Are Smartphones Making Us Modern Gnostics? | Classical Charlotte Mason Home Education | Common Mom

[@polinar5871]

If you decide to open up a book club for adults where you discuss topics like this, I would definitely join! I like your taste in books and how you express your opinion. I'm not into Mason Education, but I do enjoy your videos and the ideas you share.

[@thecommonplacehomeschool]

Polina, are you a little into Mason education yet? Am I rubbing off on you at all? ;) I will keep this in mind!

[@Creative2xmom]

I love this series. I'm a 40+ mom without any cell phone whatsoever and while I wish I had one about once every 3 months or so, I'm pretty happy to live without. I already spend too much time on my laptop so I can't imagine having 24 access to the internet via my phone even when away from home. The internet has made us lazy, inpatient, and fractured. Trying to have a conversation with others about true relationships is like speaking Greek to an alien. They struggle to pick up a fragment of what I'm trying to convey.

[@thecommonplacehomeschool]

I'm so glad you enjoy it! I usually say, "I'm a weak person." I know people can keep to certain self-imposed limitations but I had to just cut off the hand, so to speak. The best part, for me, was knowing I would have ZERO regrets about this when I look back on my life one day. I agree on the effects of the internet. There are pros and benefits to it, but I doubt the scales will lean in that direction in the end.

[@alexandrafitzmorris]

Do you have a landline? Curious how you stay in touch with modern expectations around communication.

[@rfg3149]

New subscriber here! I'm single, and not a mom, but my close friend recommended your videos on dumb phones. My mom homeschooled all the way through high school, and Charlotte Mason was a key factor in my education. I totally agree with all of your "rants" in this video. I have a dumb phone as well and I've been reflecting on and discussing each of your points for years now. Everywhere I look I see Gnosticism and Cartesian Dualism in our interactions with technology. The immaterial is being valued over the material, and as a result, our human dignity is being lost. So encouraged to hear others sharing these insights and striving to restore some simple sanity and humanity in the world. Thank you!

[@thecommonplacehomeschool]

Hello! So happy to have you here! Do you know of Marc Barnes? If you have the time, you would probably enjoy this: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aIfSgKKGmJ1gfZY&ab_channel=PintsWithAquinas It's my favorite tech-related interview to share with friends!

[@KarissalaCourHope]

We're friends with him! I just came across your channel today! Trying not to binge watch it all! We do CMEC. This was encouraging. I've been trying to get rid of my smart phone for awhile now! Also, I love your dress or shirt! I've been looking for something like that for awhile!

[@smithmusicstudies]

I love commenting on Meta with "Over my dead body." Gives new meaning to the phrase. I have been convicted over the last few years of seeing my body as an inconvenience. Between chronic illness and poor body image, I really got to a place where I hated my body. I have had to go to a childlike status in learning to love and care for my body in a godly way. Thank you for this.

[@thecommonplacehomeschool]

Right? I do get a little internal chuckle when I say it about virtual realities. Hannah, thank you for sharing about your struggles and growth! When the atmosphere around you dismisses or demeans the body (even unintentionally like in this conversation), I think it adds more hurdles to how one thinks of illness and image. What is already difficult is blurred even more by underlying, formative beliefs.

[@laurenbuchanan7073]

I was practically crying by the end of this! AMEN, SISTER! You are fighting the good fight and saying what needs to be said. May God bless your efforts and bless the ears that hear your message.

[@thecommonplacehomeschool]

Thank you, Lauren! I hope to pull people through the wardrobe to see God's world in its full beauty!

[@tvicory3]

Amen! ❤

[@ceciliascrafford1892]

Shortly after meeting my husband, he recited this Wendell Berry poem to me while we were running together one day. That's when I knew! Also, we have both been using simple phones for over a year and find it hard to imagine ever going back. I just love all of your content. Thank you so much!

[@thecommonplacehomeschool]

Reciting Berry while on a run?! That's the way to get a gal!

