As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!"
"Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her." (Luke 10:38 - 42)
My thesis is that modern technology routinely distracts us from the highest good, thereby jeopardizing our fulfillment of the very purpose for our existence. To develop this thesis I will first provide some context by citing a few common critiques of technology. Next I will introduce some major concepts from the study of value and summarize Jesus’ teaching on value, both as an example of a value system and as the appropriate set of standards to apply in value judgment. Then I will critique modern technology based on Jesus’ hierarchy of value. Finally, I will suggest appropriate responses to modern technology. While my critique of technology is from a distinctly Christian perspective, anyone who believes that there is a higher good to be realized than mere personal, material well-being should find some value in what I have to say.
Defenders of technology, like Stock and Florman, while acknowledging that technology does have its problems, counter the critics with arguments of their own: that technology binds society together and makes the natural environment more accessible and understandable; that the good effects of technology far outweigh the bad effects; and that since technological development is a human activity, by definition we do have mastery over it. Furthermore, they contend that on the whole, modern technology has given us a vastly better life and that solutions to the problems mankind faces will be solved with more technology, not less.
As an alternative to non-grounded critiques of modern technology, I offer the following approach. First, to establish a framework for talking about value, I summarize some of the major terms and concepts relating to value. Next, I explicitly lay out a set of value standards by summarizing Jesus’ principal teachings on the subject. Then, I assess modern technology by examining its role in realizing the good and the bad as declared by Jesus.
I use Jesus’ standards for three reasons. The first is that I am a Christian, so they are most familiar to me and it is most natural for me to use them. The second reason is that though some readers may not be Christians, they will likely understand if not agree with many of Jesus’ teachings on value. The third reason I will discuss after introducing some value terminology and concepts.
It is common these days to use the noun in its plural form to refer to what someone or some group thinks is good or bad. That is, values are the beliefs of an individual or group about the value of things. Since use of the term in this manner can lead to the confusion of valued things with different types of value (see below), I prefer to refer to such beliefs about the value of things as value beliefs.
In referring to the value of things, the good encompasses those things with positive value, or at least those things believed to have positive value. The bad refers to those things with negative value or at least those things believed to have negative value.
The second great issue of axiology concerns the question: Is value absolute or relative? The absolutist asserts that there is only one standard of value and that it is eternally and universally valid. The relativist, of course, denies all this and states that value is relative to a group or individual at a particular time, in a particular place, and in a particular culture. Speaking from the perspective of human reason, neither of these issues has been settled by axiologists. There are compelling arguments for and against both sides of both issues, but space here does not permit me to go into them. Mead presents a fine, even-handed summary.
Value may be intrinsic or instrumental. An object has intrinsic value if it has value in itself and serves no end other than itself. An object has instrumental (or extrinsic) value if it is but a means for obtaining something that has intrinsic value.
Value may be permanent or transient. Permanent goods persist over time, while transient goods do not, or they lose their value with time.
There is also moral and non-moral value. Positive moral value is right, negative moral value wrong. Moral value carries with it a degree of obligation to act in a certain way. For example, a "good man" does what is right. Moral value is based on non-moral value. For example, to the hedonist, the belief that personal happiness is the highest good carries with it the moral obligation to act in such a way as to realize happiness in oneself and in others.
Finally, value may be higher or lower. Given two things, one with a higher (i.e., a greater positive) value than one with a lower (i.e., lesser positive or a more negative) value, the one with the higher value is more worthy of realization than the other. The existence of higher and lower value implies a hierarchy of value leading to the summum bonum (the highest good). Though there is not a general consensus about just what that summum bonum is, there are some axiological requirements for it. First, it must have intrinsic value. Second, it must have an all-inclusive scope; that is, it must be such that all activities can lead to it. Finally, there must be the possibility for at least its partial realization, or the realization of some aspect of it.
This observation, like all of Jesus’ teachings was clearly grounded in the Old Testament where, in reflecting on the newly-created universe, "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. ..." (Genesis. 1:31). We can infer from this passage that Jesus was an objectivist. That God saw that His creation "was very good" (italics added) means, I believe, that value is objective, that it is inherent in the created objects and not merely in our minds. Furthermore, I believe that Jesus was an absolutist. Nowhere in the New Testament do we find a passage that suggests anything but universal validity for his teachings on value, or anything else, for that matter. He intended for his standards to apply to all people, for all time.
Jesus clearly saw the non-human creation as good and though he did not specifically speak on it, we can state with some certainty that a moral obligation follows from it: "The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it." (Genesis 2:15) We are expected to be good stewards of the creation. That certainly bears upon judgments of technology, as we will see below.
So Jesus held people to have a higher value than the non-human creation. More specifically, we can discern from his ministry certain goods related to human well-being. For example, he valued human life, because he raised people from the dead, and because he dreaded his own death and prayed for his life to be spared (Matthew 26:39). He valued health, for most of his recorded miracles involved healing (e.g., Luke 17:11-19). He certainly considered food and clothing to be good, for he taught that even though they are not the highest good, God knows that we need them (Matthew 6:31-32). That he considered shelter to be a good is clear, otherwise the parable of the wise and the foolish builders would have been pointless (Matthew 7:24-27). Jesus valued family, for as a boy he was obedient to His parents (Luke 2:51), as a man dying on the cross he entrusted his mother's care to his disciple John (John 19:26-27), and in his ministry he used fatherly love for children as a metaphor for God's love for us (Luke 11:11-13).
