Book Review – 12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You by Tony Reinke, Part 2

Here is part 2 of my review of the book 12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You by Tony Reinke. If you haven’t read part 1 yet, here’s a link to it! 🙂 Part 1 – Book Review – 12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You

7. We get lonely

Even though the digital world has allowed us to be “connected” with more people than ever before, Mr. Reinke points out how this has made us a lonely and depressed generation. Technology, by design, invites isolation. Mr. Reinke states how isolation can be a good, soul-feeding thing, *if* it is mixed with communion with God. But isolation mixed with vain distractions starves our soul.

“The smartphone is causing a social reversal: the desire to be alone in public and never alone in seclusion.” –Tony Reinke, 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You

8. We get comfortable in secret vices

Mr. Reinke points out how smartphones have made it easier to find and view sinful things online, and to keep those secret sins “secret”. He states how nothing is hidden from God, and we must all give account one day for our actions. Mr. Reinke reminds us that the battle for holiness must be fought on two fronts: 1. The external front (practically safeguarding ourselves) and 2. The internal front (dealing with the core issue of our hearts).

“Technology does this – it makes us think we can indulge in anonymous vices, even conceptually, without any future consequences. Anonymity is where sin flourishes, and anonymity is the most pervasive lie of the digital age. The clicks of our fingertips reveal the dark motives of our hearts, and every sin – every double tap and every click – will be accounted for.” –Tony Reinke, 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You

9. We lose meaning

Mr. Reinke shares how the problem in our digital age is not too much information, but junk food type information – breaking news stories, memes, controversies in sports or politics, etc. Feeding on this type of information fixes our minds on the here and now, and can make us “lose our place in history. And we lose our grip on ultimate meaning.” Mr. Reinke points out how we are eternal beings, and asks the question: do we slow down and absorb things we are reading, or are we losing the value of things with all the digital noise that daily bombards us?

“The bigger challenge for us in the digital age is not the mental pollution of information overload, but the nutritional deficiency of the content that has been engineered, like modern snacks, to trigger our appetites… digital delicacies are eye-grabbing and appealing, but they lack nutrition.” –Tony Reinke, 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You

10. We fear missing out

Our phones and social media are constantly feeding our fear of missing out (FOMO). Mr. Reinke poses the question: were we really designed to carry the burden of knowing ALL the information that is out there? He points out how this fear of missing out goes all the way back to the Garden, and the fear/lie that Satan put into Eve’s heart that she would miss out on the chance to be like God.

“Christians, perhaps like never before, are tempted to remain tethered to the daily news cycle, viral videos, political forecasts, and entertainment gossip. Our hyperconnection is fueled by our FOMO (fear of missing out). We hate being left out, so we focus on every Next Big Thing, such as the upcoming blockbuster film. And we forget about big, glorious realities like the inbreaking new creation of God.” –Tony Reinke, 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You

11. We become harsh to one another

Mr. Reinke shares how online communication makes it easy for us to publicly slander, speak harshly to, or gossip about one another. Like what he shared in point number 2 (We ignore our flesh and blood), it’s easy to do so if we view that other person as just an avatar, and not a real flesh and blood person made in the image of God. He shares some wisdom from the book of James how Christians are to handle when we see sin in other believer’s lives and how to exercise caution in this area.

‘We go online to compare one another. We chide one another. We become jealous of one another. And when we get dirt on one another, we fall into perfectly orchestrated judgment against one another.” –Tony Reinke, 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You

12. We lose our place in time

The final way Mr. Reinke shares how our phones are changing us was very sobering to me. He states the truth again that we are eternal creatures made by God…but living in this technologically driven culture, we are constantly being conditioned to chase after a bunch of distracting information fragments, and we lose our place in time and in God’s story. He shares how the digital world can take up SO much of our time with trivial things, but the Bible tells us that we are to be redeeming our time. Mr. Reinke ends with the admonition from the apostle Paul to “run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus.” (Hebrews 12:1-2).

“We are all creatures made by God, eternal beings with no end to our conscious existences…yet we live in a technologically driven culture, and we are conditioned to reflexively respond to ‘breaking news’ in our feeds rather than to reflectively connect our past with our endless future.” –Tony Reinke, 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You

“There is an uncomfortable question a Christian must ask in an entertainment driven culture…Am I entitled to feed on the fragmented trivialities online? In other words, am I entitled to spend hours every month simply browsing odd curiosities? I get the distinct sense in Scripture that the answer is no. I am not my own. I am owned by my Lord. I have been bought with a price, which means I must glorify God with my thumbs, my ears, my eyes, and my time…I do not have ‘time to kill’ – I have time to redeem.” –Tony Reinke, 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You

In his conclusion, Mr. Reinke shares some really good things about how to live “smartphone smart.” There were a lot of “WOW” moments as I read the conclusion to this book. I won’t try to summarize it all, so y’all will just have to get the book and read it for yourself. 😄

And here’s a link to do just that! 😁

12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You

Have you read this book? If so, what were your thoughts?