by Jen Hatmaker
Lots of experts are weighing in. It turns out, all this input isn’t just annoying; it’s troubling. A recent New York Times article, citing dozens of sources, reported that this is your brain on computers:
Scientists say juggling e-mail, phone calls and other incoming information can change how people think and behave. They say our ability to focus is being undermined by bursts of information.
These play to a primitive impulse to respond to immediate opportunities and threats. The stimulation provokes excitement—a dopamine squirt—that researchers say can be addictive. In its absence, people feel bored. The resulting distractions can have deadly consequences, as when cell phone-wielding drivers and train engineers cause wrecks. And for millions of people these urges can inflict nicks and cuts on creativity and deep thought, interrupting work and family life.1
Even after this multitasking ends, fractured thinking persists because evidently this is also your brain off computers.
In 2008, people consumed three times more information each day than they did in 1960. Computer users at work change windows, check e-mail, or switch programs nearly thirty-seven times an hour, new research shows. I am completely guilty of this, and it gives me ping-pong brain. It is increasingly hard to focus on one task for longer than twenty minutes without succumbing to an alternate source: Hey look, my in-box says “6,” my favorite blogger posted something new, let me just send this quick text, what’s the daily recipe on cooks.com?
Researchers at Stanford found that media multitaskers seem more sensitive to incoming information than nonmultitaskers, and that is not necessary good:
A portion of the brain acts as a control tower, helping a person focus and set priorities. More primitive parts of the brain, like those that process sight and sound, demand that it pay attention to new information, bombarding the control tower when they are stimulated.
Researchers say there is an evolutionary rationale for the pressure this barrage puts on the brain. The lower-brain functions alert humans to danger, like a nearby lion, overriding goals like building a hut. In the modern world, the chime of incoming e-mail can override the goal of writing a business plan or playing catch with the children.
“Throughout evolutionary history, a big surprise would get everyone’s brain thinking,” said Clifford Nass, a communications professor at Stanford. “But we’ve got a large and growing group of people who think the slightest hint that something interesting might be going on is like catnip. They can’t ignore it.”2
I think these people have been spying on me. I’ve developed an addiction to input, and I’m not sure how to turn it off. It is worsened because I work on the computer. If my career involved art or labor or customer service or raising babies again, I’d naturally find myself unplugged more. But writing books and developing messages and corresponding with readers and event planners is all right here on my handy laptop, and oh, there’s an iPhone alert, and oh, there’s my in-box, and oh, here’s Facebook, and oh, let me click on this article real fast, and oh, here’s a sidebar link, and oh, I meant to check that Web site, and oh . . .
Do you remember when we used to mail letters and read the paper and leave messages on answering machines? We were not available every second, and my gosh, I miss that. I cannot be unplugged for three hours without someone asking, “Where are you? I’ve e-mailed you and sent you three texts.” My time no longer belongs to me, and if I disconnect for a few hours, people take it as a personal affront.
This month has been heaven on a biscuit. 7 gave me permission to say, “Don’t text me, don’t Facebook me, and don’t e-mail me unless it’s an emergency because I won’t answer.” And then everything went silent. As it turns out, I can set media boundaries and everyone will live. The instinct to check all my accounts and programs went dormant, knowing nothing would be there, and I was like an addict taking my first deep breath of unpoisoned air in awhile.
I don’t want to be addicted anymore, and I certainly don’t want my kids slaves to these compulsions. “Researchers worry that constant digital stimulation like this creates attention problems for children with brains that are still developing, who already struggle to set priorities and resist impulses,” the New York Times article reported.
Do all these screens sabotage the neurological maturity our kids are already struggling to achieve? Well, I for one have given my son instructions while he was on the Xbox, found zero progress on said instruction fifteen minutes later, while he swears I never said anything. Really? What about when I stood twelve inches away and said in plain English, “Go pooper-scoop the yard.” He’s making a good case for that lower brain-function theory.
Now the question is: How do we remain unplugged after next week?
Day 26
I pulled up Hulu.com, clicked on Modern Family, then turned it off.
There. I said it.
Brandon has been out of town for three days, I’ve been wrangling these out-of-school kids who have no media to occupy their little minds (read: mouths), and it was 10:00 p.m. and everyone finally went to bed. I didn’t want to read. I didn’t want to write. I didn’t want to tackle my e-mails. I didn’t want to be productive.
I wanted to laugh at Phil and Cam and Gloria.
I stopped short of actually watching it. I know the universe wouldn’t have imploded if I had. One thirty-minute episode of TV couldn’t ruin the whole experiment. But my DNA won out (first born, Type-A, selective rule follower). The principle of the thing fought its way to the top, shoving down the lesser players like boredom and entitlement.
So let’s review the months thus far:
I ate Ethiopian food on the fifth day of 7.