Friendship and community were valuable to Jesus, for he had a deep friendship with Mary, Martha, and their brother Lazarus (John 11:5) and throughout most of his ministry he surrounded himself with a small community of friends, his disciples (John 15:15). He valued knowledge and understanding for he prominently displayed them in his first recorded "public appearance" (Luke 2:46-47). Though no hedonist, he did consider happiness a good, for he described it as a reward of the good and faithful servants in the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-23).
The non-moral value of people is the basis for Jesus’ teachings on our moral obligation to them. First, Jesus taught from an Old Testament commandment that we are to "... ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’" (Matthew 22:39)
This not only assumes a certain degree of self-interest, but by extending his teachings about our dealings with others back onto ourselves, we also see a moral obligation to ourselves. This becomes a little clearer in another teaching: "‘So in everything, do to others as you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.’" (Matthew 7:12). The trick, of course, is to achieve the proper balance between self-interest and altruism implied by these commandments. But that is beyond the scope of this article.
There are two points to be made here. First, Jesus is not referring to God in moral terms only. He is drawing on the Old Testament tradition of God as the greatest good: "Good and upright is the Lord; therefore He instructs sinners in His ways." (Psalm 25: 9-10; also see Psalm 86:5, 100:5, 106:1, 119:68). Second, given Christ’s other teachings about the value of things, he is exaggerating for effect. It is not that only God has positive value, it is that His goodness is so much greater than that of any created thing that other goods pale by comparison.
Of course, we cannot realize God per se, but we can realize a certain relationship with God. Jesus began his ministry with an admonition that was prominent throughout it: "‘The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!’" (Mark 1:15). In Matthew’s account, slightly different words are used: "‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.’" (Matthew 4:17)
The significance of the kingdom of God (which is equivalent to the kingdom of heaven) is revealed in a commandment he gave in the Sermon on the Mount: "‘But seek first his [i.e., God’s] kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.’" (Matthew 6:33).
So then, according to Jesus, the highest good we can realize is to enter the kingdom of God. We find that this relationship to God (to be in His kingdom) is also equivalent to some other concepts central to Jesus’ ministry. Consider the rest of the story about the man who came up and fell at his feet, seeking eternal life. When told that it required him to sell all he had and give to the poor, he went away sad, because he had great wealth, and Jesus remarked "‘How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God. ...’" (Mark 10:23) From this passage we see the equivalence of the kingdom of God (or, in Matthew’s words, the kingdom of heaven), with eternal life. Of course, the most important point to get from it, though, is that by placing such a high value on material possessions, the man missed the highest good.
The concept is also equivalent to knowing God, as we see Jesus’ prayer before his crucifixion: "‘Now this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.’" (John 17:3) Later in John 17, this knowledge is explained as a mutual indwelling with God, mediated by Jesus Christ.
So, according to Jesus, the highest good is God and the highest good that we can realize is to participate in the kingdom of God (or the kingdom of heaven), which is to enter into eternal life, which is to know God. And how can we realize this good? There is but one means. When Jesus’ disciples questioned him about the way to God’s kingdom, "Jesus answered, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’" (John 14:6) As we shall see, this places some limits on the good to be realized through technology.
From the non-moral good of God and His kingdom follows our moral obligation to God. Besides seeking first His kingdom and being obedient to His commandments, we are to "... `Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment." (Matthew 22:37-38)
Let me summarize Jesus’ standards of value by reviewing his hierarchy
of value. At the bottom is the non-human creation. Then, people are more
valuable than the creation. The highest good we can actually realize is
the kingdom of God (eternal life, or knowing God). The highest good, the
summum bonum, is God Himself. From this non-moral hierarchy of value
comes Jesus’ moral standards. We are to be good stewards of God’s creation.
We are to love others as we love ourselves. We are to seek God’s kingdom
and, above all, we are to love God with all our being.
First of all, Jesus’ standards of value are unique, distinct from all other systems of value. While it is true that the lower parts of Jesus’ hierarchy of value are similar to the value beliefs of, say, humanism, there are some important differences. For example, the standards he set forth in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) are, humanly speaking, simply unattainable -- it is only through God’s grace that we can be justified. But the greatest distinguishing feature of Jesus’ hierarchy of value is the highest realizable good: knowing God in an intimate, indwelling relationship mediated through Jesus.
And that leads to my second justification for my belief in the sole validity of Jesus’ standards of value. Jesus made some remarkable claims about his identity as the Son of God and of being of one essence with God, about his authority to make value judgments, and about his unique role of sole mediatorship between God and man. Either he was a lunatic or he was who he said he was. I believe that the latter is validated historically by the persistence of the Christian church through two millennia (often in the face of bitter persecution), the expansion of the church over the entire globe, and the positive influence of the church on society (when the church’s members have held to Jesus’ teachings). It is validated personally for me through the workings of Christ in my own life and in the lives of those around me.