[@elizabethmiller3530]

I'm late to this video party, but so glad I am here. I've been on the fence between "downgrading" my phone for awhile and your insightful observations and thoughts on this topic have been the gentle nudge I've needed to move toward a dumber phone. Here's to upgrading my life!

[@thecommonplacehomeschool]

"Here's to upgrading my life!" I LOVE this sentiment!

[@jessica_wood]

Just read your comment up there and I feel very similarly about “short form” vs “long form” content and why whenever I make short form content it always feels like it’s cheapening whatever I’m trying to do. My husband and I decided to give up “idle phone scrolling” for lent and while I haven’t been perfect about it - it’s definitely making a difference - especially in the amount of reading we’ve both been able to do.

[@thecommonplacehomeschool]

"Idle" is a huge part of the smartphone/computer conversation! One thing I do is try to treat my computer as a "single task tech" (from Digital Minimalism). When I'm getting on to take care of YT alerts, I don't open other tabs or applications. This helps me from getting sucked into what I didn't want to do.

[@jessica_wood]

@@thecommonplacehomeschool I love that idea. We hated that we were picking up the phone for no reason other than habit! The phones should not be controlling us!

[@tvicory3]

I'm with you 100%. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences from this journey!

[@thecommonplacehomeschool]

You're quite welcome! It's been 10-ish months now and I can't fathom anything being a big enough "sell" to tempt me back.

[@staciejohnson3031]

I call "Smartphones," "Pocket Computers" or, drum roll, a PC. I call my flip phone, a Genius Phone. Gets people every time.

[@thecommonplacehomeschool]

Hahahah, love it. PC. I might take that. Well done.

[@thehomesmith]

The evil enchantment example is so so good. 👏👏

[@thecommonplacehomeschool]

Now that Lewis and Tolkien have me looking for it, I can't unsee it!

[@laurenkwarren]

I resonate with all of this so much.. The one thing I find ironic though, as I’m nodding and moving towards these decisions (been off of social media for almost 3 years and will never go back) but I am listening to/watching this….. on the internet…. 🤔

[@thecommonplacehomeschool]

Yes, that's a thing. I really like Cal Newport's framework from Digital Minimalism to ask how technology does offer a good thing and what rules you'll put around it (how/when/etc.) to keep it a good thing.

[@ninjanerdstudent6937]

Autumn is beautiful.

[@alyssawelch3845]

If you don’t mind a little twaddle.. you should read Ready Player One. A fascinating dystopian story of Meta meets video games. The Amazon show Upload is also very interesting. The premise is you can upload yourself in to an afterlife similar to a meta verse. And pay for tiers based on your wealth. I’m a big fan of dystopian novels and ideas. A Brave New World opened a passion for reading in me during high school. Now I devour books and ideas. (So I’m open to twaddle) You are not alone. I think on these things a lot. And also limit all technology. I used a digital minimalist phone for a year, original Light phone, but moving to a new location caused me to get a smart phone for the ease of maps. And add a data watch plan for minimizing distractions.

[@thecommonplacehomeschool]

Love A Brave New World and think we're headed in that direction (rather than, say, 1984). Doped up while pursuing pleasure and sacrificing liberty for "safety". Was Ready Player One made into a movie? I've watched something very similar and recognize the name!

[@gmacch]

You're not the only one! Halfway through this video I thought "Wow! She's right!" I wish there was a way to still just have Google Maps on a "Dumb" phone.

[@thecommonplacehomeschool]

Newer phones are working on it (like the Wisephone and the Light Phone)!

[@Melinda_Sue]

I'm here for these "unpopular opinions"! Great video. Will definitely be sharing it with others. (also, loving my Light Phone 2, I know you have a different phone, but you get it. Old phone has been off, screen time undoubtedly very much reduced, even with continued use of youtube.) "Over my dead body" in response to "meta" -- YUP.

