How to spot digital addiction and tame it with God’s help
The phones in our hands are not evil. The Bible app, prayer podcasts, livestreamed sermons, FaceTime chats, a meme in a group chat – all can be grace-filled gifts. But even good tools used without boundaries can begin shaping us more than God does.
How are we being shaped? As a church communicator and digital disciple maker, I’ve seen technology amplify mission, deepen connection and fuel ministry. I’ve also seen it hollow out souls, fracture attention and form habits of dependency that look a lot like addiction.
Digital addiction isn’t only about hours logged. It’s about attachment, identity, escape and emotional regulation. And like all addictions it promises comfort, but overdelivers chaos.
Warning signs
- Reaching for our phone first. Before we notice our emotions, thoughts, physical environment or even God’s presence, our hands are already searching for the phone to relieve silence and boredom. This reflex leads to bypassing real connection as well as discernment, awareness and presence.
- Regulating our emotions. Stressed? Scroll. Lonely? Post. Bored? Search. Overwhelmed? Distract. Celebrating? Broadcast. None of these are inherently wrong. But if our first instinct is always to escape into our phone rather than anchor in God and community, the device may be serving a role only God can fill. We can be soothed by the Spirit, but we’re choosing to be soothed by the scroll.
- Compulsions, not choices. We don’t decide to check, instead we have to check. We set limits, but they collapse. We prioritize reading the Bible, prayer or sleeping, but our behaviour says otherwise. Addiction isn’t about desire. It’s about agency. The question is not, “Do I enjoy my phone?” It’s “Am I free from it?”
As Jenn Dafoe-Turner’s essay on addiction reminds us, bondage often comes down to a deeper spiritual reality. We run, numb, avoid, and fill empty places with whatever feels close.
Ways to break digital addiction
- A theology of replacement, not removal. We can’t simply subtract our phones. We must replace what phones provide with what our souls actually need. If my phone gives distraction, I can replace it with silence before God. If it gives comfort, replace it with prayer that names my feelings. If it gives connection, replace it with embodied community. Fasting always fails if we don’t feast on something better.
Try this. Before we touch our phones each morning, let’s pray, “Lord, form my heart before feeds form my mind.”
- Form habits around attention, not restriction. Rules without rhythms create rebellion. Instead of a vague goal like “less screen time,” let’s try a spiritual structure:
- phone-free first 30 minutes of the day
- Scripture before social
- no screens in the bedroom
- one hour of distraction-free presence at dinner
- one Sabbath hour a week with the phone off.
Boundaries aren’t punishment. They’re pastors to our peace.
- Bring digital life into discipleship. We audit our finances, spiritually mentor our kids and examine our friendships – why are we not inviting God into our digital habits?
- confess where it controls us
- ask a friend to check in on our habits
- track what we scroll when we feel empty
- pray in the moment of urge, not after the fact
- celebrate small obedience, not perfection.
We can’t simply subtract our phones. We must re- place what phones provide with what our souls actually need.
Freedom doesn’t start with unplugging. It starts with truth. I don’t think Jesus is asking for our phone. He’s asking for our formation. The issue is less about access and more about allegiance.
Maybe the bravest confession of our generation won’t be, “I don’t believe in God anymore,” but “I don’t know how to sit with God anymore without checking something.”
Thriving in digital doesn’t mean going backward to a world without tech. It means going forward anchored to Christ, unhijacked in our attention, healed in our habits, and intentionally present to God and people.
The goal isn’t to touch our phones less. It’s to need them less. And that, by God’s grace, is a freedom worth scrolling toward.
Joanna la Fleur is a podcaster, TV host and communications consultant in Toronto. Find more of these columns at FaithToday.ca/ThrivingInDigital. Photo of woman on her phone in bed by Shutterstock.com.