I wore a nonsanctioned jacket during Day 1 of the clothes fast.
I prehoarded piles of clothes for giveaway month, just in case.
I came this close to watching TV during media fast.
I warned you about these tendencies. I never pretended I had a will of iron, people. That I’m still doing this is a miracle. The threat of public humiliation keeps the wheels on 7, since waaaay too many people know about this thing. While drive and determination might fail me, people pleasing will never let me down as an excellent motivator.
Is there something similar in biblical community? Does the collective will and watch of like-minded people keep us from derailing sometimes? Innumerable times I’ve grown weary, but the powerful backing of my faith community lit the extinguishing fire, and I carried on.
Maybe “letting down my fellow journeymen” isn’t such a bad reason for pushing through either. In my circle of Christ followers, we take turns being strong. While one of us is down, the rest rally. Later, we’ll trade. The equation always balances in the end. Sometimes a second surge of effort affects another believer in profound ways. I can’t count how many times I’ve thought:
If she can do it, then I can too.
If he can hold steady, then I should try.
If God is keeping them afloat, then he’ll do the same for me.
Our stories affect one another whether we know it or not. Sometimes obedience isn’t for us at all, but for another. We don’t know how God holds the kingdom in balance or why He moves a chess piece at a crucial time; we might never see the results of his sovereignty. But we can trust Him when He says press on, cling to hope, stay the course. He is always at work, even if the entire thread is hidden. I might just be one shade of one color of one strand, but I’m a part of an elaborate tapestry that goes beyond my perception.
The power of the church has always been in its many, many parts. In a culture of hero worship and conspicuous rainmakers, this concept struggles to emerge, but the story of God’s people comprises a billion little moments when an average believer pressed on, carried through, stepped up. In the quantity of ordinary obedience, the kingdom truly advances.
So that one area you where you are fatigued and con
sidering surrender, remember this:
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. (Heb. 12:1–3)
Day 30
Whew! What a month. I know in the big scheme of things, a media fast is not headlining news, but I gotta tell you, we had to dig deep this last week. For me, it wasn’t so much the media I was missing but the knowledge that I was the only one missing it. The party was going on outside my window, and I uninvited myself.
But the wiser (read: smaller) part of my brain interrupted this pity party with a question: What are you really missing? Asinine television programming? Web sites that suck you in then waste your time? The Facebook knowledge that someone “is going to the store” or her “son went big boy poopy in the big boy potty today”? These don’t enrich my life in the slightest. They do, however, steal energy from my home and family, substituting face-to-face time with screens. We’re all losing on this exchange, and we won’t revert to the plugged-in family we were before.
Enjoy this end-of-month summary by Brandon, of www.rivals.com fame:
One of Peter’s early leadership lessons from Jesus was about letting go. He said the things we hold loosely are more likely to have eternal impact than the things we bind. When we hold too tightly to things, we lose perspective as well. While Jesus was talking about the kingdom in this passage, His words certainly give us insight to our created nature.
We like our stuff. We need our things. Usually the things we think we need become the very things we need a break from. This was the case for me with media.
I remember when you wouldn’t expect a return phone call for a day or two; now if it’s not within minutes, people fear you’re “screening” them. A letter response that might have taken weeks has morphed into an e-mail with an expected turnaround of hours. Media has changed the way we interact with one another and what we spend our time doing. Our social norms have changed. The pressure is on. We are being held at gunpoint by our technological expectations.
What began as advances in the ease of communication has become something that clutters and consumes. Media “noise” is everywhere, and some perspective would do us all some good.
This month came with a surprisingly high level of prep work: Updates on social media warning my peeps I was taking a break, scouting the month for any critical sporting events, and getting any necessary projects or anticipated recreational media out of the way before we started. In hindsight, this was feasible because I knew it was only a month. Truth is, most of us could do anything for a month, but very few of us could do without media for much longer. Like my dad refusing to learn e-mail or own a cell phone, it’s unrealistic to expect society to reorient their norms around any of us.
That said, while beginning this month of 7 was harder for me than the others (and I gave Jen a harder time about it), it became a refreshing break from the norm. Everyone was respectable—if not envious—of my Twitter and Facebook “fast,” few cared whether or not I watched TV, and surfing the Internet had already lost its flair for me. Honestly, my biggest fear going into media month was that the world might stop turning until I was done, but I discovered others didn’t need me to be as wired as I thought. Most of my media involvement is simply about me (blah).
This is rarely a good thing.
All told, media month offered some pretty good perspective. Someone once said, “Think about the things you’d most hate to lose (outside of your family), and you’ll identify your idols.” These are not only the things we treasure too much but what we’ve likely lost perspective on. We place this stuff on a pedestal that wasn’t built for it. If we’re not careful, TV can become this. Facebook and Twitter can become this. Even the unreasonable pressure to respond to every e-mail immediately can become this.