Lately, technology has come to mean something different. In one respect, the term has come to mean something narrower -- the above definition would admit art or politics as means of gain, yet though those activities are permeated by technology now, most of us would not consider them to be examples or subsets of technology. In another respect, this definition is too narrow, for when most of us speak of technology today, we mean more than just discourse about means of gain. Usually now when we refer to technology, we refer to the application of science to achieve desired ends.
I like to think of technology in five distinct senses. First, technology is the devices, systems, and procedures we develop to help realize the good and avoid the bad. I call these technological objects. Second, technology is the process of developing technological objects. I refer to this as the technological process. Third, technology is the knowledge -- technological knowledge -- essential to the technological process. Fourth, a technology is a set of functionally similar technological objects and the technological process and technological knowledge associated with them. For example, I refer to computer technology and transportation technology. Fifth, technology is all of the first three (technological objects, process, and knowledge), plus the worldview (i.e., the beliefs -- including value beliefs -- that shape how one sees the world) which has emerged from and, in turn, drives the technological process. This is what Ellul referred to as the technological system. In the remainder of this article, I will use all five senses, but when I use the term technology by itself, I mean the fifth and most comprehensive sense.
Second, we are all familiar with how technology helps us realize the good related to people. Medical technology helps us live longer, healthier lives. Agricultural technology provides us with food and clothing. We enjoy the shelter of houses, apartments, and other structures through construction technology. We use household appliances and other electrical technology to provide for our families’ needs. Communication technology facilitates the creation and maintenance of personal relationships on which friendship and community are built. Most of what we know (beyond limited personal experience) comes to us directly or indirectly through information technology. Virtually all technologies are used in the pursuit (if not the realization) of happiness. Energy technology powers the technological objects that make these things possible. Computer technology processes the information necessary to develop and use other technological objects. Manufacturing technology produces technological objects for and transportation technology carries them to the people who need or want them.
And third, technology is admittedly useful in realizing the good related to God. For example, transportation technology carries missionaries to every part of the world. Printing and publishing technologies are used to print Bibles and other Christian literature. Other forms of communication technology (radio, TV, the Internet) bring the gospel to those who cannot or choose not to be reached in person. Computer technology facilitates the business of the church in many ways. With regard to the good related to God, I must point out that though technological objects can facilitate knowing about God, they are in no direct way instrumental in knowing God. Jesus claimed sole mediatorship.
But technology is also instrumental in realizing the bad, whether intended or not. First, we are all aware that technological objects and the technological process can be quite harmful to the natural environment. For example, so-called ‘high-input' agriculture leads to soil pollution from pesticides and fertilizers, soil erosion, loss of soil fertility, and salinization of irrigated soils. Industrial systems, municipalities, and shipping produce water pollution of many types.Air pollution of many kinds from motor vehicles and factories harms plants and animals directly and may have long term climatic effects through global warming.
Second, technology is harmful to people. For example, medical technology has been used to kill more than 35 million unborn children in this country since the 1973 Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision. Agricultural technology produced the fertilizer used to create the explosives that destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Building in the Oklahoma City bombing in 1996, killing 168 people. At least 3,000 and perhaps as many as 20,000 people were killed and more than 200,000 were injured in a chemical manufacturing plant accident in Bhopal, India in 1984. Research suggests that prolonged television viewing significantly impairs brain development in children. Information technology is used to disseminate erroneous and harmful information. Scientific instruments made possible the development of the atomic bomb that killed more that 100,000 people in the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II. In 1986 a nuclear power reactor in Chernobyl (located in the former Soviet Union) exploded. Twenty-eight people died outright from radiation and other injuries and the death toll due to excess cancers caused by the release of radiation is expected to ultimately reach about 6,600. Automation technology made possible by computers is creating un- and underemployment. In 1994 transportation accidents in the US killed more than 41,000 people and injured more than 3,000,000. These misuses and unfortunate impacts of technological objects lead to untold grief.
And the same technologies that are instrumental in realizing the highest good play equivalent roles in realizing the greatest evil: separation from God. Transportation, communication, and computer technologies (to name but a few) are instrumental in promoting faiths and philosophies that deny God or declare Him irrelevant: atheism, humanism, and even those branches of 'Christianity' that trivialize and distort the gospel and deny the authority of the scriptures and the church.
So, as so many have pointed out before and as we can attest from our personal experience, technological objects have both good and ill effects or, to put it in axiological terms, technological objects are instrumental in realizing both good and bad. And to make evaluative matters more difficult, it is impossible to make any final judgments on their net value: even if there were a common metric for objectively measuring the positive and negative effects of technological objects, there is no calculus for combining the benefits and the costs and concluding that, overall, technology is good or bad.
Most individual human activity is directed toward the realization of some good, and activity requires time to think and to act. We are all aware of the many demands on our time. As we will see below, many of those demands come about as a result of technological objects. But, just as important, activity requires attention. Attention is conscious, effortful thought focused on a relatively small subset of all the stimuli, information, and knowledge (both external and internal) available to us at any given time.
Now it is certainly true that some activities require very little attention. Routine, well-practiced, "overlearned" activities in familiar environments, like walking in one’s house and driving a familiar stretch of road, require attention only to initiate and terminate and, intermittently, to monitor -- so long as no unexpected events occur. The number of routinized activities one can engage in at any given time seems to be limited mostly by sensory capacities and the number of appendages one has.
