| Dru Johnson noticed a shifting trend among the college freshmen he teaches. Each year, Johnson challenges his students to go a week without screens. For several years in a row, they primarily bemoaned the loss of Instagram.
But now, Johnson writes, “students say they can’t do without music. Music helps them to ‘drown out,’ ‘distract,’ ‘close out,’ and ‘numb’ themselves to the real world. These are their words. By musically medicating their emotions, reflection and contemplation seemed to be collaterally damaged.”
In his own life, Johnson had noticed that his mind was “spaghettified,” a tangled mass of everything from work to family to personal matters. He decided to try a phone that only offers a few simple features. The result? Better concentration, increased patience, greater clarity of mind, and more time to think.
Whether it be a season of no screens, a transition to simpler technology, or another approach altogether, Lent is an ideal time for some type of digital pause. The stillness that we experience in lulls we would typically fill with tweets or texts may unsettle us at first. But over time, we may just find ourselves enjoying the space to breathe, think, or pray. And whether we feel discomfort or delight, we can remember that Jesus knows both experiences fully, and He joins us in them even now. |
