‘A Web of Our Own Making’ is valuable to the church because it lays bare how we’re all being conformed to patterns of the digital world.
—
Our digital devices are history’s first “natural” technology. The printing press and the telephone, for example, each changed the world by doing a particular task. But digital technology doesn’t do a singular thing; it’s the medium on which we do nearly everything. We use it for driving, working out, entertainment, conversations, dating, school, worship, shopping, and planning vacations. Unlike past world-changing inventions, digital technology is involved in every area of our lives. It’s “natural” in that it’s always with us, capturing our attention like no technology ever has.
Paradoxically,however,digitaltechnologycapturesourattentionwhilefadingintothebackground.Likeamirror,it’sdesignedtoreflect“reality”backtous.Wearen’tattractedsomuchtoourdevicesastotheseemingly“frictionless”usesand“objective”picturestheyoffer.WhenAppleintroducedtheiPad3,theymadethisgoalclear:“Webelievetechnologyisatitsverybestwhenit’sinvisib
