Technological Temperance for Lent
Liturgical Living
Image is Christ Cleansing the Temple by El Greco, ca. before 1570. National Gallery of Art Samuel H. Kress Collection. Image is in the public domain.
Each year, Lent gives us Catholics an opportunity to reflect on how we can grow closer to God through the traditional Lenten practices of fasting, almsgiving, and prayer. Increasingly, we find a technological creep into our lives, resulting in a constant sort of “noise” or “pull” on us. Thus practices of fasting from technology can be an important aspect of making space for the prayer and charity we also want to practice during Lent.
There are many easy ways to address technological noise in our lives. They are easy in the sense that once we commit to them, they don’t require extra action from us but rather the adoption of a different way of using technology. Here are some examples.
Going Grayscale means making use of the grayscale setting available on cellphones. On an iPhone, for example, you can find this under Settings—>Accessibility—>Display—>Color Filters, which you toggle on, and then select grayscale. A grayscale phone display makes the phone less distracting, entertainment uses less attracting, and overall reduces the pull of the phone while increasing intentionality in our use of it.
Liquid Glass Icons do not make the entire phone gray, but do make all icons (as well as their notifications) translucent/white. This, again, can increase intentionality in app usage while reducing the pull of red notifications. On the home screen of an iPhone, touch and hold the Home Screen background until icons jiggle, then select Edit at the top of the Screen, and then Customize. Tap “Clear” to make icons translucent.
Switch to voice commands if you are in a setting where you can solely use Siri to open icons, this can greatly increase intentionality. It’s so easy to unlock your phone and find yourself on an app you didn’t really need or want to open. Voice commands prevent that from happening.
Locked apps can be applied so that certain apps require facial recognition to open. This one extra step can increase intentionality. Your social media won’t spring open the moment you touch it, and instead you’ll have to take a second to think if you really wanted to open it and align your face to unlock it. Long-press the app icon, select “require Face ID” and confirm. Locked apps also won’t show notifications.
Screentime settings can be updated for Lent to limit time on any app you want to be more cautious about using, and downtime can make sure your phone shuts off at a certain time before bed (but beware you can get around the settings, so it still takes discipline!).
Deleting apps can also be used if you don’t even want an app appearing on your phone anymore because you know it will tempt you. Having to re-download it makes it just that much harder and allows reflection for intentionality.
A few other Lenten resolutions may take a bit more work but still are worth considering.
Put your phone away during key times in the day that you want to be more fully present to your family, friends, or work. For example, that first hour of the day when the kids are getting ready for school and you’re eating breakfast. Or it could be the first hour when the kids are home from school. Obviously put it away for dinner. Ideally you want it in a closed drawer in a different room during these times.
Pause the streaming particularly if you want to have a positive environmental impact this Lent. While our digital behaviors have various environmental impacts, video streaming (Netflix, paramount, youtube, etc.) by far requires the most water and electricity at data processing centers. Zoom and Facetime also have heavy energy expenditures. Another culprit can be emails with attachments, so instead of just deleting promotions from advertisers, consider taking a few minutes per day to unsubscribe from these emails.
We may easily see what we need can minimize or eliminate, but sometimes it helps us to focus not just on noise reduction (the “freedom from”) but also the positive additions (the “freedom for”).
Use social media for works of mercy. And here, I’m not thinking of “admonishing the sinner!” Instead, try to make at least three positive or caring comments. Express sympathy for someone who lost a family member, congratulate the parents of the new baby, say a prayer for someone facing a challenging situation, donate to the gofundme for the family with medical crisis, etc. Taking it to the next step, send a physical sympathy card, make a meal for the newborn’s parents, reach out by phone to the suffering friend, send a helpful gift, etc. Social media sometimes gives us insight on who is in need that we can help.
Learn about “attention economy” and how technology is designed to have a pull, immersing us in dopamine cycles or a feedback loop, so that we want to return to certain apps. Knowledge is key in regaining our agency versus being victims of the system. We need to know what’s going on and believe that we can make changes.
Be curious about vulnerability. We all have factors that make us more susceptible to the technological pull. It may be sleep deprivation for young parents. It could be poor nutrition or dehydration. We may feel we lack meaningful work and purpose, or perhaps we are experiencing loneliness. We may have unresolved traumas that we need to process, or predispositions such as ADHD. Sometimes our lack of discipline with technology is the symptom of a problem rather than the problem itself. Taking time to examine what we find hard and why can help us to address the situation better, especially if we present these weaknesses to God for his healing. Journaling can be especially helpful in this investigation.
Daily Mass, the Rosary, Eucharistic Adoration, and spiritual reading from the Bible or the saints can provide a replacement for the time we would normally spend distracted by our phones. Focusing on our freedom for these activities rather than the restriction of technology can help us look at the changes positively. Even having a nourishing novel for bedtime reading can take the attention away from the fun on our phone.
Focused work of any sort can be really beneficial, and especially the sort of spring cleaning work that requires organizing and clearing out unused items can be really helpful. Doing more focused academic or career work without technological distraction is good, and also volunteer or charitable work provides us something to do rather than worrying about what we are no longer doing on our phones.
Challenge procrastination because technology often provides us an out from facing the discomfort we feel in starting an unwanted task. Rather than admitting our dislike and sitting with the sensation of challenge, we often distract ourselves with the promise that we will get to a needed task later. Lent is a good time to examine where we’ve procrastinated, embrace the difficulty as a mortification, and follow through on what we need to do.
Lent is gamed in our favor. Don’t let the “best” get in the way of you having a good Lent. If we succeed at our resolutions, we can thank God for how we grew. If we find them hard or even fail at them, we can recall our dependence upon God. Lent isn’t really about our performance. It’s about our relationship with God — the willingness to grow in love and open the possibility for hearing his voice when we reduce the technological noise that surrounds us. These resolutions aren’t meant to make us into heroes who can arrogantly brag about our technological detachment. Rather they are an invitation for God, showing our intent to declutter our hearts to give him space to dwell.