In the following pages, you’ll discover a series of essays which deal with everyday challenges you and I face as a direct result of technology. I believe that most of these challenges and bad habits creeping into our daily lives are happening because none of us made a careful and conscious decision to allow technology in. Instead, things like smartphones and social media have crept into our daily routines out of convenience or fascination or some other cultural force.

In each essay, you’ll see a repeated theme: As you tune things out that aren’t important, you’ll have better focus and more energy for tuning in to things that are really important to you.

The goal isn’t guilt, it’s action.

Introduction to Tuning In

As I worked on Tuning In two things become clear:

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New research is suggesting that married couples are having less sex than in the past.

New research is suggesting teenagers are abusing fewer substances.

Both studies point to the smartphone as a possible reason: The smartphone.

When looking only at married people, the drop was even sharper — from around 73 times a year in 1990 to around 55 in 2014 — bringing their frequency of sexual activity below that of never-married people. People in that group have sex an average of 59 times a year. (Washington Post) 

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But researchers are starting to ponder an intriguing question: Are teenagers using drugs less in part because they are constantly stimulated and entertained by their computers and phones?

The possibility is worth exploring, they say, because use of smartphones and tablets has exploded over the same period that drug use has declined. This correlation does not mean that one phenomenon is causing the other, but scientists say interactive media appears to play to similar impulses as drug experimentation, including sensation-seeking and the desire for independence. (New York Times)

Now, let’s be careful, researchers are merely suggesting this as a hypothesis at this point. They are correlating the rise in smartphone use among teenagers and adults to decreases in substance abuse among teenagers and sexual activity among adults.

But it is an interesting correlation nonetheless. 

Over the past few years I’ve tossed out a similar hypothesis at my parent workshops… if we take the phones out of our bedrooms we will probably have a better sex life.

But should we extend that to say that teenagers should spend more time on their phones so they’ll smoke less weed? Probably not. 

In Tuning In we explore this… well, not these scenarios exactly, but we explore the idea that when and where you tune in to what’s happening on your smartphone is nearly as important as developing sacred places in your life that you tune out of technology altogether.

“So, why did you write this book?”

Here’s two things you need to know right off the bat.

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As my new still nameless book makes it’s way through the editorial process I am getting more and more excited for a few specific reasons:

1. It’s the book I had to write, not the book the market was demanding I write. I’ve not done well over 100 parent workshops and along the way I’ve learned that people’s felt need is to want to know “how” about social media.  “How do I do this? How do I keep my kids from that? But along the way I’ve taken the time to really listen and come to the conclusion I think that they need to spend time thinking about “why.” The new book takes you uncomfortable places and requires you to ask “why” a lot.
2. It’s timely. Particularly in this crazy political season I’m concerned about who is engaging in the conversation, who isn’t, and how we can all do it better. I think the book provides a framework for every Christian to engage with people in a way that reflects their Christian witness.
3. It’s hopeful help. The book provides a way for people to recalibrate their lives to include, but not be overwhelmed by, social media. The current narratives and solutions don’t work… I think we can all agree on that. So I take a look  backwards to point readers to a more healthy relationship with social media and technology going forward.

A friend who read the manuscript highlighted this quote from the introduction as a summary of the book:

“The goal isn’t guilt, it’s action.

I believe each of our personal callings in life are far too important to waste our lives tuning into the wrong things.”

Hopefully, soon we’ll have the title and cover ready. Until then, if you’re on Goodreads, I’d love to connect there.