What Has the Internet Done to Our Brains ... and Souls? | Samuel James
Sep 5, 2023
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Samuel James, author of Digital Liturgies: Recovering Christian Wisdom in an Online Age, joins the podcast to discuss the negative impact of the internet on our minds and souls. They explore the influence of personal narratives over objective truth claims, the dominance of algorithms, and the cognitive differences between online and offline reading. They also touch on the influence of pornography, the lack of checks and balances on the internet, and the opportunity for Christians to create a healthier technological environment.
The Internet's design promotes an outrage culture by rewarding and perpetuating anger as the dominant emotional reaction.
The Internet presents itself as an egalitarian space where personal stories and experiences hold authority, overshadowing expertise and rational arguments.
The Internet's transhumanist ideology of transcending human limitations has moral implications and contradicts God's design for humanity.
Deep dives
The Internet is Changing Us
The podcast discusses how the Internet is changing our minds and making us less happy, less human, and less in control of ourselves. It emphasizes that online life is altering the very nature of our minds and explores the theological implications of this phenomenon.
The Internet as a Transhumanist Tool
The podcast delves into the transhumanist philosophy underlying the development of the Internet. It explains how the Internet, particularly the World Wide Web, is built on the idea of transcending human limitations and creating a virtual world where we can control and manipulate our identities. The podcast highlights the moral implications of this transhumanist ideology.
The Rise of Shame Culture and Algorithmic Control
The podcast explores the rise of shame culture on the Internet, where public shaming and moralistic judgments prevail. It examines how social media platforms and algorithms shape our behavior by promoting outrage and sensationalism. The podcast also challenges the assumption of moral relativism, asserting that our digital interactions are highly moralistic rather than morally neutral.
The Power of Online Authenticity
The internet has given rise to an authenticity liturgy where personal stories and experiences hold authority. This is seen in customer reviews, where personal narratives shape our perception of products and services. The internet presents itself as an egalitarian space, where individual experiences become the control category for online discourse. The power of personal stories overrides expertise and rational arguments, making authenticity the driving force of online interactions.
The Outrage Liturgy and Its Effects
The internet's design, with its hypertextual format and emphasis on emotional thinking, fuels the outrage liturgy. The online ecosystem rewards and perpetuates anger, making it the dominant emotional reaction. Reading online is a cognitively distracted and knee-jerk experience, which makes outrage thrive. Furthermore, the exhibitionist nature of the internet turns personal experiences, such as friendships and food, into consumable content. The internet's influence has pornographic elements, transforming lived experiences into disembodied exhibitions for consumption and challenging our ability to appreciate the beauty of real-life connections.
Christians often think of technology as morally neutral, but a closer examination shows that assumptions about the world and humanity are built into inventions like the internet. These “liturgies,” or repeated patterns of formative behavior, shape us mentally and spiritually in ways that contradict God’s design for us. Shane welcomes Samuel James to discuss his new book, Digital Liturgies: Recovering Christian Wisdom in an Online Age.
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