Technology

  • The antidote to the downsides of tech

    “Thee Quaker Project, the organization that produces the Daily Quaker Message, has a tagline: “Quaker media for the 21st century.” We’re always thinking about how to bring Quakerism into the digital age, and when I’m not editing the Daily Quaker, I’m managing Thee Quaker’s social media. So I’m invested in the idea that technology can be a conduit for meaningful spiritual experiences, and from conversations I’ve had with people who engage with our projects, I know that it often is. But like many people, my relationship with technology isn’t simple. I resent the time I waste scrolling, and notice myself reflexively reaching for my phone when I’m anxious or bored. My screen is filling up the spaces that used to be empty.”

  • God’s truth isn’t locked out of our smartphones

    “I think the Spirit doesn’t lead us to abandon technology but enables us to better use it. Our Society began with the clearness that the entirety of God’s teaching and truth didn’t end on the last page of the Bible: that God is still teaching! Can we still listen to the Inward Teacher when we impulsively check our smartphones throughout the day? I think that we can. God’s truth isn’t locked in a book or in a specific moment in history; that truth is also not locked out of our modern technologies.”

  • When the Luddites got together

    “To make technology responsible—answerable to our needs, careful of the approaching limits of the planet, responsive to conscience—such simple decisions must be replaced by complex ones, that include all the things—family, education, nature, faith, and the long-term future—that technolatry ignores. But in what social space will such decisions be made?”

  • Longing for a simpler way of life

    “In the late 1980s, young urban professionals Scott and Mary Ann Savage experienced an unexpected call. In the midst of a booming material culture, they were uneasy with their lengthy commutes, hurried lives, and impact on the environment. They began to long for a simpler way of life. A spiritual hunger grew as well, which caused them to read about the plain communities around them in Ohio.”

  • I’m going on a technology fast

    “I’m going on a technology fast…. I’m a little bit scared. There’s this fear that I’ll be disconnected and somehow some amazing thing will happen and I won’t know about it. And then, I don’t know, I won’t have any friends? I guess that’s my fear. It’s not that I don’t need friends, because of course I do, but friends are not who I am. My relationships cannot really address issues of loneliness and deep-seated questions of meaning.”

  • The phone itself isn’t wrong

    “The Amish have managed to keep technology in check, and in doing so they have fostered a sense of community that many of us yearn for in our electronically tethered and frenetically paced lives. It’s not that we are not connected—280 million Americans out of a population of 307 million have a cell phone, not to mention Facebook and Twitter accounts—but we still find ourselves inwardly yearning for that something the Amish seem to possess in their lack and which we lack in our possessing: the serenity, the quietness, the sense of knowing where one belongs in a defined community….”

  • Putting tech on probation

    “The Amish are not completely opposed to technology. But they want to ask technology questions. And the primary question they ask of technology is, if we adopt you, what impact will that have on our core values? I think we can learn from the Amish; they’re putting technology on probation.”

  • Quaker discernment around technology

    “The Quaker practice of corporate discernment can provide a crucial moderating force within the frequently polarized public debates about technology. On one side, champions of ‘accelerationism’ celebrate the benefits of technological advancement, emphasizing speed and innovation without sufficient regard for potential social or ethical consequences. On the other side, staunch opposition to technological change can highlight legitimate concern over displacement, dehumanization, or environmental harm, even as these arguments primarily serve to legitimize a diffuse and unexamined fear of change.” 

  • Is it possible to have gathered worship online?

    “For me, being a ‘whole person’ includes physical embodiment, emotional engagement and intimate relationships with family and friends, and in the physical place where I am. I therefore by definition cannot be a ‘whole person’ in social media. You only see a small (and to me relatively unimportant) part of the wholeness of body, place and relationships that is me. And in particular you only see the intellectual, rational, language-limited part of me…”

  • Physicality is part of wholeness

    “For me, being a ‘whole person’ includes physical embodiment, emotional engagement and intimate relationships with family and friends, and in the physical place where I am. I therefore by definition cannot be a ‘whole person’ in social media. You only see a small (and to me relatively unimportant) part of the wholeness of body, place and relationships that is me. And in particular you only see the intellectual, rational, language-limited part of me…”

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