What Social Media Is Doing to Our Souls

In 2010, Nicholas Carr published The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, in which he sounded the alarm that online life changes the physiological structure of the brain. Following earlier media theorists like Marshall McLuhan, Carr showed that content matters less than the medium itself in “influencing how we think and act.” Carr quoted anecdotes from other writers noting how the internet had reduced their own capacity for deep, concentrated thought and added his own suspicion that the internet, in cultivating a desire to remain constantly connected, had turned him into a “flesh-and-blood word processor.” Finally, he connected these anecdotal experiences to research in neuroplasticity to show that the brain undergoes physical changes in response to repeated habits. As we repeatedly click and scroll, neuroplasticity rewires our brains, resulting in addiction-like yearnings to repeat the habit.

In the fifteen years since Carr’s book, research on the impact of digital technology has exploded. We now understand even more about how it rewires our brains, but thanks to researchers like Jonathan Haidt, Jean Twenge, and Cal Newport, we also have a better grasp on the social and vocational consequences of constant connection. In short, our generation’s increasing dependence on smartphones and other digital technologies has wreaked havoc on mental health and our capacity to engage in the kind of deep thinking required to understand and articulate complex arguments.

However, there is another consequence—one about which Christians should be particularly concerned—that often gets overlooked. Few are talking about how our constant scrolling on social media changes us into passive thinkers—subconsciously receiving whatever the algorithms feed us. Our mindless scrolling on TikTok, Instagram, X, and Facebook puts us completely at the mercy of the Machine. The algorithm tells us what to do, what to read, what to gaze at, and what to consume, and we just keep swiping the shiny screen, lapping up whatever it sends our way.

Obviously, such passive consumption raises moral questions about content. At the mercy of the Machine, we hand it exclusive rights over what we consume without any consideration of ethics or values. As people commanded by our Lord to think exclusively about whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, and worthy of praise (Phil 4:8), we sure spend a lot of time delegating the content of our focus to unknown forces. The creators of the Machine certainly do not share the values of our Lord.

But let’s move beyond the obvious critique of content. Hopefully, I do not need to convince you of the need to turn away from the algorithmic cesspool hellbent on glorifying pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth. The demonic forces behind the algorithms desire nothing short of your very humanity, and we are often tragically willing to trade our precious souls for the next dopamine hit.

There’s another problem, and it’s related to Carr’s point about how the medium itself changes our brains. Constant social media scrolling forms us into passive thinkers. We grow accustomed to docilely receiving whatever message comes our way. We accept passivity as a state of being. However, a passive mind is a playground for Satan, rendering us vulnerable to the world, the flesh, and the devil. When we habitually allow the algorithms to control the messaging to our minds, we grow derelict in our Christian duty to cultivate an active, fighting mental disposition in the direction of truth, goodness, and beauty.

We do not live during peacetime. We live in a state of war. The Bible thus calls us to take an active position—to go on attack. Rather than conformity to the world, we are to be transformed by the renewal of our minds (Rom 12:2). We are to “take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Cor 10:5) and prepare our minds for action by setting our hope fully on the grace to come (1 Pet 1:13). Our addiction to our screens interrupts our capacity to obey this repeated call to cultivate an active mind.

What does such a mind look like in practice? We must tell ourselves what is true, what to think, and how to feel by dwelling on the truth as it is revealed in Christ. We must seek to know Christ through his word—to study his nature, his ways, and his grace. We must memorize his promises and replace thoughts based on our feelings or content based on algorithms with new thoughts originating from what our Lord has said. To achieve this, we may need to consider limiting your dependence on digital technology. We may need to cultivate new habits like beginning our day with the Bible rather than the phone and fasting from digital technology. It may even be wise for some to disavow social media altogether, for what does it profit it man to gain the whole world at the cost of his own soul?

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