But the individual can really only engage in one activity requiring conscious, effortful thought at a time. This is especially true of activities directed toward the highest good. To seek God’s kingdom and to know Him requires substantial time for reflection and sustained attention. So, like time, attention is a scarce resource that should be allocated wisely.
Technology creates many demands on our time and attention and it does so in several ways. First, technological objects create many opportunities to realize the good or avoid the bad and they facilitate activities so directed. With regard to realizing the good of the non-human creation, for example, communication technology brings to our attention the plight of our natural environment and what we can do to save it. Using recycling technology we can each begin to reduce our impact on the environment and, enabled by a variety of technologies, we can take more active roles in conservation organizations and activities.
Technology also creates many opportunities to realize good related to people. Medical technology, for example, creates opportunities to improve one’s health and to extend one’s life. Agricultural technology adds to the variety of food and apparel from which one can choose. Manufacturing technology produces a bewildering array of material goods one can acquire and transportation technology makes them accessible. Communication technology creates opportunities for one to make new friendships and maintain old ones. Information technology puts vast amounts of knowledge at one’s disposal.
Technology even creates opportunities to realize good related to God. Printing and publishing technology make it possible for one to join the Gideons in their quest to make the word of God available to the world. No longer is the average person restricted to supporting missionary work only through financial contributions; now modern transportation technology makes it possible for even the layperson to travel to the mission field to personally participate. Closer to home, the telephone and the automobile make it possible for one to take part in the many activities of the local church.
All these opportunities, enabled by technology, give rise to activities. The activities in turn require time and attention.
Besides these opportunities, technology (in the broadest, technological system sense) creates new goods to realize and new opportunities to realize them in turn. The technological process and the technological objects and knowledge it produce have given rise to a worldview that values things like efficiency, productivity, speed, abundance, and power.
For example, if something is good, so the reasoning goes, it is better to have more of it (up to a point, of course), it is better to have it sooner rather than later, and it is better to use up fewer resources in its acquisition. Technological objects, of course, make the desired abundance, speed, and productivity possible and now these properties of goods and processes have come to be viewed as valuable themselves. So these new goods give rise to new activities to realize them.
The usefulness of technological objects in realizing the good does not come without a price, of course. Time and attention are required for activities related to the objects themselves. Let me illustrate with a personal example: my automobile. Besides the time and attention of the probably hundreds of people who designed and manufactured it then transported it to me, it has demanded quite a lot of my time and attention over the years that I have had it.
First, I spent time learning about it by reading publications and visiting auto dealers. Having made my choice, I invested time and attention in acquiring it. Before I could actually take possession of the car, I had to go to my credit union and secure an auto loan to pay for it. I also purchased auto insurance to provide financial protection for me and the car and for others whose persons or property could be harmed by its use.
Now in my possession, my car naturally demands my time and attention to drive it. Also, for several years, each month I had to take the time to write and mail a check to my credit union to repay the loan on the car, and I still regularly send checks to my insurance company. Another regular demand on my time and attention is routine, preventive maintenance. Some of that, such as changing the oil, I do myself, a typical self-maintenance task taking an hour or so out of a Saturday morning. More often, though, I drive the car to the shop, secure some other means of transportation to go about my business while professional mechanics do the work, then return to the shop to pay for the service and pick up my car. I go through the same cycle for non-routine maintenance when something on the car fails.
By God’s grace I have never had to devote my time and attention to dealing with the negative consequences of a serious auto accident. So far, such activities have only been trips to the body shop to repair damage caused to it by other vehicles while it was parked. Many people are not so fortunate.
Eventually I will have to dispose of my car, and that will take some time and attention. Perhaps I will place a classified advertisement in the local newspaper, then show the car to potential buyers until one purchases it. If I choose to continue drive my car until the end of its functional life, I will have to make other arrangements for its disposal. No doubt they will take time and attention too.
Like my car, all technological objects give rise to activities directed towards the technological objects themselves. They require time and attention to learn about them, to acquire them, to use them, to pay for them, to maintain them, to deal with the negative consequences of their use, and to dispose of them.
One effect of technological busyness is mental stress. There is a tendency among people I know (and I suspect that they are pretty representative of US society) to optimistically take on more activities than they should. They become frustrated and stressed when they realize that there is not enough time to do everything that they would like to do, or at least, that they lack the time and attention to do everything as well as they would like to. This condition certainly leads to their unhappiness and quite likely even has negative effects on their health.
But by far the most serious negative consequence of technological busyness is technological distraction: by drawing our attention mostly to activities related to the lower good, technology distracts us from our efforts to realize the highest good and therefore may cause us to fail to fulfill the very purpose for our existence.
Since attention is a scarce resource, allowing us to engage in only one thought-requiring activity at a time, attention must be allocated. Attention allocation is the process of directing attention to just one of several activities that we intend to perform.
