Digital Detox & The Art of Being Bored
Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God’s love for them.
(The following blog is a kind of sequel to my blog about silence and solitude, which I will post here. Hope it is a blessing!)
I’m glad I have a iPhone. Even though I know all the other smart phones are better (apparently, to be completely honest I don’t really care), it is nice and convenient and frankly essential.
Through it comes the following, which are very valuable to me: music, podcasts, messaging, calling, the EnneaApp (an app about the Enneagram, which I use often, I’m that guy), YouTube, the Bible app (I really do promise I use it), weather app, GPS, etc. etc.
I think what is universal for people in the Western and wealthy parts of the globalized world is the utility and essentialness of their smart phones.
So before I begin guilting you (and guilting myself, staggering 4 hours a day on my phone some weeks, YIKES) about how you use your phone too much, I want to point out that a lot of good does come from the advances made in phone technology. Without it, planning, organizing, and acquiring a lot of information at the press of a thumb would be impossible. Keeping in touch with friends has never been easier than it is now. Also, if we are very, very honest, we are well beyond the point of ‘going back’ and trying to reduce completely our use of it.
And yet, here on the point of reducing use, is where I feel very guilty. And where I feel a need to reduce my own consumption of it.
I need not post statistics for anyone reading this, likely on a smart phone, to understand the gravity of the time we spend on these devices. While a lot of people have rightly pointed out issues presented by digital addiction, specifically in relationship and in terms of personal mental health, I want to point out an entirely different angle.
I’ll call it “the art of being bored.”
When I was a young boy, even at some points now, I am quite a homebody. I like the refuge that comes with staying in my house and fully resting from the expectations of the outside world. I like unwinding by playing online video games (still a digital addiction though, ugh) with my BFF Vince or reading Christian living books (that tell me to get off my phone or screens) or shooting hoops on the neighbor’s rim on the opposite side of my street. As an introvert, an INFP on the Myers-Briggs, a 4w5 on the Enneagram, I am far on the pendulum of the guys in life who need much more RnR than the average go getter or adventuresome folks. I respect the hell out of people who seize life by the horns, but I am definitely seizing life by the horns in my own way by writing a billion words in my fantasy novel and a few thousand on here.
Yet even then, over the past year, I have noticed how often my homebody-ness has been sabotaged by the allure of digital gratification. How often I watch just another film theory Youtube video about the Joker, scroll through and get more and more envious on the Gram of others people’s ‘outside’ adventures, researching movies I’ll never watch on IMDB or re-listening to yet another podcast about Enneagram 4s. We are now more informed about things than we have ever been in recorded history, but I am not convinced that it is helping us make informed decisions.
We are swarmed with information, with entertainment, and with distraction. Gone are the days of boredom, of idle time, of true times of doing ‘nothing.’
Through our digital addiction, we have lost the art of being bored. Yet now, more than ever, is the time for detox from screens, from distraction, from instant gratification.
Yet what is this art of being bored? Why would I not fill all my waking time, especially during loathsome chores or adulting errands, with that nagging sense of… emptiness? Why open pandora’s box of existential dread when I can fill it with Reddit threads, Youtube comment wars, and social media outrage? Let’s turn to one of the quirkier books of the Bible for an answer.
I am convinced the author of Ecclesiastes started his writing in a state of boredom. With an opening line like ‘meaningless, meaningless, utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless!,” this guy, clearly, has thought, quite a lot, about existence, about life, about purpose. I love this writing and this book because, like Song of Songs and Revelation, it is such a profoundly weird and bizarre book of the Bible. How many tattoos have you seen of “for with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief?” or “what has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun?”
The Wisdom teacher arrived, with his wisdom, from a place of deep longing. He goes down the list of different traditional chases of happiness: happiness through wisdom, through pleasure, through hard work, through material accumulation, through sex, through reanalysis of wisdom and folly. Yet all these things he tried and tried and tried he did with his own hands. Through his own effort, his own mind, his own heart. By the end of chapter 2, though, he alludes to a place of hope amidst all the despairing meaninglessness. Somehow, someway, it is through God that we find meaning. Find purpose. Find joy.
So, what does this have to do with digital addiction? With being bored?
