Tag: technology

Christians and Technology: Four Questions for Evaluating Apps, Platforms and Other New Technology

Christians and Technology: Four Questions for Evaluating Apps, Platforms and Other New Technology

Common Ground by Charles Luna

A few years ago, our young adult kids started using an app called Lapse. My wife considered downloading it to follow them and keep up with the photos they were sharing. At the time, I was teaching a Sunday school class at our church—Christians and Technology: How to Live a God-Focused Life in a Digitally Distracted World. That week, I had introduced several ideas from Andy Crouch’s book The Tech-Wise Family, which I often recommend.

Recognizing that Christians need a simple, repeatable framework for evaluating technology in light of how God designed us to live, I took four questions Crouch encourages his readers to ask and created a simple rubric to help us think intentionally about and evaluate new (and old) technology in light of God’s intended purposes for humans to live God-honoring, purpose-filled, and flourishing lives. I had distributed a printout for the class to take home and keep in a visible place that would give them a framework and filter for discerning whether or not to adopt a new technology. I’ve called it a Technology Discernment Framework and you can download a PDF at the bottom of this article. 

The framework is a list of four simple questions to ask when evaluating apps, platforms and other new technology:

  1. What are the things I’ll be able to do because of this technology? What value will it add to my life?
  2. What will I no longer be required to do because of this technology? What will it save me from?

But . . .

  1. What will this technology require me to no longer do or to do significantly less of?
  2. What will this new technology require of me in terms of time, attention, relationships and money?

In our class, I invited the group to walk through an example that has inserted itself into our lives in the last ten years: streaming services. It was an instructive and helpful activity which I’ll try to reproduce here.

  1. What are the things I’ll be able to do because of Netflix and other streaming services? What value will they add to my life?

Netflix and other streaming services have given us access to nearly every show or movie ever created. We are now able to watch anything we want at any time we want to watch. There are now no limits to our viewing opportunities and we no longer feel the fear of missing out.

  1. What will I no longer be required to do because of Netflix and other streaming services? What will it save me from?

We will no longer need to sit through commercials or wait to watch the next episode until next week. It can save us from ever being that person who hasn’t seen the latest movie or show.

BUT . . .

  1. What will Netflix and other streaming services require me to no longer do or to do significantly less of?

The main thing that these services require a person to no longer do is wait until next week or next month to watch a show or movie. One of the members of the class shared about a friend group who, prior to the advent of these services, gathered every Thursday—together and in community—to share a meal and then watch the much anticipated next episode of LOST. Once streaming services were introduced, they were no longer required to do this.

  1. What will Netflix and other streaming services require of me in terms of time, attention, relationships and money?

First and foremost, these services are not free. According to the American Business Times, Americans spend an average of $52 a month ($624 a year) on streaming services. Perhaps the higher cost, however, is in the amount of time we spend on these services. In the U.S., where 83% of households have at least one streaming service subscription in 2025, we averaged 9.6 hours of viewing each week. That’s nearly 500 hours of watching streaming services each year—equivilent to twelve 40-hour work weeks. We can imagine that, had Augustine had Netflix, he may never have heard the words, “Take and Read.”

It was an instructive exercise and you could probably add a few things to our answers, but I hope it helps paint a picture of how to utilize this tool. My wife and I were confronted with the opportunity to download Lapse onto her phone that very week and so we walked ourselves through the four questions and decided that it was worth following along with their Lapse journeys. We didn’t just blindly download the app because everyone else was doing it. We took a few minutes to consider what it would do to us and how it would affect our lives and our ability to live God-honoring, purpose-filled, and flourishing lives. We said yes to Lapse. We chose not to use Instagram.

The point is not to say one app is better or worse than another but rather to provide a framework for intentionally and reflectively considering the ramifications of any new technology we might decide to adopt. The Technology Discernment Framework is about intentionality, something that is too often missing when considering new apps, platforms and other technologies.

Before you download your next app, take five minutes and ask these four questions—it may shape more of your life than you expect.

Four Questions Cut OutsDownload

Christians and Technology: Using My Phone Like It’s 2007

Christians and Technology: Using My Phone Like It’s 2007

I was listening to Cal Newport’s Deep Work podcast1 this morning and he walked through five ways to reclaim your smartphone and use it, once again, like it was originally introduced back in 2007. At the yearly Mac World event in January of 2007, Steve Jobs introduced the first iPhone that would do “three things: a widescreen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone and a breakthrough Internet communications device.”2 It was an extraordinary moment but in that moment Jobs was not anticipating what Newport dubs the “attention platforms economy.” What was initially a tool with which we could create and do work quickly became a device which companies spent billions getting users to spend as much time as humanly possible on their screens with no thought or care for what that might do to them. We are the product of their greed dreams and we have given ourselves willingly to them. 

Newport, for his part, has been pushing back for years. His book “Digital Minimalism” is a helpful guide to intelligent reflection on a relationship with our phones that can lead to a more sane and healthy use of them.3 In this particular episode, he offers five ideas for taking smartphone habits back to the healthier days of 2007 when they were still simply tools to be used by us rather than devices consuming us. All of his ideas are helpful and I’d encourage you to listen to the episode if reclaiming your phone as a tool rather than a time sucking device is something you’re wanting to explore. 

The first idea shared is to transform the look of the phones digital interface so that it looks less like a slot machine and more like a monochromatic list of apps. He shares about several apps that can do this but the one I’ve been using for the past few years, Minimalist Phone, did not make his list and because I think it has been spectacular, I’d like to tell you about it.4 Like most minimalist phone apps, it transforms your phone into a rather boring list of apps by name only. You’ll have a home screen which can include up to six of your most used apps (#1 above) and a secondary screen with a list of everything else in alphabetical order. That alone has been helpful but there are a few other features I’ve utilized that have made it worth the $30.00 yearly fee.

First is the ability to hide apps (#2 above). They remain on your phone but are in a hidden folder which requires a few extra steps to access. This may be enough—out of sight, out of mind—for most of us. A second feature that I’ve found helpful is the ability to actually block an app (#3 above) for a range of time from 24 hours to 30 days (#4 above). Once an app is blocked, if you try to access it you’ll get a friendly reminder about why you can’t access it with the date it will be available again (#5 above). The only way to unblock an app is to wait for the time to pass or uninstall the Minimalist App.

The Apostle Paul reminds us to “pay careful attention, then, to how you walk—not as unwise people but as wise— making the most of the time, because the days are evil” (Eph. 5:15-16, CSB). The Minimalist app has been a helpful tool allowing me to do a better job of making the most of my time as I live with my smartphone. I hope it will help you as well.

Resources Mentioned

  1. Deep Work Episode 396: Can I Learn to Love My iPhone  Again? ↩︎
  2. Mac World 2007 iPhone Announcement ↩︎
  3. Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport ↩︎
  4. Minimalist Phone App ↩︎