My phone dings. Screen time down 7% from last week. Nice! The moment of self-satisfaction fades, however, when I realize the decrease is due to time spent on some other bigger screen.

Many of us spend lots of time in front of some sort of glowing box. For work. For communication. For entertainment. For zoning out. For Zooming in. 

That’s not inherently a bad thing. As with all human invention, our screens can be gift or god, instrument or idol. But when we go to one to cope or find meaning or simply because it’s our habit, it’s worth taking a step back to evaluate.

I hope most of us have learned by now that shame is generally a poor motivator for change (though this particular lesson seems to take an awful long time to really sink in). So it’s nice to hear author and playwright Paul Patton on the Renovaré Podcast this week offer a shame-free invitation to ​“monitor and moderate” our screen time. 

The goal is not to become a tech-averse, self-righteous luddite (with apologies to genuinely righteous luddites, of which I don’t doubt there are some). The goal is, as Paul Patton puts it, to lead the dance with media and technology, rather than be led by it — so that we’re directing it toward the glory of God.