My brief introduction to attention, above, and my description of attention allocation, below, are based on three general sources. First, they draw on a long line of attention research, from the late nineteenth century to the present. Second, what I have to say comes partly from my own research into how pilots manage (with varying degrees of success) the many, concurrent activities that must be performed to fly a commercial airliner. Third, my description is based on my personal and professional experience with technology and introspection into why I do what I do, when I do it. Since this is not a scientific paper, I will not cite specific sources to back specific assertions about the attention allocation process. Rather, I urge the reader to validate my description based mostly on his or her own experience.
Let me illustrate the process of attention allocation by citing a personal example. Although this is a hypothetical one, it is very plausible and I believe that most readers should be able to identify with it. Suppose that it is a Saturday afternoon and I am at home in my living room. My wife is busy in her sewing room and my daughters are in their rooms, engaged in their ‘quiet’ times. I am deep in thought, considering how technology distracts us from our quest for the kingdom of God and what we can do about it. My train of thought is on human attention and suddenly, as a result of mental association, I have a new insight about a factor that may affect how pilots allocate their attention. Although this does of course relate to my research on attention, it does not have direct relevance to spiritual discipline, so now I am off on a new line of thought, distracted from my original mental activity.
This line of thinking continues for awhile, until the telephone rings. Interrupted from my thoughts about pilots’ attention, I answer it. It is a colleague in another city. He is preparing for a meeting and has inadvertently deleted an important e-mail message I sent to him earlier in the week. He apologizes profusely, but asks if I can re-send the message or at least refresh his memory concerning the contents. He must catch a plane in a few hours and will not be able to receive e-mail after he leaves his office. Fortunately, I have my laptop computer, containing a copy of the sent e-mail at home, so I reassure him that I can accommodate his needs with little personal inconvenience.
So, completely distracted from my thoughts about attention and the kingdom of God (but with the good intention to return to them), I get out my laptop and hook it up to the phone. As I look through my e-mail folders for the one containing the sent mail, I encounter the folder for the class I am teaching this term and am suddenly reminded that I forgot to send an important e-mail, announcing an assignment, to my students on Friday. I make a mental note to do so after I finish the task at hand. I find the e-mail I sent to my colleague and re-send it. Finished with that, I compose a new message to my students and send that also.
Now, I go back to thoughts on attention. I put away my computer and return to the couch. With some difficulty, I recover the line of thought which was interrupted by the phone thirty minutes ago. Proceeding, I am soon interrupted by the sound of a car stopping in front of the house. It is our mail carrier and, knowing that my wife would appreciate it if I brought her the mail, I get up, walk to the mailbox, get the mail, and return to the house. After delivering my wife’s mail to her, I return to the living room, lay the remainder of the mail on the coffee table and sit down to continue my thoughts.
But the colorful cover of a magazine we have just received catches my eye. There is an article in the magazine about aviation safety and my personal and professional interest is piqued. I start to read the article, my mind far from the kingdom of God. And so my afternoon goes.
This example illustrates some of the factors that affect the allocation of attention and how technological objects influence the process. The first factor is value. Most, if not all, human activity is directed toward the realization of something of value, if only the experience of personal happiness or the avoidance of pain, as the hedonists say. At the beginning of my scenario, I was seeking the kingdom of God, at least indirectly, for myself and for others. The other activities I engaged in were directed toward the realization of some lower goods: the well-being of airline flightcrews and passengers, my colleague, my students, and my wife.
Now, if I would live and act in a way consistent with Jesus’ hierarchy of value, I would not attend to the realization of a good unless I were already making satisfactory progress toward the realization of all goods I consider to be of greater value. There is but one exception to this. It would be acceptable for me to attend to the realization of a lower good if it were instrumental to the realization of the highest good not already being satisfactorily realized. In other words, I ought to attend to the realization of the highest good needing my attention.
Now this is indeed a very high standard, like the moral teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. In my example scenario, the fact that my thoughts did not return to the kingdom and reach some point of closure indicates that I did not meet it. There are two factors that contributed to that in my scenario and they both play an important role in attention allocation in general. Technology amplifies the influence of both of them.
In any mental activity there is a tension between continuing the activity and diverting our attention to another activity. To put it in a non-technical way, the very presence of thoughts about the activity in the forefront of our memory contributes to its continuity: the persistence of those thoughts in memory tends to keep us on track. In my example, my mind did not flit randomly from one activity to another. Rather, I was able to maintain a line of thought on each one, at least for a time.
On the other hand, those thoughts may trigger other thoughts not directly related to the activity that lead us away from it. Psychologists have come to view human memory as a vast collection of associations, a huge network of concepts linked by relationships learned through our experiences. Each concept in this network may be linked to many others, creating a very complex mental structure. This means that when we hold a concept in conscious thought, one of these links may carry us to another concept that is not directly related to the present activity. This happened in my example when my thoughts about technological distraction from the kingdom of God led me to thoughts about how pilots manage their attention, and I was diverted from my original ruminations. But there are other things that may divert attention. And that leads me to the first factor I want to focus on, besides value, that influences attention allocation.