[@thecommonplacehomeschool]

I looked at the Light Phone for almost two years! (So pretty.) I find that getting on the computer demands more intention for my use. (Usually work or a homeschool/co-op planning thing.)

[@emilyhicks6096]

Love this video!! Trying to fully commit to the idea. I wish I was confident enough to be without a gps, I feel like if I made a wrong turn I'd be lost forever LOL. I really want to do it though...

[@thecommonplacehomeschool]

Ah, Emily, you can (almost) always ask someone for help if you get lost!

[@SkylarWhitmire]

Wow, I love this.

[@thecommonplacehomeschool]

Thanks for listening, Skylar!

[@RevivalAcres]

Ohhh this is so good. We definitely forget how tainted our worldview can and has become when we embrace the normal of the world today, even what’s deemed as a “necessity”. Of course separating the pieces of our image bearing selves (mind, body, and soul) would be a great attack point. I’ve been contemplating leaving the smartphone behind too. Definitely catching up on this series. Do you discuss navigation/maps alternatives? Is a separate gps a thing now-a-days 😅

[@thecommonplacehomeschool]

Yes! We accept as "normal" and "necessary" so many things for which we can't give account historically, theologically, formatively, etc. Blind spots! I'm still making do with paper and pen but have plans to buy a GPS for the car for longer travel. I'm a wedding photographer and if I was just traveling, I'd be fine depending on a map. But not making it to a wedding on time? Aye.

[@angieclifton9161]

I enjoyed the poem! In my opinion, I can see an inanimate object through picture and be fine. When it comes to living things... that is when I need the full experience.

[@thecommonplacehomeschool]

Wendell Berry is a favorite! Thanks for listening!

[@livingtheorganicway]

I don't have one either. I have been without one for a year.

[@thecommonplacehomeschool]

We're a growing number! I'm encouraged!

[@HonzaPokorny]

I'd love a reference for the Angelina Stanford quote.

[@thecommonplacehomeschool]

It’s been a bit since I recorded this and I listen to a lot of The Lit Life but my guess is it’s in here: www.theliterary.life/104/

[@thecommonplacehomeschool]

Or this one: www.theliterary.life/156-2/

[@HonzaPokorny]

@@thecommonplacehomeschool Amazing, thank you!

[@HonzaPokorny]

@@thecommonplacehomeschool It was this one, around 43:20 "A time traveler goes back to the Middle Ages, right? And he pulls out a phone and, you know, and what is Connecticut Yankee. Yeah. And it's always what sorcery is this, right? Because the medieval person is like, there's someone talking in your pocket. I mean, I think a television is I think the Internet is magic. Don't try to explain to me the ones in the zeros. It is magic. OK, I'm more likely to believe there are fairies in my TV projecting this image than that ones and zeros did. But like you said, math is magic. And again, we don't think about like that. We say about math is real and scientific and fact. But, you know, it was kind of magic to people. Again, not forbidden magic, but it was outside of the natural realm. So we just accept as this is normal facts, so many things that everyone historically would have said that's magic. And if you use magic in terms of it's out of the ordinary of the natural realm, yes, our Wi-Fi, airplanes, we live in a very magical time. We just don't have eyes to see that. So, yeah, Tolkien and Lewis both thought that the real witchcraft was technology. And again, we don't even think about that. They would say that the iPhone in your hand has more in common with the witchcraft that's forbidden in scripture than the wizards in these books do."

[@GodwardPodcast]

Doesn’t reading rectangular books make us a disembodied brain in the same way that our rectangular phones do? Good vid.

[@thecommonplacehomeschool]

Not at all! That's a fun rabbit hole to fall into. Enjoy!

[@Xeoncross]

Glad I had my smart phone to watch this on😂

[@thecommonplacehomeschool]

And I'm glad for the camera, the computer, and the internet connection to get the word out. It's a strange world.

[@darnellsteelers]

Its good to have a flip phone im using the TCL flip pro i enjoy it more better than touch screen

[@thecommonplacehomeschool]

Yes! Flip phones are actually lovely. I can't remember why I ever thought I needed a smartphone.

