Smartphone Distraction and One-Another Relationships

When you’re at a restaurant with family or friends, do you ever stop and look around the room at the people sitting nearby? If you do, I’m sure you’ve noticed the same thing that I have—people sitting at the same table, just 2 or 3 feet from each other, engrossed in their phones. It’s sad, really. But even sadder is the sight of those at your own table doing the same thing. We might have quick access to our bank accounts and plenty of points on the Chick-fil-A app, but the way we use our smartphones has hindered the way we relate.

In my previous post, we explored the ways in which our relationship to God (specifically through meditation on Scripture) has been affected by excessive use of our devices. In this post, we’re considering the way in which our relationships to one another (in the church) have been affected by the same.

As Christians, we have been reconciled to God and united to one another in Christ (Ephesians 2:11–22), and the life we are called to live together is one of depth and intentionality as we seek to help each other grow in godliness. Overindulgent phone use is not conducive to this kind of community. Consider how smartphone distraction negatively impacts the following marks of faithful, one-another ministry and how we ought to respond.

Listening to One Another

Imagine a scenario in which a sister in Christ is telling you about her unbelieving grandson who has been heavy on her heart all week. You feel vibrating notifications emanating from the device in your pocket, so you pull it out briefly to check and see if it’s something important. Even if you put the device back in your pocket, you’ve allowed your attention to be broken, and you’re finding it easier to think about the notification than what your sister is expressing.

Perhaps you think it’s rude to check the notification, so you refrain from taking your phone out of your pocket. But because it’s usually your pattern to check immediately, you find yourself wondering what the notification signifies rather than listening to your sister. Do you find either of these examples familiar?

Proverbs 18:13 tells us that if a person “gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame” (emphasis added), but we can’t really hear someone if we allow our smartphones to distract us. Listening is required for us to experience relationships of substance with our church family. It is the discipline that precedes being able to “rejoice with those who rejoice” and “weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15). What will you rejoice over or weep over without listening, and how will your heart be brought to those God-glorifying emotions if you don’t give time and attention to listening? Listening is the practice that must be embraced in order for “you who are spiritual” to “restore” those who are “caught in any transgression” (Galatians 6:1). How will you know what hope to give them or the kind of challenge they need if you don’t first hear them? 

Bearing With One Another

With excessive use of our smartphones, we have trained ourselves to give up on relationships easily. Online life allows us to carefully curate an environment of favorites—the social media feed that fits our interests, the playlist of all our favorite songs, the contact list of the people we enjoy or need the most, etc. We’re used to getting what we want with our phones. So, what happens in the church when we don’t get what we want from the other members? It becomes all too easy to do what we do when we don’t like something on our phones: quiet avoidance or removal.

But this is the opposite of the commitment to one another that Paul commands in Colossians 3:12–13. In addition to “compassionate hearts,” “kindness,” and “patience,” Paul tells us that we must be “bearing with one another.” Theologian Douglas Moo explains this calling when he says, “Every Christian fellowship is made up of all kinds of people and…we will accordingly sometimes find ourselves in close fellowship with people who are very different than we are. For the sake of community, we will sometimes have to ‘put up with’ people whom we would not normally choose to associate.”

If we have a view of community trained by smartphone use, then we will only engage with those in our church family with whom we are most comfortable. All others are carefully avoided, and when that becomes too hard, there is always the option of just watching the livestream. But how can you “bear with one another” when everyone you talk to has the same interests as you and is in the same stage of life as you? This command requires you to also live together with those you sometimes find difficult, trusting that God has purposed to use them as instruments for your spiritual growth.

Speaking the Truth in Love to One Another

When life is characterized by an inordinate amount of time on devices, it’s easy to see ourselves as merely consumers of media. This is a threat to the ministry charge that is placed on all of us. According to Paul, it is all believers who are to be equipped for “the work of ministry,” and that ministry means “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:13, 15). But when we are habitually consuming communication, it’s hard to step into the good work of giving communication, especially when it sometimes requires saying hard things. 

Unfortunately, our phones have become a buffer for us when we feel awkward in social settings. If you don’t know what to say, just pull out your phone. If you don’t want anyone talking to you, just pull out your phone. We’re losing those moments of needed pressure when we’ve got to say something to the other person in the room, and we’re propelled into asking a question even though it feels super clunky. We’ve got to learn to speak again before we can speak the truth lovingly. 

The people we gather with on Sunday mornings are image bearers of God and his sons and daughters, but we don’t treat them as such when we trade fellowship with them for a glut of online content. God has purposed that we need each other, since He has chosen to use us as conduits of grace for building up one another in Christ. But if everyone is just a consumer of media and we’re all refusing to lift up our heads to see the spiritual needs around us, then we’ll miss out tremendously.

Brothers and sisters, what sins do you need to confess related to your device habits? What prayers for change do you need to pray? What relationships do you need to lean into that you have previously neglected? Digital life may be easier, but it’s distracting us from God and His people.