Fatal Distraction

Whenever Matt Richtel publishes something longer than 1,500 words, The New York Times website explodes. He specializes in the effects of technology trends on young adults and adults. Hello 21st century reader.

His most recent lengthy report is, "Growing Up Digital, Wired For Distraction," which was emailed to me almost 6,000 times (I'm exaggerating, you guys).

There's a lot of solid truth in this article and there's a lot of hyperbole in it as well. Whenever I read a trending article, I always think about how people in the future will read it. I think about the articles I have read from Time Magazine from the 1950s that were saying radios in our cars are going to be the death of human society as we know it. We gotta take some stuff with a grain, you know?

Anyways, there's a lot that's fascinating about this article and I'd really like to read more about it all, but this was the most interesting quote from Richtel's report:

"Sean’s favorite medium is video games; he plays for four hours after school and twice that on weekends. He was playing more but found his habit pulling his grade point average below 3.2, the point at which he felt comfortable. He says he sometimes wishes that his parents would force him to quit playing and study, because he finds it hard to quit when given the choice. Still, he says, video games are not responsible for his lack of focus, asserting that in another era he would have been distracted by TV or something else.

'Video games don’t make the hole; they fill it,' says Sean..."

Is it the kids' fault that they're hooked on video games? I'm not convinced. Of course, when given free reign, any kid would choose to text their friends at the dinner table, play video games for 8 hours a day, or stick on Facebook until morning. And I talk with a lot of parents who don't have the energy to assert authority in the digital realm of their house so they make the justification: "I want my son to be free to choose," they'll say.

But are they really free?

Sean does not sound free.

Many believe that freedom is the absence of restriction, that you can play video games as much as you want and be online as much as you want and watch TV until you wish to stop. But true freedom is different. Freedom is not the absence of restrictions, but it's the application of the right restrictions. The fish is most free when confined to water, and we are most free in our health when we are on a restricted diet. Therefore, we are not most free when we make our options as wide as possible, but rather when we put the right limitations on our lives.

Christianity is about following Jesus and his way for us. We follow his "will" rather than ours. And yes, this puts restrictions on us. God commands us not to do certain things and to withhold from certain vices. Many people see Christianity, then, as a straitjacket they are fastened in to. But isn't that better than being a slave to your own passions and desires? Immanuel Kant understood this perfectly and Michael Sandel sums Kant's thinking best saying that, "whenever we are seeking to satisfy our desires, everything we do is for the sake of some end given outside of us...whenever my behavior is biologically determined or socially conditioned, it is not truly free."

Sean, and many American teens, are not free; they are slaves to their own natural desires. Only for a while will our slave master have us duped to thinking we are completely free.

Christ, then, comes to earth and proclaims he is God, that he is the Truth and that following him means giving up your life, will, and desire, and in doing so you will find "abundant life." During his ministry he makes the radical statement that now perhaps can make more sense: "You shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall set you free."

Christianity certainly requires that one restrains oneself - that one must give up everything for the kingdom and glory of God - but in the restriction and delivering of the self, there is complete and total freedom because your desires are no longer yours, but God's.