It’s been 10 years since journalist and author Tony Schwartz wrote this in The New York Times: “Addiction is the relentless pull to a substance or an activity that becomes so compulsive it ultimately interferes with everyday life. By that definition, everyone I know is addicted in some measure to the internet.”

Everyone he (and probably me) knows. How does that land for you? For me, seeing it in a book I was reading made me feel a little like I should be in a meeting room somewhere, sitting in a circle with fellow members of a 12-step group: “Hi, my name is Tom, and I’m a hard-core social media scroller, online news headline junkie, and chronic checker of email.”

Now, I know that I can use my social media, email, and internet superpowers for good, and doing so has indeed, among other things, helped me renew and strengthen relationships and quickly find information I would have spent days looking for in other ways. But I have also managed to fritter away world-class amounts of time on things that have really been of no benefit to my heart, mind and soul.  

As a person of faith, how am I to negotiate working on a computer most of the day and attempting to follow Jesus? The apostle Paul has some relevant thoughts in his letter to the church at Philippi, which stand the test of time though he never had a chance to surf the net: “Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.”

That’s fantastic advice, and my previously mentioned heart, mind, and soul would be far better off if I followed it more often. It’s not that I don’t, deep down, want to. It’s more like author Ronald Rolheiser puts it: “It is not that we have anything against God, depth, and spirit. We would like these. It is just that we are habitually too preoccupied to have any of these show up on our radar screens…we are more distracted than nonspiritual.”

I’m a semi-responsible citizen, so it’s good for me to be informed about what’s going on in my local community and in the larger world. So I read a lot of news, but just a few minutes ago I also clicked on two very important items about possible tension between Will Smith and Serena Williams and some comments made about current White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. Were either of those stories “lovely and admirable”? Am I better for having read them? I believe I can answer those questions.

I also understand that there are times we just want to shut down and do something mindless for a while. That’s OK, and our computers and phones are happy to help. But I’ll be thinking more, as I move ahead, about some of the ways I could be spending my time more advantageously than torpedoing it on clickbait (nothing against Smith, Williams, and Leavitt). There is so much good reading I can do. There are so many good people I can reach out to, so much good praying I could be doing. There’s even plenty of good thinking I could do, just staring blankly into space. 

There really isn’t any need, though, for me to be following my cursor around in pursuit of nothing in particular, with perhaps occasional exceptions. (If you got here by cursor-following, though, I think you can certainly overlook it.)

I’ve had a few reminders lately about how precious and unpredictable life is and, in the end, the time given to me every day is a gift. I haven’t earned it and how I choose to use it determines, in large part, who I’m becoming. What I’d like to become is more like the man God made me to be, and I know there are better ways to do it than through long scrolling sessions. I’m looking forward to putting a few less miles on my mouse.