Meta agreed to an $18 billion payout over 10 years. States initiated the case claiming Facebook and Instagram are addictive and harmful to children. Meta denies wrongdoing, despite evidence that it exploited brain science for financial gain. What is not contested is that the information overload presented to users of smart phones and social media is a consuming distraction.
Herbert Simon was one of the first to warn about this. In 1971 he wrote, “In an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients.” In short, mass information distracts you from more important matters.
We now live in the attention economy, where platforms compete for your eyeballs. They use rage, voyeurism, and misinformation toward those ends. The result is individual isolation, political polarization, and cognitive fatigue. It’s as though some mastermind foisted upon us a grand conspiracy of distraction.
Maybe so. The devil tried to distract Jesus with bread, power, and invincibility. Jesus refused the temptations by grounding His response in the words of Scripture. Much of Jesus’ teaching could be characterized as urging people to focus on what really matters.
For example, Martha was a distracted hostess and Jesus commended Mary for listening to Him. A man wanted Jesus to arbitrate a family dispute over money. Jesus invited him to refocus and seek the kingdom of God saying, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Luke 12:34).
Jesus told a parable about an invitation-only dinner. The first invitees were distracted by a real estate purchase, newly acquired oxen, or a new wife. The host then invited the poor, crippled, blind, and whoever else might be found, “so that my house may be filled” (Luke 14:23). This story urges you to resist anything that distracts you from responding to Jesus’ invitation.
Helen Lemmel wrote these familiar lyrics long before smart phones: “Turn your eyes upon Jesus…and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.”