Swipe and Scroll

The Downfall of a Generation.

Life demands attention. It requires from us the ability to maintain focus for a prolonged period of time. Being attentive in life isn’t a luxury or an option; it is a necessity.

It therefore seems counterintuitive that although we have made significant progress in creating support systems that allow us to stretch the frontiers of what we can do, we are slowly becoming a disabled generation.

The social media system is one of these support systems. It allows us to stay in touch, keep abreast with issues, and also increases the scope of our outreach. However, it has been a bottomless pit of information, parcelled in increasingly smaller parcels and bits.

This is the allure and promise: that you only need a very short amount of time to know about something, anything that requires a longer time of exposure isn’t worth it, and you can simply move on from anything you don’t intend to pay attention to.

The fallacy of this becomes obvious.

Bit-sized information hardly ever conveys the full picture about anything. Time is required to fully appreciate any information significantly, and so you simply can’t swipe and scroll your way through life. The consequence of this is a generation that simply can’t pay attention. Everything has to the short and sweet.

When we turn to the scriptures, we find a different set of expectations and demands.

[20] My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings.

[21] Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart.

Proverbs 4:20-21 (KJV)

Whilst the world says “scroll and keep scrolling, swipe up and keep swiping, keep consuming the information without making sense or meaning out of it”, Scripture’s call and demand of us is to pay attention. Rather than scroll away, we are told to not let the word of God depart from our eyes (and heart).

This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have success.

Joshua 1:8 (KJV)

We are to keep the word of God before our eyes and also our hearts. The swipe-and-scroll culture is detrimental to not only progress our of faith, but also in the generalities of life.

We are to be mindful and live mindfully.