The dangerous part of our social media and technologically saturated world is not it’s existence but what it distracts us from. We found quality time with family, focused attention to conversation and creativity in planning our weeknights and weekends—all refreshing additions to our month. And while the Hatmaker clan resumed a very abridged schedule of TV and Internet and gaming, we certainly gained a new perspective on them all.
Month Five: Waste
The motto of my city is “Keep Austin Weird.” Austin is superbly bizarre because of our musicians, granolas, foodies, intellectuals, exercise enthusiasts, liberals, crazies, and environmentalists. Our nicest five-star restaurant would feature a couple dressed to the hilt next to five college frat boys in backwards hats. No one thinks this is strange. Ask any local about Leslie—our cross-dressing homeless transvestite who once ran for mayor. I love it here. Brandon and I plan to live here forever and bury each other in the backyard. When we moved to Austin ten years ago, I asked two questions:
Do I have to start running?
Do we need to start recycling?
Part of Austin’s charm is its green obsession, I mean, consciousness. Our impervious cover law forbids residents or corporations from building on more than 20 percent of their land—you know, to save the trees. (A visiting friend as we drove down the highway: “Where is the city?” Me: “Under all these trees. Look hard.”) Austin is inhabited by recyclers, refurbishers, and repurposers.
And then there is me.
I’m less Mother Earth and more Mother Load, as in GAH, I can’t be fussing with recycling bins and rainwater collection and remembering my reusable grocery bags and tree-hugging. I mean, it’s just the earth. If we use it up and trash it into oblivion, it will regenerate, right? Plus, I’m a Christian author, so my deal is to write Bible stuff, and the hippies can worry with creation.
Wait a minute.
Does “creation” have anything to do with God whom I call “Creator”? Oh, pish posh. Surely God isn’t worried about how we handle His creation that He created. His main concern is making His followers happy and prosperous, yes? And if we need to consume the rest of His creation to make us happy, then I’m sure God doesn’t mind. I bet “creation” mainly refers to us humans, and the soil and rivers and animals and forests and oceans and wildflowers and air and vegetation and resources and lakes and mountains and streams are purely secondary, if not inconsequential.
If I’m taking cues from many mainstream evangelicals, then only Democrats and loosey-goosey liberals care about the earth. It’s a giant conspiracy to distract us from the abortion and gay issues, which evidently are the only subjects worth worrying about. Ecology is for alarmists who want to ruin our lives and obsess about acid rain.
I’m beginning to wonder if the unprecedented consumption of the earth’s resources and the cavalier destruction of its natural assets is a spiritual issue as much as environmental. Like Wendell Berry wrote: “The ecological teaching of the Bible is simply inescapable: God made the world because He wanted it made. He thinks the world is good, and He loves it. It is His world; He has never relinquished title to it. And He has never revoked the conditions, bearing on His gift to us of the use of it, that obliges us to take excellent care of it. If God loves the world, then how might any person of faith be excused for not loving it or justified in destroying it?”1
He might have a point.
This month the Hatmakers are doing their part, setting aside apathy and respecting the earth God made and loves, trying to care for it in a way that makes sense for our kids and their kids and everyone’s kids. Because let me tell you something: We are wasters. We are consumers. We are definitely a part of the problem. I no more think about how my consumption affects the earth or anyone else living on i
t than I think about becoming a personal trainer; there is just no category for it in my mind. (Please revisit my introduction to 7 where I declared repentance the first motivation. Thank you.)
So, Month Five = seven habits for a greener life, a fast from assuming I am not a part of an integrated earth but somehow above it all, expecting that sacrifices necessary to accommodate humanity should be made by species other than me.
• Gardening
• Composting
• Conserving energy and water
• Recycling (everything, all of it)
• Driving only one car (for the love of the land)
• Shopping thrift and second-hand
• Buying only local
If you’ve implemented these habits for years, forgive me if I ever called you earthy crunchy. We currently do none of these, so this is a giant departure from careless consumption that requires nothing of me. God’s earth is like my kids’ artwork:
Rather than briefly admiring it then throwing it away when they turn their backs because MY GOSH where am I going to put these handmade treasures that seem to have no end, instead I’ll treat their creations respectfully. I’ll carefully display their work and declare it all a masterpiece while realizing that though it seems production will last forever, it will run out as my kids grow older, and my days of enjoying the work of their hands will be over, and if I don’t preserve their creations right now, one day I’ll have bare walls because I squandered these beautiful offerings when they seemed plentiful.
I’ve got to separate myself from this astute observation by the writers of twitter.com/xianity: “Today is Earth Day, or as conservative evangelicals call it, Thursday.”