[@darnellsteelers]

@@thecommonplacehomeschool true touch screens are a waist of money

[@kathrynfarrell3736]

This has challenged me in a piercing and disturbing way. I pray I will keep moving towards this goodness🙏

[@thecommonplacehomeschool]

Further up and further in, Kathryn! It's been a rewarding experience for sure.

[@RosieJ7223]

Autumn, you are not wrong here.

[@thecommonplacehomeschool]

You might enjoy reading a little deeper into this idea with Paul Kingsnorth and Marc Barnes! I began reading them after I started this series and they're far wiser than I am!

[@garlandofbooks4494]

Some pushback: I enjoy lit life podcast, exclusively from my smart phone, haha. That particular quote from Angelina is one place I disagree with her. Her quote sounds smart, but it’s not, and that’s where the argument totally loses me. She doesn’t get to decide above God what witchcraft is, or what is more “like” forbidden magic. The Bible is fairly explicit. It doesn’t make declarations about what is dehumanizing. It names divination and casting spells among the forbidden things, explicitly, specifically. Deuteronomy 18:9-12. In the HP books, the “good guys” take divination classes as regular “good guy” classwork, obviously they regularly cast spells, so Angelina’s statement is wrong on its face. In the Bible, there is a specific sentence for partaking in sorcery, divination etc. Revelation 21:8… It’s not a joke. HP himself uses sorcery in modern day Britain sometimes for petty, self-gratifying come-uppance tricks on people, things that would make him feel better, more powerful over those dumb bad people, bullying them back. Wielding power over others to glorify self, in no pursuit of righteousness. I don’t see evidence that divination / sorcery / witchcraft in the Bible are sins of “living less humanly”. They are detestable to the Lord, sins of grasping for power that you should not have, desiring power and idolizing self/ demonic over desiring and trusting God. They are part of the reason for Israel’s exiles. They are rebellion to God; they are Luciferan. A smart phone / pocket computer is a tool, like a watch. You could argue that when you attach a watch incessantly to your body, it is dehumanizing. You could. I think “addiction” to smart phone use is a more apt comparison, like gazing at wine that sparkles in the glass. One could be obsessed with their watch, too, to the point of devaluing the humans around them to stay on time and on task. I could easily imagine a stay home mom of yesteryear with addiction to talking incessantly on the curly-corded house phone rather than being present with her family. Is this “more of forbidden magic” than literal Bible-described witchcraft? Or how about the father at the breakfast table or man on a park bench - completely concealed, barricaded, behind a newspaper rather than being present where he is? This could literally happen with books, also, and one can walk around with one’s nose in a book. It seems similar to smart phone usage today. I don’t think watches or smart phones or house phones or newspapers or books are sorcery themselves, though they could be explicitly used towards that end. The technology of ink on paper can be used for evil, and in Acts 19:18-20 those who had used them for evil sorcery burned their valuable books - and a beautiful book-burning it was! Disembodied brains can’t escape the evils of the heart. “But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.” ‭‭Jesus in Matthew‬ ‭15‬:‭18‬-‭19‬

[@thecommonplacehomeschool]

