Smartphones and Solitude

Sherry Turkle, in her book Alone Together (New York: Basic Books, 2011), comments on the relationship between smart phones, constant connectivity, and solitude. “But a stream of messages makes it impossible to find moments of solitude, time when other people are showing us neither dependency nor affection. In solitude we don’t reject the world but have the space to think our own thoughts. But if your phone is always with you, seeking solitude can look suspiciously like hiding” (203).

For Turkle, solitude means having time to ourselves wherein no one is giving to us or taking from us. Solitude is being alone with our own thoughts and feelings. This discipline is crucial for emotional and spiritual health, and for creativity, but she is concerned that ceaseless connectivity is diminishing our desire for it, and damaging our ability to do it. Constant attachment to our smartphones is training us not to be alone even for a few minutes, indeed, some can’t even be alone for a few seconds.

The underlying issues here are partly internal and partly external. On the one hand, we are complicit in the plague of constant connectivity and part of us doesn’t want to be without our smartphones. On the other hand, the world around us has come to expect nearly instant response to texts, emails, and phone calls so that if we do not make ourselves available we are made to feel guilty. Like we’re hiding. Like we’re being irresponsible.

So there are psychological and sociological reasons why solitude is drowning in the ocean of connectivity, but the reasons are not as compelling as they might seem and in any case they are surmountable. So let me close this post by asking a series of questions:

1. As Christians we would alter Turkle’s definition of solitude to include time spent alone with God. Do you see the value of having uninterrupted time with God? With your own thoughts and feelings?
2. Do you make time for solitude each day, or at least several times per week? 
3. What distractions most impede your desire and practice of solitude? How can you remove them?
4. What aspects of solitude most feed you when you’re alone, and how can you enhance them?

I pray that as we reflect upon these things, we will learn to value what God values (time spent with him) over what this world values (constant connectivity). I pray that we will learn to desire what God desires, and to overcome our false, internal desires.