The new techs as friendly fire

WE need to be amply warned by this danger. Those powerful new technologies that we have now, that can give us a lot of benefits, can also become a big threat to our spiritual, moral and even physical life. They can indeed become a treacherous ally that can turn us in, or worse, a friendly fire that can kill us spiritually, morally and, yes, even physically, if not handled properly.

How many cases are we witnessing of people getting spoiled and corrupted by the improper use of these technologies? It is truly heartbreaking to see them dominated and enslaved by these technologies, falling into all kinds of anomalies, like a certain addiction, proneness to laziness, idleness, useless and dangerous curiosities and distractions, and all forms of ego-tripping.

There are now notorious cases of people wasting time and energy because of these new technologies. Worse, there are instances when the new technologies become powerful tools at the instance of evil and malice. People can easily fall into pornography, for example, then trapped in it, and proceed to commit all sorts of perversions. Pieces of evidence for this are aplenty.

When no clear guiding criteria are used, when we use them with hardly any sense of discipline and a certain detachment, there can be no way but for us to succumb to our weaknesses and the many temptations around.

And the evil things spawned are not just in the area of sex, but also in the area of decency, delicacy, good taste and, most important, charity. How many times have we witnessed and even made to participate in useless arguments and feuds especially in the social media? And so, instead of leading us to God and to serve others, we re led to sin. In the worst scenario, these technologies can generate vicious cycles.

But for all that, we cannot deny the objective usefulness of these new technologies. We should neither ban nor demonize them just because of some bad potentials they have. What is needed is to learn how to use them properly.

I believe there are already initiatives in this regard. We should take advantage of them and develop and fine-tune them further. But a very fundamental element in any effort to have dominion over these new technologies is to infuse them with the spirit of Christ who taught us to love the cross as a way to deal with our weaknesses, temptations and sin itself.

Christ’s cross is the ultimate antidote to all the evils that we have to contend with in this life. We should try to figure out how we can be guided by the cross while using the new technologies. The cross means discipline, detachment, abandonment in God’s providence rather than relying mainly on what we like, etc.

We need to concretize these different aspects of the cross, like: we can give ourselves a time limit in the use of the Internet, for example, or we should have a clear purpose in using these new technologies and not just allow ourselves to surf to wherever.

Especially, when we are alone, and even more, when we are already in bed, these gadgets should be a no-no. We have to respect our need for rest and sleep. There can be a lot more specific guidelines that can help us.