time and place for everything, but I guarantee you we all have a few minutes of downtime here and there to satisfy our content cravings that don't come at a cost to time with others.
No one is saying this is easy. The obsession with content is a really, really hard love affair to break, and I'm still working my way through it. Technology companies make it more difficult when they strategically create the content to ensure you are the subject. You need this product; You need to see this article; you should think this way; you should vote this way; you should watch this video; you, you, you…
That's not how we are created to be as humans. Pick up any history book, and you'll read about the pitfalls of humanity time and time again when we place ourselves at the center of the story. I'm right, and you're wrong…Me against you… It always led to chaos.
What reconciles us back to how we were created and puts us on track to breaking the chains of digital addictions is when we stop viewing ourselves as the main character. Finding accountability is the best place to start when we feel like we are losing our identity.
Christian Context
Fortunately, there is a hope that supersedes all of the hope we put in ourselves. Without getting too theologically complex, here is the word that God has put on my heart for this piece:
We often forget the many spiritual forces, good and bad, that are at play in our world. Satan is a spiritual being who rebelled against God and leads demonic spiritual forces intending to keep humans outside of the kingdom of God. Satan is not all-knowing, but he is smart (2 Corinthians 11:3). He has undoubtedly figured out the demonic power that digital devices can have. He loves to lull people in America, especially Christians, to sleep with the content available on digital devices.Â
John provides total assurance that we have power over these spirits through the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
1 John 4:1-6:
Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.
4 You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. 5 They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. 6 We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit[a] of truth and the spirit of falsehood.
No joke, these verses take a 10,000-pound weight off my chest. If I consume something and know the message is from someone who doesn't profess a belief in Jesus, then I don't have to be worried by the content. It's meaningless and has no weight in my life!Â
But there was a time in my life when these spirits of the world would consume my heart. I would believe the content from those who would not acknowledge Jesus and start to build my life and my identity around the principles of the world.
As we have discussed, the principles of the world are constantly changing. Even worse, they are changing faster than ever in our digital device age. As we live in a time of distorting change, if you don't know the truth of the Gospel and don't have a personal relationship with Jesus, then any online influencer will distort your reality with a spirit of falsehood.
We are spending way too much time on our digital devices trying to save a world that has already been saved. Satan can plot and scheme his spirits all he wants, but God is sovereign over him. I no longer have to concern myself with any spirit not of God. With the help of accountability in my life, my identity does not concern itself with the darkness of content.
It's the most freedom I've ever had in my life.
Stop the Bleeding
A whole new world was made after Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers were deceased, a world that is the only one I know. A world that says, "All of the worry, concern, panic, uncertainty, and hopelessness happening around you can be resolved by spending time on a digital device and receiving comfort, safety, knowledge, and understanding."
That is a lie.Â
Pick 2024 as the year that you finally stop the bleeding of your digital addiction. I promise you that you will enjoy the time you spend on a digital device instead of self-loathing it. As a start, go seek out some accountability from someone you trust. Heck, email me at davis.dyer@icloud.com if you want me to hold you accountable.