Scrolling Ourselves to Death: What Are Our Phones Making of Us?
It is important to understand what this book is—and what it isn’t. This is a collection of essays rather than a single, sustained argument from beginning to end. That format is both one of its strengths and one of its weaknesses. The contributors approach the problem from different directions, addressing subjects such as dopamine-driven media, smartphones, post-truth culture, Christian communication, digital distraction, embodied community, and the difference between digital spectatorship and tangible participation.
The book’s central concern is one I think deserves serious attention. We tend to think of technology as neutral: what matters, we assume, is simply what we choose to do with our phones and social-media platforms. One of the book’s strongest points, following Postman, is that the medium itself shapes us. A smartphone doesn’t merely give us access to information; it changes our habits, our expectations, our attention spans, and even what we consider normal. The problem isn’t simply that we sometimes look at our phones too much. It is that we have built an environment in which distraction, novelty, immediacy, and constant stimulation are always available.
I also appreciated the way the book handles the Christian and gospel dimension of the subject. It would have been easy for a Christian book about technology to become either a simplistic “technology is bad” argument or a series of moralistic warnings about screen time. Thankfully, most of the contributors avoid that trap. The goal isn’t simply to reject technology but to ask how Christians can use it wisely without allowing it to master them. The book repeatedly brings the discussion back to discipleship, spiritual formation, community, embodiment, and living faithfully in the physical world God has actually given us.
That is particularly valuable because the solution cannot simply be, “Get off your phone.” The better question is what should replace the time and attention we are surrendering to our phones? Several of the essays point toward tangible participation: spending time with actual people, engaging with our local communities, doing meaningful work, paying attention to our neighbors, praying about things we cannot personally change, and resisting the temptation to become merely spectators of the world’s problems. One of the book’s contributors describes this as reconnecting information with action—a particularly helpful concept in an age when we can know about virtually every tragedy in the world while being unable to do anything meaningful about most of them.
The book also makes a compelling case for intentional limits on smartphone and social-media use. Rather than treating every spare moment as an opportunity to consume something, we need to recover the ability to be bored, to be present, to read deeply, to talk with people, and to do nothing without immediately reaching for a screen. The practical recommendations throughout the book—limiting screen time, being more deliberate about what we consume, resisting endless scrolling, and prioritizing physical community and tangible action—are not particularly revolutionary, but that doesn’t make them any less valuable. In fact, their familiarity may be part of the point. We often already know what we should change; we simply need to be reminded why it matters.
For me, the introduction was probably the strongest part of the entire book. Brett McCracken’s opening essay, “Back to the Future: How a 1985 Book Predicted Our Present,” does an excellent job of framing the problem. It establishes the connection to Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death and explains why Postman’s critique of television is even more relevant in an age of smartphones, social media, and algorithm-driven entertainment. The introduction gives the reader a framework through which the rest of the essays can be understood.
Unfortunately, the essays that follow are somewhat uneven. Some were clear, engaging, and immediately useful. Others were considerably more theoretical, and I found myself struggling to understand exactly what I was supposed to do with the argument. Because this is a collection of essays written by different contributors, that unevenness is probably inevitable. Some chapters felt like practical wisdom that I could immediately apply; others felt more like academic or philosophical explorations that, while interesting, didn’t have much practical usefulness for me.
That also means the book occasionally feels repetitive. Several contributors are making variations on the same fundamental argument: our technologies are forming us, constant digital stimulation is damaging our ability to pay attention, and Christians need to recover embodied community and intentionality. Those are worthwhile ideas, but they don’t always need to be made quite so many times. The format gives the reader multiple perspectives, but it also means the book doesn’t always build momentum in the way a single-author argument might. Other readers have similarly noted that the essays are somewhat loosely connected and can revisit the same ideas.
Still, I don’t want my three-star rating to distract from the importance of the subject. In fact, I think that is probably the most important thing I would say about this book. Three stars does not mean I think the book is unimportant or that I regret reading it. Quite the opposite. The subject is important enough that I am glad this collection exists, and several of its ideas have stuck with me.
More importantly, I have personally made changes to the way I use technology, and this book reinforced the value of those changes. It reminded me that reducing phone and social-media use isn’t simply about being more productive or reclaiming a few hours in the day. There is something deeper at stake. When we put down the phone, we aren’t merely eliminating something; we are making room for other things—conversation, prayer, reading, attention, relationships, service, and simply being present in the world around us.
That is ultimately what I found most compelling about Scrolling Ourselves to Death. It doesn’t merely ask whether social media is good or bad. It asks what kind of people our technologies are making us and whether that formation is consistent with the kind of people Christians are called to be.
I give Scrolling Ourselves to Death 3 out of 5 stars, primarily because I found the collection uneven and some of the essays too theoretical to be particularly useful. But I would absolutely recommend the book—and, even more strongly, I would recommend taking seriously the ideas it presents. The book doesn’t have to be perfect to be valuable. Its central warning is too important to dismiss, especially when the evidence of our digital habits is visible in our own lives every time we look around and see a room full of people staring at their phones.
For Christians in particular, this is a conversation worth having.
We don’t have to reject technology, but we do need to learn how to use it
without allowing it to use us. Scrolling Ourselves to Death makes a thoughtful,
timely, and ultimately worthwhile contribution to that conversation.
WRITTEN BY
David L. Burton
For more information, visit the Engaged Neighbor website. Take our pledge and become part of a movement! Or subscribe to our newsletter. Access some of the research documents written by David Burton, the author of this blog. Or better yet, purchase one of his books off Amazon. Contact David L. Burton via email at dburton541@yahoo.
Comments
Post a Comment