The average American adult spends 7–8.5 hours a day on screens. Globally, it's around 6.5 hours a day. These numbers may not be perfectly accurate, and of course, from person to person, this varies greatly, but this overall range for screen time is fairly accurate for “American” society; needless to say, it is a massive problem.
To my knowledge, no past generation or time in history has spent so much time on leisure and pleasure. I hope that, as Christians, this number would be far less, and I have seen some studies (though it's hard to know what is exactly right) that say American Christians spend around 3–5 hours of screen time a day. Not very complimenting.
So there is a problem, and Christians should first seek to tame this lion themselves and then be a part of that change and reform in the world around them. Breaking your phone in half and then starting to write people is admirable, and in my opinion, it shouldn't be off the table. But most of us have good reasons blended with the many time-wasting reasons for having a phone.
The problem is that the smartphone is a digital vanity fair. It's a carnival of selfishness and pleasure. What are you interested in? Birds? Get a bird-watching app? Games? Here is a game. Want to compare yourself to others and see everything happening in the world, including a random person’s breakfast choices? Try this app! Want to watch reel after reel and numb your mind… we've got you covered. Books? You don't need paper; read here! What about Bible reading, though? We have that too! They cry out. It's a digital one-stop shop that is more like jail than a home. Do you really need all of that with you all the time? Is it really improving your life? Your thinking? Your walk with Christ? Is it helping you lay aside not just sins but weights? “Let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us." Heb. 12:1.
If you average 5 hours a day and use the 75-year average lifespan (God willing), you have about 63 years of phone ownership, assuming you get your phone around age 13.
63 years of owning a phone
5 hours daily of screen time
Grand total of 115,050 hours
13.1 years of continuous, non-stop viewing (with zero time deducted for sleeping, eating, or anything else).
With sleeping, that total time is actually closer to 19.7 years of your waking time
If I told you tomorrow that you would be locked up in a jail cell, unable to see anyone you love, watch a sunset, or share a conversation with someone, you would simply have yourself and the 4 walls around you for 19 years. After that, you would be free to live your life. You would be devastated. That is the Count of Monte Cristo territory. While, of course, there is a difference between being locked up in jail and staring at your glass box phone on your couch while your kids play in the backyard, I do see at least one similarity. Time lost.
That time is gone, never to be had again, and most people—yes, even Christians are doing this almost every day. Burning their time up. Exchanging it for some reel on their phone and robbing their kids, spouses, and, most importantly, God of time. God actually tells us in the Scriptures how we are to use our time in this life… because our breath is borrowed; it's given to us from God, and we are not our own. Shouldn't we ask God how He would have us use that time? Are we modeling for the world and our families how to best use that time? I was struck by that thought a while back: “Am I living and using my device in the way I would ask my teenager to?” If not - is being older and a parent really a reason to subject ourselves to such temptations when the data clearly shows that we as humans are not winning the battle against devices? I want to be using my phone, and the phone I would have my teenager use, and I want to model how to use it. Why would I not want to model that? I don't want my teenager walking around with a computer in their pocket…that is unwise. I have read many, even Christian, articles about device usage and when a teenager is ready for a smartphone… I would argue that their parents aren't “ready” for phones. I think it’s good; it’s best for all Christians, young and old, to have a dumb phone and computer accountability (Covenant Eyes, Accountable2You, etc.). I believe Christians would have a greater impact on the world if we did. Let's be smarter than smartphones, set them down, and pick up a Bible. Here is a great place to start:
Ephesians 5:16
“Therefore look carefully how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. On account of this, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.”
NASB 1995 says, “making the most of the time.” The idea here is buying the time. Grabbing it and taking it. Not wasting it. Not letting it slip by. Let me simply ask here without need of much more exposition on Ephesians:
Is your phone, right now, helping you redeem the time for God's glory? Yes or no?
I imagine, like the many conversations I have had with people, that the answer is probably a resounding “no.” Great - we identified a problem and need a solution to do our best to live for God and not ourselves. If we still want to communicate digitally with our family, friends, and church, what do we do?
One thing you might think of, as I did years ago, is “Well, I will delete all social media and apps on my phone, then there you go…done.” Well, not so fast. You can't get rid of a web browser on a smartphone; let that sink in. You can't get rid of the App Store on a smartphone. “Ah, but you can download an app lock tool to help,” you say. Well, hold on again: first you have to be willing to trust a third-party app to restrict all those apps on your phone (share your data), but after that you have to be willing to (disciplined enough not to?) trust yourself to not type in a password and quickly bypass something in order to Google something or download that app really quick. The truth is this… This is a hardware problem, not a software problem. Meaning you most likely need a different device (hardware), not a different app (software). This dovetails into the next quick, rapid-fire list of reasons you should do this soon. While it is not the main focus, iPhones and Androids (smartphones) have been proven, sued, and exposed for stealing your data & selling your information. Yet they continually seem to have our trust as their sales skyrocket and our time withers away. Here are a few important things; I don't have time to go into each one in depth. Think of this as the hidden costs of a smartphone.
