Our Curated Lives Are Walling Us Off From Others, And Ultimately From God

Dispatch Faith:  To Renew Culture, Give Up Control, by Samuel D. James (Digital Liturgies):

Music streaming apps ... are a perfect example of how technology can now offer us almost total control over what we encounter. We can pick our songs, put our customized playlists on repeat, and skip anything we don’t want to listen to. We do not encounter music with surprise or serendipity. Some even opine that the traditional album, with its progressive track-by-track anticipation, is a dying artifact. Instead of unleashing our delight in music, the controllability of the streaming app mostly inspires us to make it background noise.

Yet with so much technological control, Americans and others in the West report higher levels of anxiety, depression, and despair than at any other recorded time in modern history. The modern therapeutic crisis comes as Western people possess an enormous amount of personal power over their daily lives, at least relative to previous generations. Yet the very aspects of life that have become more controllable are the ones that seem to be closest to the source of our angst.

Consider marriage and relationships. Dating apps have succeeded in giving singles much more control over their experiences; they can see pictures, read profiles, get “matched,” and swipe left or right without the frustration or risk of actually having to meet the person. On paper, this kind of matchmaking mastery should lead to fulfillment en masse. But it has not. In fact, marriage and fertility rates are in historic decline across many developed nations. Singles today are less likely than ever to be going on dates or even looking for a relationship. Loneliness, unfulfilled desires, and simmering resentment and polarization between the sexes are on the rise. ...

Living contrary to the secular worldview, by contrast, displaces the individual self from the center of the universe. If there are higher realities than me, then I must humbly accept my limits, including the limits of my control. Christians, for example, believe that God is completely in control of our lives, and that even suffering ultimately serves a purpose. This conviction means that the point of life cannot be merely to run from suffering or minimize risk. Even the things that cause us suffering can be reconciled as part of a divine plan to bless us.

Love itself is often a cause of suffering, precisely because it lies outside our control. To seek total control is to rule out love. As C.S. Lewis famously observed in The Four Loves:

Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.

Thinking this way could transform political discourse. Biblical wisdom, so deeply tethered to the realities of human nature, reminds us that finding truth involves challenging appealing narratives (Proverbs 18:17). Instead of using technology to piece together a news and opinion intake that never challenges us, we could discerningly expose ourselves to opposing viewpoints—not for the sake of bland “balance,” but, at the very least, to learn how other people think and be able to communicate more fairly across divides.

It could also reverse cultural trends. Accepting the goodness of uncontrollability subverts the logic at the heart of the emerging generation’s loneliness/risk-aversion gridlock. Friendship involves risk; people can disappoint you or even disappear. Asking someone on a date involves risk; you might be embarrassed by their answer. Having children involves risk; kids complicate your life, demand your attention, and can get angry, sick, or simply mysterious. But these risks are part of a well-lived life. Technology has a place, but using it as a “safe” retreat from the hazards of in-person relationships is, as we’ve seen, a path to misery.

Our relationship to technology will reveal to what degree the ethic of controllability is dominating us. There are movements afoot that are rethinking the role of digital technology in the lives of kids and teens, exemplified by the work of thinkers like Jonathan Haidt and Jean Twenge. Is our response to every crisis to endlessly Google, hoping for some tool or hack to immediately relieve the pain? Can we make peace with quiet and boredom, or does a moment of unexpected stillness demand a check of the inbox or a refresh of the app?

The ethic of controllability is fundamentally a mirage. Our world is not infinitely responsive to our wishes. Rather, as Christianity teaches us, we only find happiness when we submit to realities above and beyond us, humble ourselves, and cultivate gratitude for the good things God has given. Humility and wonder can help us find a way off the carousel of disillusionment and frustration. And we may just find the music a little brighter, too.

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