Why Not to Check Your Phone in the Morning

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | Back in April, we surveyed readers of DesiringGod.org.

00:00:09.960 | 8,000 of you responded.

00:00:12.400 | Thank you for the amazing amount of input you gave us.

00:00:15.520 | And of the total responses we received,

00:00:17.700 | over 50% of those who have a smartphone

00:00:20.000 | admit to checking their phones within minutes

00:00:23.200 | of waking up in a typical morning.

00:00:25.360 | Among readers 18 to 29, that number is over 60%.

00:00:30.220 | Most of us know a pattern like this,

00:00:32.040 | of checking email and texts and social media on our phones

00:00:35.940 | immediately in the morning is not a healthy pattern,

00:00:38.980 | but we do it anyways, Pastor John.

00:00:40.480 | So why do you think grabbing for our phones in the morning

00:00:42.840 | is a default reaction for many of us?

00:00:45.640 | And do you have a better way forward?

00:00:47.700 | I think there is a better course,

00:00:51.380 | but to help everybody understand why I think that

00:00:55.480 | and what that better course is,

00:00:58.280 | it might be helpful to start,

00:01:01.400 | and maybe this would be today's podcast,

00:01:03.840 | to start by analyzing why we are so prone

00:01:08.780 | to click on our phones before we do almost anything else.

00:01:12.400 | So I thought of six possible reasons why we do this.

00:01:16.760 | And I got these reasons out of my head

00:01:19.640 | by analyzing John Piper's soul and his temptations.

00:01:24.060 | I haven't done any surveys,

00:01:25.780 | so if people think this is narrow,

00:01:27.780 | they say, "Well, yeah, it is.

00:01:28.860 | It comes out of me, and if people are like me,

00:01:31.560 | then they might get help."

00:01:34.020 | It seems to me that all of these six things,

00:01:36.300 | I'm going to say, are rooted in sin

00:01:39.180 | rather than rooted in the desire to serve others

00:01:42.900 | and savor God.

00:01:44.700 | And I put it like that because I do think

00:01:48.460 | the great commandment does set the agenda for our mornings

00:01:53.460 | and our midday and our evening.

00:01:56.060 | We are to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind,

00:01:59.100 | strength when we wake up in the morning.

00:02:02.680 | And we are to prepare ourselves to love our neighbor,

00:02:06.540 | serve our neighbor as ourselves.

00:02:09.160 | And given how sinful John Piper is,

00:02:12.980 | and I presume others are like me,

00:02:15.560 | very few of us wake up with our whole soul spring-loaded

00:02:20.560 | to love God and love people.

00:02:23.500 | This takes some refocusing, to put it mildly.

00:02:27.180 | This takes some focusing of our souls

00:02:31.500 | by means of the Word of God and prayer.

00:02:34.780 | We have to remind ourselves about reality in the morning

00:02:38.500 | in order to begin to love God and love people

00:02:42.220 | the way we ought.

00:02:43.080 | So here are my six guesses for why so many of us

00:02:48.080 | are drawn almost addictively to consult with our phones

00:02:53.220 | or devices when we wake up in the morning.

00:02:56.740 | And the first three I call candy motives.

00:03:00.280 | And the second three I call avoidance motives.

00:03:04.660 | So first, I think we love to immediately take a bite

00:03:08.580 | of candy from our phones for our novelty hunger.

00:03:13.300 | Call this novelty candy.

00:03:15.220 | We simply love to hear what's new in the world

00:03:20.140 | or among our friends.

00:03:21.740 | What has happened since the last time

00:03:23.460 | we glanced at the world?

00:03:25.300 | Most of us like to be the first one to know something,

00:03:29.140 | and then we don't have to assume the humble posture

00:03:31.980 | of being told something that smart and savvy

00:03:35.500 | and on-the-ball people already know,

00:03:38.200 | unlike us who didn't know.

00:03:40.140 | And so we want to be quick and have knowledge

00:03:43.000 | of what's new in the world.

00:03:44.780 | Then maybe we can assume the role of being the informer

00:03:48.740 | rather than the poor, benighted people

00:03:51.460 | that need to be informed about what happened.

00:03:53.780 | And if they were smart enough,

00:03:55.180 | they would have been on their social media earlier.

00:03:57.200 | So there's a big ego trip, I think, in our novelty hunger.

00:04:01.300 | Second, I think we love to immediately take a bite

00:04:05.340 | out of our candy for ego hunger,

00:04:09.600 | our candy phone for ego hunger.

00:04:12.520 | What have people said about us

00:04:15.040 | since the last time we checked?

00:04:17.160 | Who has taken note of us?

00:04:20.280 | Who has retweeted us or mentioned us

00:04:23.100 | or liked us or followed us?

00:04:26.760 | In our fallen sinful condition,

00:04:29.580 | there is an inordinate enjoyment

00:04:34.680 | of the human ego being attended to.

