Wake Up, Look Up

[Music]

hello everyone thanks for listening to

wake up lookup a podcast where we

connect events happening in real time to

the Gospel of Jesus Christ I'm Zach

wrock and in today's episode we're

asking the question can we redeem the

internet this is prompted by an article

by Charlie warzel in the Atlantic he

called it Beyond Dooms rolling and I

found the article fascinating because he

was juxtaposing two things uh you may

not know this but social media companies

uh the key metric they use is something

called time on site uh the way they

think they're are winning is the longer

you stay on Facebook YouTube Instagram

Tik Tok whatever it might be logins are

nice but time on site is what really

matters to them that that's why they're

so good about when you finish one video

connecting you to another or sharing

with you things you're looking to buy or

other articles you might be interested

in it's why they want you to expand the

re the range of your friends so that you

might come across more posts they want

to keep you on your phone uh but the

other thing that warzel is just opposing

that with is the the usefulness of

social media potentially in times of

disaster he's using the fires in

Southern California as an example

because he talks about his own

experience of logging on and wanting

more information about what's happening

in Southern California because he has

friends there family there and is just

genu genuinely interested in the lives

of people there but increasingly he

noticed it was hard for him to find

information on what was going on in

Southern California uh in and around

advertisements and stupid videos and

Mindless posts uh social media's uh gold

to keep him on the site was at direct

odds with his goal of actually getting

information this led him to a nonprofit

app called watch Duty and the whole

point of watch duty is that it's an

information gathering app for times of

disaster it's it's where you go when you

need information and when a bad

situation is happening in the world and

all that sparked his dreaming about what

if more of the internet was like watch

Duty seeking to promote the common good

give us the actual information we need

and less of the internet was like social

media just trying to mindlessly keep us

with time on site and I'm using all of

that as a launching off point for asking

this question it's less a question of

can we redeem the internet overall and

more a question of can I redeem my usage

of the internet if I look at my phone

and I separate all all my apps into two

buckets those that are mindlessly trying

to distract me from actual life and

those that are facilitating my good or

the good of other people I wonder how

many apps would fit in each bucket is my

phone becoming primarily a tool of

distraction and entertainment or am I

actually looking to leverage it to do

good because after all doing good for

others is what the Bible calls me to in

Galatians 6 I'm told to Bear the burdens

of other people and so fulfill the law

of Christ that my phone can be a tool to

checking on others to caring for others

to praying for them to being generous

towards them in John 8 Jesus tells me

that the truth will set me free my phone

is a powerful tool if I want it to be to

actually help me separate truth from

lies to steep My Mind in what is real to

Anchor me against the drift of mindless

distraction that bombards me every day

and Jesus warns us in Matthew 6 that you

can't serve two masters that if you love

one you'll hate the other in many ways

what I'm arguing is that my phone is

both indicative of which master I'm

serving the master of my own pleasure of

my own self fulfillment or God but it's

also a tool in the hands of my Master to

actually disciple me and shape me our

phones can be powerful tools for the

common good actually proverbs 31 calls

us to that to speak for those who don't

have a voice to to care for those who

cannot care for themselves uh in

response to this article and this whole

topic I am relooking at everything on my

phone some entertainment is okay some

distraction is okay but an overly

distracted overly entertained disciple

of Jesus is one who's no good no good

for the world no good for the kingdom no

good for their families and no good for

themselves can I redeem my internet boy

I sure hope so and I hope you'll join me

and try hey thanks so much for watching

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