A Drug Beyond Cannabis: Smartphones, Social Media, and the Quiet Paganism of Our Age

Aug 30, 2025

I write this as a watchman who has also been complicit: thumb scrolling when I should be praying, chasing notifications when I should be listening. The problem before us is not merely technology, but worship. In our age the altar has become a glossy rectangle, lit day and night, ministered by algorithms that learn our appetites better than we know our souls. We do not toss incense into braziers; we offer our attention, our sleep, our peace, our children.

You have heard me warn before that the phone is more than a tool; it is an instrument in a larger pedagogy of distraction, surveillance, and desire shaping. I have traced its role in spiritual deception, the consolidation of power, and the conditioning of the masses (Previous Explainer). Today I want to face it as a drug, subtler than cannabis, more portable than liquor, and socially celebrated as “connection,” while training us for dependence.

The liturgies of the screen

Scripture does not treat neutrality lightly. “I will not be mastered by anything,” Paul writes, refusing even lawful things that become lords over the heart (1 Corinthians 6:12). The smartphone catechizes by small obediences: a buzz, a glance, a swipe. Each micro-bow yields a micro-reward. Behavioral scientists now describe how platforms braid intermittent rewards into the interface, the same psychology that keeps gamblers at the slot machine. The point is not simply to please you, but to keep you (Amirthalingam & Khera, 2024).

Our eyes are not passive in this exchange. “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light” (Matthew 6:22–23). But an eye trained on flicker and outrage grows unwell, and a body fed on rage and novelty swells with restlessness. This is why you can both love your phone and feel sick after an hour with it. The diet flatters the tongue while starving the soul.

Pharmakeia in the pocket

The New Testament names “pharmakeia,” often rendered “sorcery,” among the works of the flesh (Galatians 5:20; Revelation 18:23). I do not claim a one-to-one equivalence between ancient potion-craft and modern platforms. I am saying that our age has rediscovered a way to dose the masses without vials: a stream of stimuli calibrated to the self, fine-tuned by surveillance, reinforced by reward. The drug is attention-shaped desire, administered by code. When Scripture warns of sorceries that bewitch nations, we should at least ask whether an empire of engineered enchantment makes us more docile to lies and less responsive to truth.

Health authorities have begun to sound alarms, especially for the young. The U.S. Surgeon General has stated plainly that we cannot conclude social media is safe for children and adolescents and that a very high share use it almost constantly. The advisory urges immediate caution while research catches up (HHS, 2023). If shepherds will not read the times, stones will cry out; and here, public health has cried out before many pulpits have.

The idol factory retooled

Calvin called the human heart an “idol factory.” Our modern factory is automated. The ancient craftsman shaped a statue, then people bowed. Today the algorithm studies what makes us bow, then shapes the feed accordingly. The outcome is the same: “Those who make them are just like them, as are all who trust in them” (Psalm 115:4–8). What do we become when we worship the scroll? Distractible, reactive, thin-skinned, and impatient with silence. “Do not love the world or the things in the world,” John warns, “for everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride in one’s possessions—is not from the Father” (1 John 2:15–17).

I am not naïve. Phones carry Scripture, sermons, and messages from distant saints. Joseph managed Pharaoh’s grain without bowing to Pharaoh’s gods. Yet Joseph also knew what to store and what to starve. The question is not “Can a phone be used for good?” but “What is it mostly forming in me?”

Symptoms that feel normal because everyone shares them

If a substance bent your affections, shortened your attention, stole your sleep, raised your anxiety, and trained you to seek validation every few minutes, you would call it a drug. Much of this is precisely what the youth data now reflect: heavy social media use correlates with doubled risk of mental health problems, degraded sleep, and body dissatisfaction, even as nearly all teens are online (OSG, 2023). Anecdote is not proof, but when lived experience, pastoral observation, and public advisories converge, wisdom stops waiting for perfect data before repentance begins.

Midnight discipleship in the glow

Our era is best pictured at midnight. Jesus told of ten virgins whose lamps were burning, then sputtering, then sleeping, and of a sudden cry: “Here’s the groom! Come out to meet him” (Matthew 25:1–13). The wise had oil for the long wait. The foolish had the right lamps but no reserves. Many of us keep the lamp of a Christian confession, yet our oil is spent on pre-dawn doomscrolls, midnight reels, and morning floods of notifications. “So then, let us not sleep, like the rest, but let us stay awake and be self-controlled” (1 Thessalonians 5:6).

This is not a call to legalism but to training. The heart is shaped by habits. The feed is a liturgy. Every time we reach for the phone before we reach for Scripture, a parable is enacted in us: “Man lives by every word that proceeds from the algorithm.” We must write a truer parable with our mornings and our mealtimes.

A parable for the age

Imagine a village at the foot of a mountain. A spring runs down from the heights, cold and clean. The elders teach the children to fetch water at dawn, before the sun warms the day. One year merchants arrive with colored barrels. “Why climb?” they say. “We will bring water to your door, flavored to your taste, delivered at the hour you prefer.” The village rejoices. The sick are relieved; the busy are grateful. But quietly the merchants add minerals that stimulate thirst. The children begin to drink through the night. The elders notice that no one climbs anymore. The path grows over. The calves weaken. The village sings less. The merchants smile and sell more flavors. A famine comes. Those who still know the path to the spring carry the others on their backs.

Beloved, Christ is the mountain. The Spirit is the spring. The barrels are not evil, but they are not the spring. When they steal the strength to climb, they must be emptied.

Toward sobriety that looks like freedom

Sobriety does not mean fear; it means clarity. “Pay careful attention, then, to how you live—not as unwise people but as wise—making the most of the time, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:15–16). Many believers will need a season of radical pruning to recover desire for the things of God. Some will need covenantal agreements in the home: phones sleep outside the bedroom; Scripture opens before screens; worship services without devices; meals that welcome conversation. Some will need to repent of specific sins: pornography, slander, envy, and the subtle delight in another’s downfall packaged as “news.” “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the source of life” (Proverbs 4:23).

I will not lay a law on you beyond the Word. But I ask: what would you need to cut so that you could hear the midnight cry and rise with oil?

Why this matters now

If you have followed my earlier warnings about the technological consolidation of power, you know this is not only about your serenity; it is about your readiness. Systems that manipulate attention at scale can also normalize falsehood at scale, which softens the ground for spiritual deception. Governments and corporations are already able to track habits and locations under banners of safety and personalization; this is not panic, but public record (NWO Realities). A Church trained to crave the feed will find it hard to endure silence, hard to suffer for truth, and hard to wait for the Bridegroom. We need muscles that only boredom, fasting, and Scripture can build.

A gentle but firm exhortation

Dear saints, we are not helpless. We serve the One who breaks chains and teaches hands for war. Start small if you must: a tech-Sabbath each week; a phone-free first hour of the day; a reclaimed evening for family worship. If you stumble, you are not condemned; you are invited to learn. The Lord is patient with learners who keep walking. The point is not to become Luddites but to become lovers—of God, of neighbor, of truth.

When the cry goes out at midnight, may we be found awake, with lamps trimmed and oil in reserve. The phone cannot prepare you for that hour. Holiness will. Hope will. The Spirit will. “Come, Lord Jesus” (Revelation 22:20).

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