Hey there! Love pushback; it helps me clarify my thoughts (to myself!) and helps me see my blindspots. Thank you for listening and engaging! (I'm going to be sharing a part two to the fairytales/magic conversation soon, so I'm not going to dive into the magic in this little comment but will touch on the smartphone/tool notes!) So, when I say "living humanly", I mean living in submission to God in all things-natural or spiritual. Christ is our ideal type, the perfect image bearer, and so, in his humanity, he shows us what it means to be fully human. There's a spectrum to this: we all know and recognize that some people act "like animals" when they give into base desires or are crippled/twisted into something unrecognizable by sin, right? It works in the other direction too. We can become *more* human by leaning into the patterns of flourishing/obedience to God. (This is why classical ed speaks of humanizing education/living!) So, any act or practice that turns us from God is to make us "less human". (Ie. Witchcraft, sorcery, acting like machines, etc.) This changes the modern Christian conversation of neutrality and "freedom in Christ" to do things because everything answers the questions, "What is a person?", "How are we formed?", and "To what end ought we aim?" and if the answers violate God's answers, we're not free to engage with them regardless of how normal they are in the modern world. Which leads me to the smartphone. You wrote, "sins of grasping for power that you should not have, desiring power and idolizing self/ demonic over desiring and trusting God" and I loved this line. This is the root issue and it's what I've been arguing the phone cultivates in significant ways that don't look "bad" for us. Grasping for power we don't have ("knowing" everything, "being" everywhere, "accomplishing" more than is humanly possible without harming ourselves), desiring power (social media, influencing, ease of Amazon one-click, constant availability via email and texting), and idolizing self/demonic (online platforms, "followings" around creators, etc.). Yes, these are all sins of every time and place, but the form of the smartphone encourages these things in a way that most moderns don't realize or consider before sliding them into their back pockets. So about the neutral "tool"...form is another thing. Your points about being book or old telephone gluttons are fair. We can flame sinful desires in other ways and people have been doing it since the exile from the Eden! But the form through which we engage with ideas and knowledge dictates the way we understand, apply, seek out, and more. It shapes us according to its answers to those three questions from above. (Amusing Ourselves to Death is a great read on this!) It changes epistemology. (Think of how tv made the news entertainment, which spread to education, theology, and more.) Certain forms demand better things of us when we engage (epic poetry, for example). I think it was Andy Crouch who said, "What asks little of you develops little in you." The smartphone is a convenience tool that, I think, is forming little good in us. (Or, to put it another way, more harm than the phone-attached-to-the-wall.) Hope that adds some context to my short video and, again, thanks for hopping in!

[@garlandofbooks4494]

@@thecommonplacehomeschool My mind can think 2 ways about the living humanly idea. There are sins and crimes that we think of as “inhumane” but in another way, such cruelty is incredibly human, animals don’t have the capacity to be as purposefully and sadistically cruel as humans, though they may kill. We are born with a sin nature, and also made in the image of God. We are not good nor evil. We are sinners, and have the right to become children of God. We are the only beings that God became flesh to sacrifice himself to rescue us from our sins. So I can entertain both ideas, that living less humanly could be when we let our hearts be turned to stone, deadening conscience and rejecting the Holy Spirit. But also that is becoming entirely human in a way, rejecting divine help. We should live righteously, faithfully, redeemed, that is clear from scripture. I think more along the lines of faith credited as righteousness, Romans 4. We’ve already all utterly failed at being human without credited righteousness from faith. I guess you are saying that being most human is perfection, Matt 5:48, being more human is being more righteous than disobedient, different terminology than I’m used to. I can also think of animals on Malacandra being “unmade”, or the Narnian talking animals turning back into regular beasts, though no Narnia-world humans suffered a similar fate, so it’s all more on a metaphorical or poetical level to me than some direct allegorical or theological level. I don’t think humans can actually become beasts, no longer human. I believe that the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life for humans. We don’t get to diminish to beasts and thereby avoid the wages of our sin. I think the conversation is very interesting regarding what shades of things smart phones could possibly do. I don’t like the encroachment of technology either. And yet, my smart phone has been the tool that has led me through audiobooks of and about Charlotte Mason, A Delectable Education podcast, lit life podcast, where I have found and ordered the vast majority of our home education books that we will be using, where I have hosted BibleThinker podcast and foundations worldview podcast that have been a blessing to my spiritual life and motherly discipleship journey. I have shopped quality wool and linen clothing for my household which I never see in local stores, brought my food from afar like the Prov 31 woman 😉😂 (azure coop) of quality and content not found in local stores. I have not used it to engage in sins like divination, though I am sure it could be a tool used for that. So you won’t be able to convict me that I have done something worse than sorcery because I have a smart phone. I can certainly see how some Christians might have engaged in great sins via smart phone, and perhaps they should choose to abstain, be smart phone teetotalers. But to say use of smart phones is sin for everyone period, worse than sorcery, or “more forbidden than”, seems legalistic and pharisaical. I am much more open to the rest of your and Angelina’s arguments without this kind of false scaffolding, it totally jars me out of the rest of what is being said. I’m not claiming reading Hp is the same as doing divination or sorcery, but it is “what you read about” the good guys doing in the books which is what her quote claimed, and an argument that having a smart phone is worse than sorcery or divination is unbiblical. Not all sins are the same, nor do they bear the same penalty. My main point in responding was, neither Angelina nor anyone else can claim that certain things that may be tools used for good or evil, that may have some attention-diminishing effects (which are not desirous, but are also not a sin) and other effects, even when used for good ends - are worse sin than clearly defined sin that carries the death penalty in the Bible. I don’t find myself to be omnipotent or omnipresent because I have a smart phone. I certainly don’t feel like I’ve accomplished more than humanly possible 😆, rather quite the opposite. But, I can see the value of considering these regularly, and examining our hearts and desires, redirecting towards God daily! And that would be part of the thinking love we owe our children, as well. Temperance in the older sense, moderation, could be an exercise to employ, abstinence is not the only tool, and prescribed abstinence would be unwarranted. Romans 14. Amusing yourselves to death is definitely on my TBR! Any time I save from smart phone usage, I hope is reinvested in meaningful time spent with humans, in hospitality and fellowship and discipleship. I don’t have regular reliable access to a computer, so my mini computer is nice.