The presence of salient sensory stimuli draw and hold our attention to activities, which is a slightly more precise way of articulating the old saying, "the squeaky wheel gets the grease." We are inundated with sensory stimuli: sights, sounds, smells, touches, and so on. The salience of a stimulus is the ability of that stimulus to draw attention. It is related to the intensity of the stimulus: louder sounds and brighter lights tend to be more effective in attracting attention. But there are other characteristics of stimuli that are attention-getting as well: the patterns of certain sounds and certain images are more noteworthy to us. The latter certainly originates from the associations formed in our memories.
In any case, a salient stimulus is likely to draw our attention away from one activity to another and further stimuli associated with that new activity are likely to hold it. In my example there were two instances of this. The first was the phone call, where the ringer caught my attention and the utterances of my colleague when I answered the phone held my attention to the new activity. The second was the trip to the mailbox, which was initiated by the sound of the mail carrier’s car.
Both of these salient stimuli that interrupted me were caused by technological objects, and that is a common theme in our lives. The very presence of technological objects in our environment is a source of such stimuli. We are surrounded by technological objects -- whereas once humans lived in a largely natural environment, we now live in a technological environment. The sight of my car, for example, parked in my driveway, is a reminder of its need of a washing and perhaps other maintenance activities. A basket full of dirty clothes calls my wife’s attention to clothes washing activities. The computer on my desk at work is a conspicuous object that reminds me of e-mail to read, documents to write, and spreadsheets to build. Everywhere I look there is some technological object that draws my attention to some activity to use it for, or some activity associated with its acquisition, use, or maintenance.
Besides the stimuli provided by the mere, passive presence of technological objects, many objects are designed to generate salient stimuli specifically intended to catch our attention. Besides the ringer of my telephone , my alarm clock is designed to interrupt my sleep or soliloquy. The advertisements in newspapers and magazines use salient images to draw my attention to the acquisition and use of products and services. Billboards and other signs present salient images to draw my attention from my driving to products, services, social issues, and other things someone deems important. Similarly radio and television sounds and images are crafted to be so salient and ear- and eye-catching that I am almost compelled to attend to commercials and programs (which are punctuated with commercials). Women’s clothing, jewelry, and cosmetics are designed to create visual and olfactory stimuli that distract me from the task at hand. My computer can be configured to beep annoyingly at me when electronic mail arrives.
By contrast, the kingdom of God (or the kingdom of heaven) is not the source of salient stimuli. For example, Jesus said "... ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed ...’" (Mat. 13:31) and "...’The kingdom of heaven is like yeast ...’" (Mat. 13:33), and these natural objects are not particularly salient. Furthermore, when asked about the coming of the kingdom of God, he replied "... ‘The kingdom of God does not come visibly ...’" (Luke 17:20). Even though the kingdom can be represented materially through technology, such representations often cheapen and trivialize it; witness Jesus t-shirts, bumper stickers, and graffiti.
Of course, some of the salient stimuli generated by technological objects can call my attention to the higher good. My telephone, for example, can ring to call me to a conversation with my pastor about spiritual growth. But in fact only a small fraction of the thousands of stimuli originating from technological objects that I encounter every hour are related even remotely to the highest good.
The second factor, besides value, affecting attention allocation that I want to focus on is the relative urgency of competing activities. It is often the case that when the opportunity to realize some good arises, if the good is not realized by a certain time, the opportunity is lost, possibly forever. The perceived urgency of the activity directed toward the realization of that good is related to the perceived time remaining to realize the good and our estimate of the time required to complete the activity to realize it. Urgent activities, regardless of the values of the goods toward which they are directed, tend to receive our attention.
In my example, re-sending the e-mail to my colleague and composing the e-mail for my students were urgent activities. The first was urgent because my colleague had to catch a plane. The second was urgent because I had established a due date for my students’ assignment and it was imperative for me to inform them of it in a timely manner. The example also illustrates the role of technology in creating that urgency. In the first case, my colleague’s airline established a schedule and my colleague and I (the latter because we could communicate with technological objects) had to fit our activities to a deadline. In the second case, the presence of my laptop computer enabled me to set the goal of sending the assignment announcement immediately. Without the computer, I might well have decided to simply postpone the assignment and make an announcement in class on Monday, thereby relieving me of the need to compose the message on Saturday afternoon.
Besides the ones I noted, there are many technological objects that contribute to the urgency of activities and many ways in which they do that. Calendars and clocks, both technological objects and both representing long-standing technologies, provide the basis for urgency. The concept of time and the loss of opportunity as it passes, of course, do not depend on either of these, but it is hard to imagine urgency in the way most of us understand it today without these technological objects.
Most technological objects, as noted above, create opportunities to fill our lives with activities (most with deadlines) directed to one good or another, but there are several technologies that especially contribute to urgency. Telephones in general and cellular phones in particular, FAX machines, e-mail, and overnight delivery services are touted to remedy short deadlines and, it is true that they do. The problem though, is that they induce us to set close deadlines or to procrastinate, or both. The net result is that urgency is increased.
Many of us have turned to time management systems, ranging from simple to-do lists to elaborate personal planners to help cope with our busy lives. They are clearly effective in that regard -- up to a point. But like the technological objects just mentioned, they give us a false sense of mastery over time and activity. As a result, we can and do schedule more and more activities over smaller and smaller intervals, compounding the urgency of our lives.
