I’ve been slowly rereading Antón Barba-Kay’s A Web of Our Own Making, one of the most profound books in recent years on how the digital era is reshaping civilization. One of its key insights is how human interconnectedness makes the digital revolution’s effects inescapable. Even those who resist or withdraw from online life do so against the backdrop of a world fundamentally shaped by it.
Another takeaway exposes the temptation to remake and reconfigure the physical environment (even our bodies and relationships) in ways that conform to the digital. The future isn’t a world where everyone spends an inordinate amount of time in an AI-inhabited metaverse of virtual reality but a world where it’s acceptable, even expected, for physical bodies and places to be molded and shaped by the digital images we hope to capture. The online world now sets the standard for all of life.
You might hear this and think, That doesn’t apply to me. I can always opt out. I don’t have to engage with social media or virtual reality. I can just log off. Unfortunately, human culture doesn’t work that way. Television reshaped public discourse even for those who didn’t own a set. Social media has reduced political debate to clips and soundbites. Even if you never watch your church’s livestream, the presence of a camera broadcasting the service alters the experience for everyone—whether it’s the pastor who acknowledges an unseen audience, the worship leader who adjusts to the basics of broadcasting, or the people gathered who realize a moment of devotion might be captured by the camera.
No One Is an Island
When a new technology becomes widespread, no one remains untouched. Brad Littlejohn, in his article “Narcissus in Public,” offers a striking example. Over Christmas break, he took his family to the ice rink at the National Gallery’s Sculpture Garden. They noticed a group of young women using the rink as a mere backdrop for Instagram glamour shots. Other skaters had to swerve to avoid them, avert their eyes from their immodesty, or adjust their own experience around these self-curated performances. He writes,
The young women in the sculpture garden had come to see the ice rink not as a place within the physical world, but as a perfect canvas for their digital self-curation. They were warping what was best in themselves in order to suit the medium.
What seems like an individual choice—taking selfies or curating an image—changes the experience for everyone else. We think our phone habits are personal, but when millions of people prioritize their screens over the world around them, the consequences ripple outward. When you divide your attention between your phone and the real world multiple times a day, you reshape not only your expectations but also the social fabric around you.
Your phone habits don’t affect just you. Littlejohn continues,
Not only did we all have to alter our skating patterns to avoid them, at the risk of causing secondary collisions, but more fundamentally, they altered the ambience of the whole space. Rather than feeling part of a genuinely public space, one felt at every moment that one was intruding on something private—or something that ought to be private.
Permission Structure Has Changed
You’ve likely seen this phenomenon elsewhere. If you’re on a hike with friends, enjoying conversation and the beauty around you, the moment someone pulls out a phone to capture the moment for social media, the dynamic shifts. The scenery is no longer just scenery—everything is potential for content or a possible background for a selfie. The hike is no longer only about you and your friends—it’s something to be broadcast, something open for evaluation and discussion online.
If you’re in a business meeting, once one or two people pull out their phones or open their laptops, the permission structure of the room changes. The expectation of everyone being fully present—really there and engaged—diminishes. Distraction is now unavoidable. Even the person determined to leave the phone in the bag and stay attentive will be affected by the shift.
And what about church? If you glance down the aisle and see someone scrolling Instagram mid-sermon, the atmosphere changes. Full attention to God’s Word is no longer the assumed posture. You’re gathered with people for worship who aren’t fully there. Openness to half-hearted listening and distracted engagement becomes permissible for all.
Littlejohn notes the compounding effect:
The worst thing about collective action problems is that even those who are most resolute in opposing the trend have no choice but to either join it or suffer its effects anyway: if I decide to stubbornly hold out as the one person in the room not bending over my phone, I’ll only have the pleasure of looking at the tops of everyone else’s heads.
Reclaim Presence
Our actions are more connected than we realize. When I’m helping my son with his homework, or talking with my daughter, and I let my attention drift to my phone, I’m sending a message: This moment doesn’t require my full presence. Or worse: You’re not interesting enough to me. If we’re watching a movie with my kids, but I’m multitasking and checking my email, their experience of the film is altered, not just mine.
A principle in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians holds here—“everything is permissible,” but not everything is beneficial; “everything is permissible,” but not everything builds up (1 Cor. 10:23–24). “No one is to seek his own good, but the good of the other person,” he says. As Christians, we’re obligated to consider how our personal choices affect those around us.
You’re not an island. Your phone habits are never just about you. Our digital choices reflect our priorities. Our online actions have downstream effects. Unless we take a good, long look at ourselves in the mirror and unless we carve out spaces and times that we—with others—agree should be free from the distraction of our devices, we’ll ride along with the currents of imperceptible but significant cultural devolution.
The choice before us isn’t just whether we use our phones more or less than others. It’s whether we’ll be fully present and fully aware of the collective effects of our individual decisions.
If you would like my future articles sent to your email, as well as a curated list of books, podcasts, and helpful links I find online, enter your address.