As alluded to in my blog about silence and solitude, God will not speak over our idols. Put differently, God is not willing to overstep our personal boundaries in order that we might hear His voice. That Netflix binge, that dive into porn, that one last tweet before we go to bed, “plants,” like the great Catholic mystic Thomas Merton wrote, “something inside a man’s soul.”
In some sense, it is God that initiates intimacy with us. It is the Father’s heart that we hear in the voice of our brothers and sisters in Christ, it is the Holy Spirit stirring in the midst of our rich and raw worship, it is the presence of Christ we feel when the deaf begin to hear and the blind begin to see.
But this is just a mere initiating step. As is often the case in stories of Jesus, He asks the men and women He interacts with, point blank, what they want from Him. So then, it stands to reason that He asks the same of us in our journey to follow Him well.
What is it that we want? What are we telling God when we tap, touch, or swipe our phone 2,617 times a day (US survey by KDA Engineering)? When the last thing we see before going to bed is a bright, sleep hindering screen? (Phubbed and Alone: Phone Snubbing, Social Exclusion, and Attachment to Social Media”, 2019).
First, some simple pragmatics I have attempted, somewhat successfully, to detox from digital addiction. Try to not use your phone in your room. For myself, my room has been the place that I have attempted to foster “the quiet place” Jesus mentions a few times in the Gospels. Reserving the space where you rest, sleep, and read away from your phone is implicitly telling God that that space is more open for Him to speak to you directly.
Second, giving a “bed-time” for screens in general is valuable in not only promoting sleep but in also winding the day down healthily. In my present situation, I often online game in my room with my tv, but I have purposefully turned off my tv around 10pm every night. From there, I vary between sometime in prayer or some kind of spiritual reading, the Bible or Christian living or whatever works for me in my specific season. As my mind begins to turn off and my body begins to rest, what was last present in my mind and soul was, hopefully, encouraging or convicting, perhaps even both.
Third, taking regular days off from screens completely. This is where I need the most amount of growth. When I am in my introverted homebody state, especially when I am tired, it is far too tempting to fill time with Netflix binges, YouTube rabbit trails, and meaningless social media FOMO scrolling. Find then, instead, what fills your soul and which does not require technology at all. This could be longer hikes in nature, deeper and richer coffee dates with friends, or fuller and more focused time spent with loved ones. It could even include finishing a novel in an entire day, the old fashioned and probably healthiest form of story binging.
Unplugged from a perpetual need to be constantly entertained, constantly stressed, and constantly occupied, will bring with it boredom. But a lack of boredom is a new phenomenon for mankind and not the norm in our history.
Further, by partaking in the art of being bored, God is not only able to speak more fully to us but we are able to speak more fully to others. How many great writers finished a novel after hours of binging mediocre tv? How many musicians wrote complex concept albums after watching dozens of videos about chord progression? How many heartfelt gifts have you purchased, letters have you written, or words have you directly blessed others with by spending time looking at your phone?
None of these things, save for a few more insidious acts, are sinful in and of themselves. I speak none of this from an ivory tower of tech free “wokeness.” As I said, I probably game too much, watch too much film theory on YouTube, and have more work to do to be more fully free of those insidious tasks I alluded to above.
Yet I have found so much more joy than I have ever had before by allowing myself to be bored. With the state of boredom, God has spoken to and blessed me far more than a thousand positive YouTube videos. With the state of boredom, I have written far more blogs and chapters of my book than I ever while entertained. With the state of boredom, I have done far more good and loving things for my friends, family, and coworkers than when I focused, instead, on entertaining myself.
By pausing, reflecting, and contemplating, I have done far more to advance the Gospel than when I have been satiated, content with myself, and satisfied with my present efforts to follow God well. I do not mean to say that we should not find joy and peace from God, particularly when He affirms the effort we put forward to love Him and others well. I do mean to say, however, that God is very pleased when we take time away from the comforts of entertainment and gratification to listen to His voice, to read His words, and to follow His ways more closely by risking a temporary state of boredom.
To conclude, further citing one of my favorite spiritual writers, is a prayer that, similarly to the author of Ecclesiastes, I believe Father Thomas Merton wrote while partaking in the “art of being bored.”
“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”