Lent is just around the corner. This is a sacred time for Christians who seek to identify with Jesus Christ’s forty days of fasting as he prepared to be tested and later crucified. To identify with Christ’s self-sacrifice, Christians often engage in a symbolic fast, giving up certain foods such as meat or chocolate or even giving up certain practices.
In recent years, fasting via the internet or other forms of technology has become popular. Fasting from technology is encouraged by many religious leaders as the ideal way for individuals to reflect on their daily dependence on technology. Sometimes called a “digital Sabbath,” it refers to the Christian and Jewish practice of setting aside one day per week as holy.
On such a day, secular practices such as the use of media are stopped to help believers focus on God and their faith. This is based on the premise that the best way to engage critically with technology is to disconnect from it. It’s a way to remember that real communication is not mediated by technology and is based on being together in the ‘real world’.
For some people, it may be helpful to disconnect from social media or limit internet use for a period of time, such as Lent. However, my research, conducted over the past two decades, shows that some of the core assumptions on which digital fasting is based can be problematic or misleading.
Technology can indeed be good for religion. The question is: how do we use technology thoughtfully and actively?
Media and immoral values?
Let’s first look at how religious groups interact with each other and make decisions about new forms of media.
In my book Networked Theology, my co-author Stephen Garner and I discuss how some religious communities believe that the media primarily promotes immoral values and frivolous entertainment. Therefore, they insist that interaction with media via digital devices must be controlled, just as it is during digital fasting.
In “Networked Theology,” we explain how media abstinence is based on an assumption often called “technological determinism.” It is a theory that states that media technology determines how individuals in society think and act. Technology is presented as the central factor driving society, and its character is often described as selfish and inhumane.
This view presents the Internet as a medium that creates environments that disconnect us from reality. For example, YouTube might promote entertainment culture over wisdom, Facebook encourages self-promotion over community-building, and Twitter facilitates tweeting whatever comes to mind instead of listening.
People are not passive users
The truth is that digital media is increasingly part of daily routines. People learn, do business and communicate with technology. Technology often improves our daily lives, such as glasses that correct vision or the telephone that helps people communicate in time and space.
The problem, however, arises when we assume that people have only two options: engage with technology and be inevitably seduced by it, or refuse to use it to resist its power.
Digital fasting follows this second option. It portrays individuals as slaves to technology. Taking an occasional time out from the almighty grip of technology is done to simply regroup and prepare to face the irresistible temptation once again.
In my opinion, such an approach places too much emphasis on the claim that technological devices now determine most people’s lives. It also does not take into account that technology users have the ability to make their own choices about how they approach it. So people can choose to use technology in ways that fulfill spiritual purposes.
In ‘Networked Theology’ we argue that digital technology can be reimagined by users. As others have written, we agree that people need to take more responsibility for the time they spend with their devices.
Deepen commitment with technology
So instead of resisting technology during Lent, individuals could use this space of sacred reflection to actively consider how they can integrate technology to support their spiritual development.
Religious groups have the ability to determine which culture promotes technology, if they only take the time to prayerfully create their own “theology of technology.”
I describe part of this process as ‘techno-selective’. What this means is thinking about the technology we select and how and why we use it. It also means that we are proactive in shaping our technologies so that they enhance, not distract from, our spiritual journeys.
A digital Lent can be about thinking about how our devices can help us do justice, practice kindness, and show humility in our world. For example, people might ask themselves whether their posts on Facebook help create a positive or more abusive world? Or do the apps they use or the etiquette of their cell phones promote peace and social change?
Social justice apps
For the past five years, I have been working with a team of students at Texas A&M University to explore how social and mobile media are being developed to support a variety of religious beliefs and practices. We discovered that there are religious apps to help people with this. Internet memes also offer unique insights into common stereotypes about religion within popular culture.
Memes can be created to counter such misconceptions. For example, the wearing of hijabs or headscarves by Muslim women is seen as oppressive by many outside the religion, but wearing the veil and modesty are themes often emphasized in memes created by Muslims.
Furthermore, our research into religious mobile apps has shown that there are more and more apps available that help people stay faithful to their religious practices on a daily basis. Apps can help read sacred texts, provide religious study tools, help locate kosher or halal products to maintain a holy lifestyle, and connect people with places of worship and also with other faiths.
Prayer and meditation apps can help users remember when to pray and take more responsibility in these daily spiritual practices.
Also, apps designed to encourage involvement in social justice causes, such as TraffickStop, Lose Weight or Donate, and CharityMiles, help raise awareness about important issues and even help users connect their daily practices, such as what they eat, with micro-donations to social justice organizations.
A digital Lent?
Lent is a great time for religious individuals and groups to pause and reflect not only on their own technological practices and how they shape our world, but also on the ways in which digital resources can be integrated into their communities to support their beliefs.
So instead of giving up Facebook for Lent, consider doing Lent digitally.
Practicing 40 days of technoselectivity could have a longer-term social and spiritual impact on one’s daily life. It might even deepen religious devotion.
This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit organization providing facts and trusted analysis to help you understand our complex world. It was written by: Heidi A. Campbell, Texas A&M University
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Heidi A. Campbell does not work for, consult with, own shares in, or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.