00:04:39.260 | Some of us are weak enough, wounded enough,

00:04:42.760 | fragile enough, insecure enough

00:04:45.760 | that any little mention of us just feels so good.

00:04:48.920 | It's like somebody kissed us.

00:04:51.420 | Third, I think we love to immediately take a bite

00:04:55.460 | out of our candy for our entertainment hunger.

00:04:59.660 | So this is entertainment candy.

00:05:01.240 | There is on the internet, as we've all come to know,

00:05:05.200 | an endless stream of fascinating, weird, strange,

00:05:10.080 | wonderful, shocking, spellbinding, cute pictures

00:05:15.080 | and quotes and videos and stories and links.

00:05:19.080 | And many of us have gotten to the point

00:05:21.600 | where we're almost addicted to the need

00:05:23.880 | of something striking and bizarre

00:05:26.180 | and extraordinary and amazing.

00:05:28.520 | So at least those three candy motives, I think,

00:05:33.000 | are at work as we wake up in the morning

00:05:36.360 | and have these cravings that we satisfy with our phones.

00:05:41.360 | Then there are these three avoidance motives.

00:05:44.520 | In other words, these aren't positive desires for something.

00:05:48.040 | These are facing things in life

00:05:51.360 | that we simply want to avoid for another five minutes.

00:05:54.760 | First, I would call it the boredom avoidance.

00:05:57.680 | We'd wake up in the morning,

00:05:58.720 | we find that the day in front of us simply looks boring.

00:06:01.160 | It feels boring.

00:06:02.240 | There's nothing exciting about coming in our day

00:06:05.200 | and little incentive to get out of bed.

00:06:08.360 | And of course, the human soul hates a vacuum.

00:06:12.400 | And if there's nothing significant and positive

00:06:15.440 | and hopeful in front of us

00:06:17.640 | to fill the hope-shaped place in our souls,

00:06:21.760 | then we're gonna use our phones, perhaps,

00:06:24.640 | quickly to fill that hole

00:06:27.040 | and avoid having to step into all that boredom.

00:06:30.380 | Second, there is the responsibility avoidance.

00:06:34.000 | We have a role, father, mother, boss, whatever.

00:06:39.000 | There are burdens that are coming to us in the day

00:06:41.640 | that are fairly weighty.

00:06:43.500 | The buck stops with us.

00:06:45.040 | Many decisions have to be made about our children,

00:06:49.200 | the house, the car, the finances, dozens of other things.

00:06:53.460 | Life is full of weighty responsibilities

00:06:56.280 | and we feel inadequate for them.

00:06:59.040 | And we're lying there in bed feeling fearful,

00:07:01.680 | and maybe even resentful

00:07:03.160 | that people put so much pressure on us.

00:07:05.340 | And we just are not attracted to this day at all.

00:07:08.680 | And we would very happily avoid it

00:07:10.800 | for another five or 10 minutes.

00:07:12.240 | And there's the phone to help us do it.

00:07:15.440 | And the third avoidance incentive is hardship avoidance.

00:07:20.200 | You may be in a season of life

00:07:22.020 | where what you meet when you get out of bed

00:07:26.140 | is not just boredom and not just responsibility,

00:07:29.800 | but you meet mega relational conflict

00:07:34.080 | or issues of disease or disability in the home

00:07:39.080 | or friends who are against you

00:07:41.600 | or pain in your own body and your joints

00:07:44.760 | that you can barely get out of bed

00:07:46.760 | because it hurts so bad in the morning.

00:07:48.720 | And it's just easier to lie there a little longer

00:07:51.980 | and the phone adds to the escape.

00:07:55.480 | So those, Tony, are at least six of the things

00:07:58.640 | I thought of that are functioning probably in my incentive

00:08:02.000 | when I'm inclined to go there first before something else.

00:08:05.680 | And so there is a better way forward

00:08:08.200 | and I've probably used too much time on this.

00:08:10.240 | So maybe we'll have to do the better way at another time.

00:08:14.440 | - Yeah, let's do that tomorrow.

00:08:15.820 | This is Gold Pastor John.

00:08:16.960 | Thank you for your response here

00:08:18.720 | in helping us think through these issues.

00:08:20.240 | If you have a specific question about technology

00:08:22.440 | and technology habits in your life,

00:08:24.080 | we would love to get those questions from you.

00:08:26.960 | Send them to us via email at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.

00:08:31.960 | For everything you need to know about this podcast,

00:08:34.640 | go to desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.

00:08:39.500 | I'm your host, Tony Ranke.

00:08:40.560 | I'll see you tomorrow.

00:08:41.660 | (upbeat music)

00:08:44.240 | (upbeat music)

00:08:46.820 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Why Not to Check Your Phone in the Morning

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