Sleep & Brain Health: Blue light from screens can suppress melatonin and delay sleep, especially when used during the 1–2 hours before bedtime.
Attention & Time Management: Constant notifications and quick distractions fragment our attention. So we lose time, struggle to focus, and grow accustomed to constant stimulation instead of thinking.
Social Media & Contentment: Social media encourages comparison, jealousy, discontentment, fear of missing out, pride, and sexual temptation. Developers have also designed their apps to be addictive and keep you scrolling.
Relationships & Connection: Phones compete for our attention, often at the expense of the people directly in front of us. Eye contact, meaningful conversations, and shared experiences suffer when we're constantly checking our phones. Ever been at a coffee meeting with someone checking their phone often?
Neck and Spine Health: Looking down at a phone for extended periods strains the neck and upper back, contributing to poor posture, stiffness, and probably a chiropractor visit or two.
Our Children & Parenting: Children learn by watching us. When we're constantly distracted by our phones, they learn that screens deserve more of our attention than people do. Repeatedly ignoring their questions, interrupting conversations, or replacing interaction with entertainment can also steal and rob them of valuable opportunities for connection and development as christian children.
The Loss of Quiet: Constant access to entertainment, information, and notifications leaves little room for silence, prayer, reflection, or simply thinking. Every spare moment becomes an opportunity to consume something. Personally, I see this one the most.
The Loss of Curiosity: Rather than wondering, thinking, discussing, or working through a question, we immediately Google the answer. Convenience can replace the rewarding process of discovery and independent thought. This is also a loss of relationship building with our kids… It’s fun to discover things together, hunt answers down together, maybe even in a book!
Documenting > Experiencing: Our desire to photograph and record everything can distract us from actually experiencing it. Sometimes we're so focused on capturing a beautiful moment that we fail to appreciate it and just miss it entirely.
Missing Life Itself: Perhaps the greatest cost is simply missing what's right in front of us. Childhoods, conversations, sunsets, family dinners, and countless ordinary moments pass while our attention is somewhere else.
The underlying question: Is this technology truly serving us, our families, and our relationship with God—or have we slowly allowed it to master our attention? 1 Corinthians 6:12 — “All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.” (NASB 1995)
Over the last few years, I've tried different dumb phones and have a few I would recommend. I am sure that I've missed some out there, but here are some effective ones that are worth buying.
Before you start commenting on the cost and how little the phone can do, let me remind you of the jail analogy I mentioned above. Would you pay $500 to get that time back? How about $1000 or $2000? I hope that you would. Five years is a lot of wasted time; 20 years is too. This is money well spent; I can attest to that personally. You have to weigh the “cost-to-value” ratio; the value here is time, not ability. The cost is worth the value you gain. Don't compare this cost to last year's iPhone and the value to all that the phone can do - that's irrelevant - and it takes you back to the top of this article. I have listened to and read many tech reviews that critique what these phones can't do for the cost, or what you could buy elsewhere for that amount of money… It's comical to me because that is irrelevant; it's a category error. It's not the point. Unwise comparison. This is about value: a simple device that saves you time and helps keep you from temptations to sin. The cost might feel like a lot, but in light of the value, it's easily justifiable. People spend money on things they personally deem as valuable.
We just need to rightly understand the value.
One of my personal favorites for its simplicity. I used this phone for months and still own it. I love the E-ink display and the control from Light Phone's online dashboard. This phone is great. Calling, texting, podcasts, music, directions, directory search, contacts, calculator, and more. It covers the bases, I believe. Very small and literally light. Seriously a great investment. There are a lot more details, pros and cons I could get into, but for most people that may not be helpful.
One reason I moved to this phone was its camera that the LP2 didn't have. Though I found that just having a physical camera really did work for that, to each their own. This is OLED, not E-ink, but it's riding the same snowboard in terms of software as the LP2. It has the essentials and is very hardware-restricted. Now you can even add Light-approved APK items like a Bible, etc., though I think you're best using paper; that's another conversation. Light Phone's philosophy is great: they are making something designed to be used as little as possible and focused on privacy. I used this phone for well over a year with no problems, even running my own company. Light Phone's online dashboard control is ideal not only for adults in day-to-day life, but also huge for parental control for our teenagers as Christians, so we can see and control things from an online dashboard.
