My Smartphone Ruined My Spiritual Life

+JMJ+

For months, I have struggled with a great deal of spiritual desolation. I would not call it an episode of the “Dark Night of the Soul,” but rather a sense of spiritual indifference or numbness. Throughout my frequent meetings with my spiritual director, I expressed the same sentiments: “I am praying, but it’s as if I don’t care about it,” or, “I’ve stopped trying to see if God will respond.” It has been a peculiar journey that I have pushed through with the hope that maybe, someday, things will magically improve.

I attempted to increase the number of prayers I said daily, sought new devotions, and even wondered if I had joined the wrong Third Order. The process more or less brought me back to the same place where I started: numbness and silence. There was no clear indication of what was causing these feelings. Nevertheless, I continued to push through and accepted it as the providence of God. Eventually, the Advent season rolled in, and I decided to get off social media until Christmas to see if this would affect me spiritually. What I discovered has drastically changed my life: My smartphone ruined my spiritual life.

Since childhood, I have suffered from phone addiction. Typically, I experience some withdrawal when I give up social media during Lent and Advent, but I would still find ways to pass my time uselessly. My screen time setting revealed that I usually spend 4-7 hours on my phone daily. Even without social media, I spent more or less the same amount of time on the screen, utilizing other media. It became clear that social media itself was not the problem, but the fact that I had a little computer in my pocket at all times. Instead of using my time to pray, sit in silence, or contemplate, I have wasted hours of my life staring at a screen, keeping me farther away from advancing in my spiritual life.

To use my phone more intentionally, I opened the Hallow app and stumbled upon their newest challenge, the “Digital Detox,” a project by the company Humanality. I thought, “This is exactly what I need right now!” I dove in, unaware of what would be asked of me. Two weeks into the challenge, I can already say it has revealed that my spiritual numbness is directly caused by all the time I spend on my phone. The online environment has become increasingly draining. Often, I look away from my screen and sense it has taken part of my life, which truly is the case. The Digital Detox program highlights the intentionally harmful algorithm design of media platforms aimed at keeping you engaged. These “dopamine hits” are crafted to be unpredictable, causing endless scrolling. Learning about these harmful effects made me realize why I’ve been numb in my spiritual life. I was looking for the “dopamine hits” of prayer and became indifferent when I didn’t find them. While social media constantly gave me these “hits” and kept me engaged, my spiritual life felt like an empty, static void. My phone drew me in, whereas I felt God was not doing the same with me. Everything began to make sense. I often felt disassociated from reality, and now I know why: I wasn’t living in it. 

Since embarking on this challenge, I’ve started to experience a sense of life I haven’t felt since childhood. Now that I am removing the most tempting outlets from my phone, I find myself observing the world more keenly and thinking, “Wow, God created all this because of His goodness,” a stark contrast to my previous indifference. I’ve deleted social media apps, started using a notebook to jot down things I can search for later on my laptop, and even begun hobbies (I never had hobbies before). I’ve begun to understand that I was made for more than the online world; I was made for the real world. Like any addiction, I am still struggling to “break up with my smartphone.” It has not been an overnight cure, but I see this challenge as a gift from God. He has allowed me to reclaim and embrace my life as He intended. I pray He will continue to lead me in this journey so that I can gaze at The One who made me instead of gazing into my smartphone screen. 

If you are like me and struggle with phone addiction, I highly recommend downloading the Hallow app and subscribing to access the Digital Detox by Humanality. If you want to approach this challenge with your school community, you can also create college and university clubs called “Villages.” Visit their website to learn more: https://www.humanality.org/villages.

I intend to complete the challenge (four weeks total) and will post an update once I have. Meanwhile, I encourage you to review your screen time and consider how you could use it more effectively. Most importantly, I ask this question: Is your smartphone ruining your spiritual life?