The Tech-Wise Family: Everyday Steps for Putting Technology in Its Proper Place

by Andy Crouch

Technology is in its proper place when it helps us bond with the real people we have been given to love. It’s out of its proper place when we end up bonding with people at a distance, like celebrities, whom we will never meet.

An increasing body of psychological research suggests that our supply of willpower—the ability to make hard decisions that go against our instincts or preferences—is limited.

Family helps form us into persons who have acquired wisdom and courage.

the way of wisdom has been clear: stay committed, stay faithful, stay hopeful.

Boredom is actually a crucial warning sign—as important in its own way as physical pain. It’s a sign that our capacity for wonder and delight, contemplation and attention, real play and fruitful work, has been dangerously depleted.

The truth is that if we build our family’s technological life around trying to keep porn out, we will fail.

All sin begins with separation—hiding from our fellow human beings and our Creator, even if, at first, we simply hide in the “privacy” of our own thoughts, fears, and fantasies.

Worship brings us to the real truth about the world, its original intention and its ultimate meaning, and our responsibility in it.