Newer to me, but I think it's one of the best options as a privacy-focused dumb phone that lets you control the throttle on apps. You can sideload APK packages (happy to share more on that another time) and get some essential apps you might need. For me, I added Signal and my audiobook player to cap off the device; I think those are good tools to have on a phone. This device is an E-ink, so you are actually pulling out of the world of OLED screens, full stop, and have the ability to add some apps that might be more critical for you as a mom, employee, business owner, or even pastor (Slack, WhatsApp, RingCentral, etc.). I think a clean break from a lot of apps is ideal, but I like that Mudita offers that option. The device doesn't have a browser, email, or an app store.
This one is simple, usable, has the essentials, and has the lovely old-fashioned flip open and close we all (I think) loved. They did a good job making this one usable today and keeping out the junk. The camera is bad. It's bulky. But it gets the job done.
I really liked this one! It's a tiny smartphone that gives you access to certain apps, but it takes some work to set up properly. Using a Windows program called ADB AppControl, you can remove or disable Google Play Services and the web browser (you can't do this on an iPhone, as far as I know). I used it for a few months, and it worked, but it wasn't my favorite. It still comes with the usual smartphone privacy and tracking concerns, and modifying it can cause other issues. Ultimately, I wanted to address the problem at its root with something simpler that most people could realistically switch to.
Some tips for you when you switch. Think of it as a toolkit I would be handing you so that you have what you need to make this build happen.
Love the friction
Dumbphones, by nature, will introduce “friction” to your life again. Not all friction is bad. My wife loves to knead the bread dough by hand and make the bread personally. That friction is her choice, different from using a breadmaker or simply buying cheap bread at the store. It's intentional for a reason. So there will be friction, but that friction will, I believe, better shape you as a person and Christian. Learning routes better, waiting to look something up until you are home, looking at something and not taking a quick photo. It is good for you. Humans have done this for hundreds and hundreds of years, mind you, and most generations were smarter than ours.
If you must—SMS AI service (I use Smarter Dumb Phone for quick in-a-pinch moments)
Get a GPS if you need it (saves your phone battery and works offline. You can buy one pretty cheap at Cabela’s)
Buy your music, don't rent it (Spotify membership for 10 years is ~$2,300; you would buy a lot of music with that and own it and probably just know your music better. Sometimes less is more)
Read a bookReading just 30 minutes a day for 5 years would land you ~200 books. Whoa, what good that could be for you!)
My personal favorite is Bible reading. With a little over an hour a day, I have read through my Bible two times a year for years. Reading it once a year is very doable.
Get a real camera
My wife and I bought cameras a while back, and not only do the photos turn out much better, but it makes photos a bit more intentional and has been a blessing to us.
If you have kids, they will know you are taking pictures. Smartphones don't provide them that context. You could be doing anything. The camera is an intentional signal to your kids about what you are doing, not wasting time.
Talk to people
I always tell my kids when we are talking to a stranger or having someone over, “Get curious! Ask questions!” Ask someone where they are from, how long they have been doing that career, and why. Spurgeon said that people are like books! So read! And Christians, this is great for evangelism; instead of scrolling on your phone at the DMV, strike up a robust conversation with someone and share about your faith in Christ and the gospel. Learn how to ask good questions. Talk to more people, make more eye contact; you might make a new friend, meet a spouse, or encourage a fainthearted or downcast soul.
Just think and pray
My oh my, how we have lost the art of thinking! Every quiet moment is filled with music, podcasts, notifications, or scrolling. When do we ever just sit and think? Spurgeon once wrote in Lectures to My Students, “Thinking is better than possessing books. Thinking is an exercise of the soul which both develops its powers and educates them.”
Put the phone away. Take a walk, sit outside, ponder what you've read in Scripture, examine your own heart, consider the goodness of God, and pray! When was the last time you sat down and just thought and talked to God for even 25 minutes? I could say more about prayer here, but I will digress and just say we should not want to own a prayer-killing device, and how many prayers has your phone silenced before they made it to words?
Our biggest problem in the world is not our smartphones. Our biggest problem is that we have sinned against a mighty, omnipotent, holy God, need forgiveness, and cannot pay our debt. Praise be to God for making a way for us through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection; we can be saved and forgiven. I don't mean to sound like smartphones are the greatest problem; I do think they are a problem, though. 10–20 years of wasted time is a problem. And it needs serious thought and action. I know some folks need a smartphone for health reasons; the exception proves the rule. I also know I am not the final statement on this; I see a problem and have found what I think is a good possible solution. I am very thankful for the continued efforts of many others in this area of redeeming our time. It’s a blessing to encourage one another and press on to know the Lord more and use our lives for Him.
I hope these thoughts help you make some godly changes in your life. And I hope the redeemed time pleases God, so here is to more Bible reading, more evangelism, more book reading, more friendly conversations, more time thinking, and more time watching your kids!
All for Him!
Written by a real human :)
-Gabriel Johnson