Digital Deity
Merriam-Webster defines “idolatry” in two ways: “the worship of a physical object as a god” and “immoderate attachment or devotion to something.”
Using either of those definitions, it’s not a stretch to say most of us are idolaters with our smartphones.
Smartphones are physical objects we take everywhere; they’re rarely more than an arm’s length away. When was the last time you went out for errands without your phone? Left for an overnight trip without your phone? We shudder at the thought.
We go through our days with near-constant attachment to these mobile devices. In every in-between moment of waking life—in line for a coffee, sitting in a waiting room, walking from point A to point B, stopped at a red light—we instinctively pull out our phone and scroll, text, check notifications, aimlessly toggle between apps.
It’s not just a nervous habit. It’s a liturgical impulse: muscle-memory habits of devotion. When was the last time you sat still in a pause moment and just meandered in thought or daydreamed, rather than grabbing for your phone? Most of us don’t do that anymore.
This is the behavior of idolaters. We are immoderately attached to our phones. We treat them like deities who deserve and demand our constant devotion. It’s idolatry because these digital deities are the focal points of our attention—far more than the King of the universe.
Drawing from Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985) and applying his insights to today’s scrolling age, this book helps believers think carefully about digital technology and inspires the church to turn difficult cultural challenges into life-giving opportunities.
Attention Is the Fuel of Worship (and Idol Worship)
Where our attention goes, our hearts will follow. Attention—the limited resource of what occupies our thinking space, and how we spend our time—is a fundamental building block of any relationship. If you pay no attention to your kids or your spouse, those relationships will suffer. But if you are very attentive to a person, your bond with them will likely grow. A marriage where a husband and wife are present with one another and attend to each other’s words and needs—even sacrificing other good things to make this attentive fidelity possible—will be a strong and flourishing marriage.
The same goes for our relationship with God. If we never spend time or give attention to God, the relationship will be weak and fragile. We love what we give our attention to. If I spend all my free time playing video games or cooking or gardening or [fill in the blank], I will love that thing more and more. Our habits of attention both reflect and reinforce our loves.
Jealous for Our Attention
The smartphone is the greatest attention grabber in human history. The device—and the apps which populate it—are designed with one simple goal: to seize your time and attention. In the contemporary “attention economy,” more money is made when eyeballs are glued to devices, apps, games, streaming content, etc. Tech companies have every incentive to make smartphones as addictive as possible—as fiercely jealous for our attention as a spouse or child. And they’re succeeding in this goal.
Look around you in public spaces like waiting rooms, coffee shops, or queues of any kind. Almost everyone has the same posture: head down, eyes glued to their device, oblivious of the other humans around them. It’s a disturbingly common tableau that underscores the ubiquity of the problem. We’re all hooked. We can’t stop. Our attention is focused—glazed eyes, fingers scrolling, and swiping—on the object of our affection. Which is to say, the object of our worship.
If an idol is anything that takes our attention and love away from the one true God, then the mass-produced, internet-connected devices in our hands are among the most insidious idols history has known.
We All Need Reminders!
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How to Fight Phone Idolatry
The scrolling age is a spiritual battle with high stakes. Will we let our souls be captured by the algorithms, our worship directed to the demigods of Silicon Valley? Or will we renew our commitment and give our attention more faithfully to the one true God?
He is jealous for our attention. He wants it and deserves it. Choosing him over our phones very well may be the fight of our lives. Here are three ways we can succeed in this battle.
1. Repent and Confess
The first step in breaking free from idolatry is recognizing it as idolatry. This is harder than it sounds because few of us fancy ourselves idolaters. It can be hard to see your own addictions. But an honest audit of your attention-time allocation can be a helpful diagnostic. How much time are you giving to God each day (prayer, Bible reading, worship) compared with the time you’re giving to scrolling or streaming? Be honest and then repent. Confess to God—and others in your life—that your priorities have been out of balance. Commit to change. Surround yourself with people who can hold you accountable in your desire to grow. Start making more time to pray and be still with God during those times you would normally grab your phone and distract yourself. Pray that your heart would be renewed with zealous passion for the Lord, and that you would be more satisfied in his presence than by whatever passing pleasures the algorithm might serve.
2. Be Ever on Guard
In the final words of 1 John are a warning about idolatry: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21). Even after we’ve repented and “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God” (1 Thess. 1:9), the lure of idol worship will not go away completely. Because smartphones are so normal and everywhere in our culture, it will be impossible for most of us to live without these devices occupying some space in our day to day. The challenge is keeping the phone in its proper place, not allowing it to become an immoderate addiction or colonize our attention. My advice: Use your phone in select hours of the day, and only for designated purposes. Reduce or eliminate “open scrolling” time (maybe find a harder-to-access place for your phone than your pocket). Work toward some hours each day when you are entirely phone free. Lock up devices if needed. Put screen-time limits in place. Charge your device in a hidden-away part of the house, where you might actually forget it for a while. Do what you have to do to “keep yourselves from idols.”
The scrolling age is a spiritual battle with high stakes.
3. Destroy If Necessary
Sometimes we need a clean physical break from idols. In Scripture, God’s fury over idolatry often takes the form of actually destroying idols. Think about Moses grinding the golden calf’s ashes into powder and making the unfaithful Israelites drink it (Ex. 32:30). Or consider God’s commands in Deuteronomy for his people to burn pagan idols as they took possession of the promised land (Deut. 7:5, 25). Does this mean we all need to chuck our smartphones into bonfires? Probably not. But for some of us, the phone has such a stranglehold that getting rid of it completely might be our wisest move. It’s certainly possible—if rare—to opt for a “dumb phone” or some other phone alternative. Christians should strive to build a critical mass that normalizes this option. If our worship and devotion to God is on the line, what looks to the world like a drastic measure should seem absolutely reasonable to us.
Don’t Scroll Yourself to Spiritual Death
When we scroll immoderately, we become idolaters, hopelessly hooked into a drip feed of sweet-tasting poison that will never satisfy. If we can’t break free of these patterns, we’ll scroll ourselves to spiritual death.
God’s wisdom is so much better than AI responses; his love is so much deeper and wider than the “likes” of social media; his presence is sweeter than any screen-based interaction.
Choose him. Choose life.
Brett McCracken is coauthor with Ivan Mesa of Scrolling Ourselves to Death: Reclaiming Life in a Digital Age.