Together, these and other technological objects virtually guarantee that our lives are full of urgency. Hardly an hour passes when there isn’t something scheduled or something due, and since we have been busy with other things before, or we have procrastinated because of a technology-induced complacency, we are not adequately prepared for those appointments or the things we have promised are not quite ready. And the urgent gets our attention.
As not all salient stimuli are associated with inferior goods, not all urgent activities are directed toward them. There is urgency associated with preparation for worship services, opportunities to share knowledge about God with friends may slip away, and the days of all of us are numbered. But from my own experience, the vast majority of my urgent activities have very little to do with the kingdom of God.
Also, while we correctly perceive the lower good to be transient, by contrast, there is little perceived urgency associated with seeking God or His kingdom. Questioned about his second coming, Jesus responded "‘No one knows about that day or hour ...’" (Mat. 24:36). In spite of his subsequent admonition to be ready for the reckoning associated with his return, the fact that no date or time was given seems to have led some of us to a sense of complacency about the highest good. Another contributing factor might be the concept of eternal life. According to Dodd the concept of eternity, as in eternal life, would have evoked in the first or second century Greek reader an understanding of the timelessness of an intimate, in-dwelling relationship with God. Our lack of a sense of urgency about the highest good may have something to do with that. In any case, we are left with perceptions of great urgency with respect to the lower good and quite the opposite with respect to the highest good.
Most will agree that technology, in all its senses, can be instrumental in realizing both the good and the bad. While not everyone would agree with me when I assert that it is impossible to judge technology’s net value in that regard, let me sum up may argument about the subtler effect of technology on how we behave. Technology creates many opportunities and gives rise to many activities to realize good, it creates derivative goods to realize and activities to realize them, and technological objects themselves demand activities to acquire, maintain, and use them. We are left with very busy lives indeed. But the crux of the matter is that technological objects so amplify the salience of stimuli and urgency of activities directed toward the lower good, that we are often incapable of directing our attention to the highest good. Technology is a profound distraction. It diverts us, individually and collectively, from realizing our highest calling, the realization of the kingdom of God.
Amish may not have telephones in their homes, but the use of phones owned by non-Amish is permitted. Furthermore, some Amish communities permit community phones, typically housed in small shanties at the ends of lanes, shared by several farmers. In some cases, Amish businessmen are permitted to have telephones in their shops, though officially this may not be sanctioned. Although this policy may seem to be contradictory, closer analysis yields insight into a critical attitude toward technology that preserves -- even strengthens -- Amish value beliefs, while at the same time takes advantage of the benefits that technological objects truly offer.
Although the Amish do not consider the telephone to be inherently evil, they realize that it is an intrusion into family life that can pull the family apart with out-of-the-home activities and concerns. Furthermore, since phone conversations do not require the time, effort, and attention commitments that face-to-face conversation does, they may trivialize social interaction and erode community.
On the positive side, the Amish approach to the telephone offers several distinct advantages. For example, the absence of telephones in Amish homes preserves the natural flow of personal interaction so necessary in a family. The Amish telephone policy is a form of control on technology. By keeping the telephone at a distance -- both literally and metaphorically -- the Amish are the telephone's masters and not its slaves, like so many of us are. The use of community phones encourages cooperation. The policy symbolizes the Amish value beliefs of simplicity, separation from the world, and covenant community. The permission of controlled phone use permits the development of small businesses and industries necessary for Amish economic viability.
While the Amish are permitted to use batteries, generators, and many devices powered by those sources, they reject the use of 110-volt (and higher) "power-line" electricity, 110-volt electric appliances, and computers. As in the telephone policy, there is wisdom in the Amish rules about electricity. For example, the prohibition of power-line electricity serves as a way to separate the Amish from the outside world. It is a reminder to them that they are different and called to different standards. The common rejection of electricity provides a source of bonding in the community. The general ban on electricity, removing it from consideration by individuals, is an acknowledgment of the need to submit to authority. It prevented the otherwise inevitable debate over each and every new worldly appliance to come along. It also effectively quarantined the Amish from the electronic media that surely would have compromised Amish community. The early (1919) rejection of electricity served to delay social change that may have eroded more fundamental value beliefs. The giving up of the material conveniences of electrical appliances reminds the Amish daily of their separation from the world and their different, Bible-based standards.
Amish are prohibited from owning and driving cars and trucks and from holding driver's licenses. They are permitted to ride in others' vehicles and to hire drivers, so long as such use is not frivolous and does not occur on Sunday. Again, on the surface, such a policy seems contradictory, even hypocritical, but consideration of the benefits gained by it refute the criticism. For example, the compromise controls the detrimental effects of motor vehicles while at the same time providing for the true benefits they offer in the context of reasoned control. Controlled use of the car is a way of keeping faith with tradition while giving enough freedom to maneuver in the larger society. With the policy the pace and complexity of Amish life is controlled, geographical boundaries are maintained, social control is retained, and the community is preserved. Limited use of motor vehicles ensures that the Amish work near home to preserve family and community ties.
So for those of us concerned about the impacts of modern technology but not quite ready to lay aside our technological objects, I offer the following compromise: a value-based approach to technology assessment that draws on Jesus’ teachings on value. Before we acquire or begin to use a new technological object (or continue to use one), we should ask ourselves the following questions.
