Personhood, Community, and the Limits of Technology

In his January Series presentation on Jan.15, Andy Crouch discussed the limits of technology and how we can build a more personal future. This was Crouch’s second appearance in the January Series; he has also presented at Calvin University’s Festival of Faith and Music.

Crouch is the author of The Tech-Wise Family: Everyday Steps for Putting Technology in Its Proper Place. Each chapter of the book highlights a different issue that can arise in families or relationships, which he said are not necessarily stemming from devices but amplified by them.

In the Jan. 15 presentation, Sarah Visser, vice president for student life at Calvin University, interviewed Crouch with questions about technology and how it can shape elements of our lives.

Crouch stressed that technology is neither good nor bad in itself; rather, we need to look at how we use it. “You have to be intentional . . . with technology, but you can live with these devices in ways that really are healthy if you make very careful choices. So that’s what we’re trying to explore,” he said.

By offering assurances like “Now you’ll be able to . . .” or “Now you don’t have to . . .” said Crouch, technology seems to promise power and freedom from constraint. For example, technology tells us that now we can stream music whenever we want, access hundreds of movies with a few clicks, or keep our children occupied in the grocery-cart seat. It assures us that we don’t have to wait for our favorite show to be broadcast, follow a paper map while driving, or remember bits of trivia anymore.

But there is an unexpected downside, Crouch suggests. Adding these devices to our world actually starts to remove capabilities that we previously had, so that technology also starts to say, “Now you’ll no longer be able to . . .” and “Now you’ll have to . . .” because the technology creates new dependencies and sets up new things that we have to do.

Crouch added that we often reach for technology when we feel the gap between what we wish we were and what we experience our lives as being. “We sense that we’re meant for more, but how do we get the more we are meant for?” he asked.

Introducing an answer to his own question, he noted, “I certainly believe we are meant for far more fullness of life than any of us have experienced. I think only one human being has ever walked this world in a way that had full freedom, full capacity  . . . and everywhere he went, it kind of spilled over into other people’s lives.”

Crouch explained that Jesus lived a life of great simplicity and yet great fullness. “We really have to reckon with the life of the most alive person who’s ever lived, if we’re going to find our way to whatever of that life we ourselves can have,” said Crouch.

Crouch believes that the difference in Jesus’ life from the lives many of us aspire to is that he paired authority with vulnerability. He walked everywhere, got his feet dirty, and was approachable — often despite his disciples’ efforts. Because of this, said Crouch, “His flourishing becomes available to other people not usually included in the circle of flourishing.”

What technology promises us is authority without vulnerability, said Crouch — an environment where we can get what we want and are free from risk — the opposite of what Jesus lived.

In discussing how technology can be used well versus how it can shape us in ways we don’t expect or intend, Crouch used the terms “devices” versus “instruments.” When used as “devices,” technology offers leisure and something to be merely consumed. When used as “instruments,” technology offers us engagement and a way to explore or create something new in the world around us.

For most of human history, Crouch noted, if you wanted to hear a song, someone in the room had to sing it. Now the work of making music is done remotely and recorded as a consumer good, so only a few people have to create — and all the rest of us get to just sit and enjoy. Not only is consuming this way easier, he said, but we’ve become so tired from the relief of burdens facilitated by our devices that at the end of the day, instead of wanting to create something, tell a story, or make music, we’d rather let someone else tell us a story or sing for us.

Visser observed that during the COVID-19 pandemic people seem to have become more tired, despite moving less through the day. For many who have been able to work online, all of their interactions through the day are now done by way of a screen.

Crouch agreed, pointing out that our bodies are made for movement that we’re no longer getting: standing up between conversations, walking from one meeting to another, engaging with the world surrounding our work. He added, “Of course, technology would say, ‘Isn’t this great? You no longer have to move from meeting to meeting. You just click and you’re in your meeting!’ But it turns out this is a terrible way to live!”

So what is the solution to these problems? Crouch suggests sabbaths — regular, planned breaks from all technology — and striving to use technology as instruments of creativity and exploration rather than mere consumption.

In Crouch’s family, for example, dinner hour is the daily sabbath from technology. He noted that anything with an on/off switch — including electric lighting — is turned off for that hour each day. The family also takes a break from technology each Sunday, and for one whole week each year. He said this allows them to remember that they can make choices like this, can resist the lure of technology, and can enjoy full life without it.

He urged listeners to ask themselves deep questions about the technology they use:

• Does this technology deepen my embodied placement on the earth as a creature, or does it displace me from my own body, from the world in which I am placed?
• Does this technology help me fix my gaze on others’ faces in a real way, who are actually close to me; or does it invite me to divert my gaze to faces of people I’ll never meet, on a screen?

“These are deep design questions,” he continued, “and when you honestly look at how our world has been designed, I just don’t think we’ve designed [devices] for persons. I think we could! I think everything we know about how the world works could be put to the use of actually advancing personhood, but we’ve kind of lost our vision of what it is to be a person, so we’ve lost our vision of what we ought to design for with these devices.”

Crouch encourages young people, who will shape technology and the world going forward, to be intentional about using and creating technology that helps to engage and explore. “There’s more than you can imagine out there still. It’s always going to involve more embodiment, a more three-dimensional life relationship. The more you inhabit the fullness of life that you were made for, the more technology really will be the instrument that you’ve sensed it can be.”

The 2021 January Series, which is entirely online this year, is available live on weekdays from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. through Tues., Jan. 26. Each day’s talk is also available for viewing till midnight that same day.