The SHOCKING Strategy Feeding Our ADDICTION to DOOMSCROLLING

Brett McCracken, author and senior editor at The Gospel Coalition, discusses the urgent spiritual and physical consequences of modern technology in his co-edited book, Scrolling Ourselves to Death: Reclaiming Life in a Digital Age. Drawing on insights from media critic Neil Postman, McCracken argues that the addictive nature of social media, driven by profit-seeking algorithms, poses a major crisis for spiritual formation and discipleship.

The Three Forms of “Death” Caused by Scrolling

McCracken contends that the title Scrolling Ourselves to Death is not just a metaphor; the phenomenon of constant digital consumption results in physical, mental, and spiritual harm.

1. Physical Death: The most literal form of death occurs from distracted driving, where people are scrolling on social media platforms like Instagram while operating vehicles, which is a growing cause of roadway fatalities.
2. Mental Health Crisis: Scrolling contributes significantly to a mental health crisis evident in the culture. Anxiety, depression, and loneliness are all increasing, correlating strongly with the introduction of the smartphone approximately 15 years ago.
3. Spiritual Death: The most critical concern for Christians is the spiritual death and spiritual sickness created by the smartphone. Spiritual health is dependent on attention—specifically, giving attention to God and spending quiet time with Him. Just as any relationship (with a spouse or children) requires time and attention to survive, the relationship with God will shrivel “on the vine” without dedicated time. The phone directly takes this crucial time away, as people choose scrolling over prayer, worship, or simply being still.

The Blueprint for Digital Addiction: Profit and the Algorithm

The pervasive addictive nature of devices is not accidental; the science is clear that the smartphone is an addictive device.

• Engineered for Addiction: Technology engineers tweak these devices specifically for profit to make them “as addictive as possible”.
• Addiction is the Goal: Social media businesses have a “vested interest in keeping our attention,” making addiction the goal.
• Novelty and Variety: To achieve addiction, novelty and variety are key components.
• Algorithmic Tailoring: Content is increasingly tailored by algorithms specifically to the individual consumer, ensuring highly personalized content that is hard to resist.
• The Threat of AI: McCracken expresses concern that as Artificial Intelligence (AI) becomes more sophisticated at learning exactly what a user is inclined to click on, it will become even harder to resist the content presented on phones.

Flattening the Hierarchy of Significance: Lessons from Neil Postman

McCracken and his colleagues drew inspiration for their book from Neil Postman’s 1985 work, Amusing Ourselves to Death. Postman, an intellectual and media critic at New York University, wrote prophetically about how technologies—at the time, primarily television—change the way people think and talk. Scrolling Ourselves to Death adapted Postman’s critical approach to critique the digital age through the specific lens of Christianity, faith, worship, and discipleship.

A major insight adopted from Postman’s work is the flattening of significance. Postman critiqued how television presented stories of great importance (political headlines) next to trivial vignettes (a cute missing puppy or a sports report).

This flattening effect is amplified in the modern digital era of the feed:

• Trivializing the Important: Social media feeds are a “crazy amalgam of anything and everything,” placing highly consequential topics (genocide, a world war, the education of children) directly next to trivial content (a cat video, a silly dance, a Bible verse).
• Numbness of the Soul: When the brain repeatedly encounters important things next to trivial things, the continuous over-stimulation causes the brain to struggle cognitively. Over time, this loss of perspective causes the soul to become numb and everything to “blur together”. The net effect of this constant consumption, even of good things like a C.S. Lewis quote or a Bible verse, is negative because it fosters addiction to the device.

Reclaiming Embodied Life and Community

McCracken emphasizes that real relationships, including the relationship with the Trinity, cannot be replaced by a digital representation or by consuming someone else’s devotional thoughts. God created humans as embodied beings designed to be together in physical gathering.

• Subhuman Living: As more of life is lived virtually—relationships, jobs on Zoom, shopping—less is lived in an embodied way. McCracken asserts that living virtually is subhuman and not the way people were created.
• The Church’s Role: The church, which is an embodied community in real presence and real places, must remind people that physical gathering is God’s design. In the digital age, advocating for and celebrating embodied community will become a highly countercultural and “lifegiving thing”.