Electronic Entertainment and Spirituality

One of the many themes of the late Father Robert Smith in his sermons was the difficulty of leading a spiritual life in a world that “entertains us to death” (a phrase, I borrow from Neil Postman’s excellent book of some years ago -Entertaining Us to Death). Father Smith was referring to our addiction to television, computers, i-pods and other electronic devices. He worried that we no longer knew how to think deeply, how to pay attention, how to be alone, how to contemplate, how to pray.

At Christian Century, Stephanie Paulsell exhibits similar concerns, citing research showing that our addiction to computers has physically changed our brains and reflecting on the impact for our spiritual lives. It is worth reading I think. It should make us wonder whether we check our e-mail and surf the web many more times a day than we should.

Comments

[Steve Shiffrin]

Thanks Mike for the correction. As I recall, when it came out, the LA
Times ranked it as the best book of the year.
Steve

[Mike]

Neil Postman's book is actually titled "Amusing Ourselves to Death", which I agree is an excellent book. It also has a chapter specific to television's influence on religion titled "Shuffle off To Bethlehem". As well, it uses ideas from Marshall McLuhan, a catholic scholar famous for the phrase "the medium is the message". All in all, a book very relevant to this blog!