[@garlandofbooks4494]

I guess it could be perhaps that you are arguing that cell phone usage is itself a form of sorcery/witchcraft, if it is reaching for powers like omnipresence, omnipotence, future + all knowledge. But to be convicting, one would have to be able to define sins specifically to individuals. I am not convinced that cell phone usage is sorcery.

[@thecommonplacehomeschool]

@@garlandofbooks4494 Oh, I agree. I wouldn't want to say something is "a worse sin than clearly defined sin...in the Bible" and I didn't do that. (Nor did Angelina for that matter!) I said that Lewis and Tolkien would have thought the smartphone had more in common with the magic prohibited in scripture than some of the things you read in HP. There are overlapping malformative (turning from God's path of life) characteristics. Have you read The Abolition of Man? Lewis argues that through man's manipulative mastery of nature and self through technology (not his God-given role in creation), he will eventually erase man. There will be no more persons. No more image bearers as God intended them to be. And two of his examples are birth control and airplanes. He was highly critical of technology that allowed man to live un-humanly and wary of the cosmic imaginary shift that happened between the pre-modern and modern world. But he loved a "magic" story for its ability to lift the veil and show, for a moment, Reality as it actually is: a cosmic civil war between Good and evil where Good will prevail and bring healing to the people and the place in the Story. That's why I think her comment is fair; Lewis, who hated newspapers and cars, probably would take issue with the smartphone. But beyond the Lewis example, I would not say smartphones are a sin (or a sin for everyone). No, no! What I've been saying is I think they *form* us in the wrong direction, and perhaps we should be asking ourselves if the benefits are worth that cost. What you repeatedly think, love, and do shapes who you are; that's habits 101, right? This series is looking at the habits cultivated through the smartphone (specifically, convenience, preference for machines, and lies that we are like God in ways we're not) and then asks if these habits are good ones to have? I've not said having a smartphone is a sin; I've said I think it might be hurting us as persons. Thanks for chatting! Hope that cleared up some of the confusion about what I said!

[@brookenicoley90]

I call mine a basic phone 🤷‍♀️

[@thecommonplacehomeschool]

Perfect. That's exactly what it is.

[@brookenicoley90]

@@thecommonplacehomeschool I kind of got offended when I first heard someone call it a dumb phone! 😆