How does the Internet help me to realize the good? I use the Internet extensively in my work which, besides teaching human factors engineering courses, focuses on aviation safety. My research is directed towards saving some of the thousands of lives that are lost each year in aircraft accidents, certainly a good end. The Internet facilitates that work by giving me easy access to essential information on airplanes, aircraft accidents and incidents, and aviation psychology. I use e-mail to communicate with colleagues in government, academia, and industry. Through the World Wide Web I can communicate the results of my research far more effectively than I could through conventional, paper reports and journals. Besides the lower good I can realize with the Internet, I also use it, in a small way, to realize the highest good. An electronic version of this article appears on a web page and my e-mail signature bears a reference to the prologue to the Gospel of John, an introduction to Jesus’ ministry about the kingdom of God.
How does the Internet help me realize the bad? Besides the fact that the gaudy images on many, if not most, web pages belie their lack of information of any value (or the lack of accessibility to such information), there is plenty on the Internet that leads to the bad. Those who have used it are familiar with the huge number of pornographic web pages. Besides websites dedicated to such evil, there are many websites whose contents implicitly or explicitly deny the validity of the kingdom of God or offer "alternative" paths. While I have thus far been able to resist the temptations of the former and the diversions of the latter, it could have been otherwise and others users of the Internet might not be so fortunate.
How does the Internet distract me from the highest good? Though the proportion of good web pages is small, there are enough of them out there to present many lower goods for me to pursue. The very existence of potentially valuable information on the Internet leads me to spend considerable time glued to my computer doing web searches. And when I do find a potentially valuable website, it may present to me a nearly infinite series of hyperlinks to other potentially valuable pages that can keep me endlessly absorbed. As e-mail becomes more common, I spend more and more of my time each day reading and writing it. E-mail brings to me many opportunities to further my work: conferences to attend, panels to participate on, and studies to conduct. These opportunities create more activities that contribute to my technological busyness. The Internet, too, has given rise to a derivative good that I call "coolness". The "cool" website has a complex, patterned background, lots of color, gaudy images, virtual buttons to click, and many hyperlinks to other "cool" websites. These features can be fascinating, and I admit to being tempted to invest time and attention in making my own websites "cool". And of course the colorful and busy images of the Web and the transient nature of the information it bears intensify the salience and urgency of Internet-based and Internet-induced activities. In summary, the Internet is potentially a profound distraction for me.
So, how can I use the Internet (if at all) in a manner consistent with Jesus’ hierarchy of value? I use the Internet almost exclusively for my work (and I consider technological criticism to be a part of that work) and I use it almost exclusively from my office, thus limiting opportunities for distraction. My hypothetical example, above notwithstanding, only on rare occasions do I use it from my home and that, usually, when I am forced by family schedules to work at home. Although I have a personal computer at home for family use, it is not connected to the Internet and I have no immediate plans to so connect it. By strictly limiting what I use the Internet for and how and when I use it, I limit the extent to which it distracts me from the lower good of my family and the highest good of God.
Ellul -- Jacques Ellul’s three major works on technology are The Technological Society, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1964; The Technological System, New York: Continuum, 1980; and The Technological Bluff, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdman’s, 1990.
Postman -- Neil Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992.
Stock -- Gregory Stock, Metaman, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993.
Florman -- Samuel C. Florman, The Existential Pleasures of Engineering, second edition, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994.
Mead -- Hunter Mead, Types and Problems of Philosophy, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1946.
Frankena -- William K. Frankena, "Value and Valuation," in Paul Edwards (ed.), Dictionary of Philosophy, Vol. 8, New York: MacMillan, 1967, pp. 229-232.
Raven -- These examples are drawn from P.H. Raven, L.R. Berg, and G.B. Johnson, Environment, 1995 Version, Ft. Worth, TX: Saunders College Publishing, 1993.
Shrivastava -- e.g., P. Shrivastava, Bhopal: Anatomy of a Crisis, Cambridge, MA: Ballinder, 1987.
Healy -- Jane M. Healy, Endangered Minds, Why Children Don't Think and What We Can Do About It, New York: Touchstone, 1990.
Merkel -- A. Merkel, "Summary of the Conference Results," in One Decade After Chernobyl, Vienna: International Atomic Energy Agency, 1996, pp. 1-17.
USDOT -- US Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, National Transportation Statistics, 1995, Washington: US DOT, 1994.
James -- e.g., William James, The Principles of Psychology, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1890/1981.
Pashler -- e.g., Harold E. Pashler, The Psychology of Attention, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1998.
Funk -- e.g., K. Funk, "Cockpit Task Management: Preliminary Definitions, Normative Theory, Error Taxonomy, and Design Recommendations, The International Journal of Aviation Psychology, 1(4), 1991, pp. 271-285.; C.D. Chou, D. Madhavan, and K. Funk, "Studies of Cockpit Task Management Errors," International Journal of Aviation Psychology, 6(4), 1996, pp. 307-320.
Dodd -- C.H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953.
Hostetler -- John A. Hostetler, Amish Society, Fourth Edition, Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.
Kraybill -- Donald B. Kraybill, The Riddle of Amish Culture, Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989.