Short-Form Addiction

Short-Form Addiction

We know that digital communication has changed the world. It has changed our life patterns, and even the ways that our brains work. It has required new equipment built for the new technology, and we go along. No need for pencils and paper. No need for newspapers or books. No need for a Bible.

The most recent phase of short-form communication is video - a clip from a TV series; stunts on trick bikes; amateur tree- cutting fails. You can find these on YouTube and Facebook and all the others as well. I’m not personally familiar, but it seems to be how TikTok came to be. But short-form video is taking over text. And, it is addictive.

The algorithms feed you what it has figured out you like to watch, and you can spend a couple of hours lost in the disjointed stream. But at the same time, you are so immersed that you don’t know how much time has gone by until you “wake up.” And then, if you have any sense left, you feel silly for having wasted so much time.

When is the last time that you found yourself immersed in a good book? When was the last time that you were that immersed in your Bible? How often do we lose track of time in prayer? But the new “short form” has you in its grip, and it has changed your brain. We need to get it back.

For those who have been trained by “short form”s for frequent satisfaction from clever snippets, working through a book is so much harder. Reading and searching your Bible for God’s answers to your questions is difficult and demanding. Thinking about how to pray for a person with a difficult problem, and what you can do to help the situation and not hurt - and asking God for wisdom and opportunity to proceed - these are not matters of brain tease. But it was what we were designed for.

Our brains were not designed to be tickled, but worked. We need to learn how to work our brains.TV started it so many years ago. Magazines brought the glossy pictures. The theater perfected video and sound effects. But the small screen of a computer, laptop, tablet, and phone has taken us into our own little worlds where we can click and sample as though we live in a candy store, and when we emerge from that session, the lack of nutrition is comparable.

As you might expect, I wonder how this affects sermons, or more importantly, sermon-listening. I wonder how many are ready for short-form sermons - just a punchy thought or inspiration for the hour, then on to something else. And if you could put it into a 10-second video, then if you want, you could flick past it, or even, on that rare occasion, listen to it and repeat it once again, just so you could digest that whole piece of nothingness.

In the Temptation, Jesus said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” God did not split His words into tweets or put them into a short-form video. He spoke in context, at length, with great variety of contexts and voices, speaking to the heart and soul; to the understanding and will. But to get it, to digest it, it takes some time away from the screen. We need to get our brains back.