15 Tips for Minimizing Tech Time

Ever since I was a teenager, when I read Jonathan Edwards resolutions, I’ve been hyper-sensitive to time wasting. In fact, I can occasionally have an unhealthily zealous view of time.

For example, I don’t vacation well or rest well. True rest is time well spent. Yet, one realm of life where time-vigilance is vital is technology and social media. Let me give you two principles and then a list of suggestions to consider for your technology and social media time.

Baseline Principles

Before we get to practical tips to protect time from technology, let’s apply some of Edwards resolutions to our technology and social media. A little background info here: the great American Puritan and thinker wrote most of these before he turned 20.

Edwards Resolutions

Resolution 1

Resolved, that I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God’s glory, and my own good, profit and pleasure, in the whole of my duration, without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriad’s of ages hence. Resolved to do whatever I think to be my duty and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. Resolved to do this, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many and how great soever.

Resolution 5

Resolved, never to lose one moment of time; but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can.

Long before Instagram and Fortnite, Edwards provided practical wisdom to apply to our considerations of time and technology. Let’s be resolved to do all things to God’s glory, our own spiritual good, and the wellbeing of others. And let’s resolve to not lose moments on transient technology and meaningless media.

Biblical considerations

These resolutions draw on a wide swath of Scripture, but here are two important texts on using time well, Psalm 90 and Ephesians 5:15–16.

The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away….So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. (Psalm 90:10; 12)

Verse 10 gives us perspective on the brevity of our lives. He’s basically saying we’re fortunate if we get eighty years here! Moments, hours, days, months, and years are like birds that fly away before you realize they’ve taken off. Verse 12 gives us a mission for our moments: take time seriously so that we may maximize it wisely. We only have one life to pursue wisdom and one life to use it. We must count our time carefully.

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. (Ephesians 5:15–16)

Note this is the second biblical passage that links the nature of time to the need for wisdom. Paul has been urging believers to this point to “walk worthy of the gospel to which they’ve been called” (look at 4:1). The entire context of the instruction of chapters 4–6 is living out the gospel as Christ lives in us. So here, gospel living means time-investing. We should redeem our moments because Christ has redeemed our eternity. Every millisecond of my life was blood-bought. We must invest our time carefully.

Shotgun Suggestions

At this point, I’m going to fire off a bunch of suggestions for counting and investing time with technology and social media. I do hope you see their plain biblical basis and practical value, though.

The suggestions range from phone usage to video-games. I’ve included 15 suggestions. Why? I came to that number by adding up my kid’s ages. That’s safer than using my wife’s age! I pray these help you count and invest the million tiny moments of life.

• When you get home from work, take your phone straight to your room and put it away. Your family has been waiting for you all day.
• If you absolutely must work on your phone (I’m often there myself), communicate that’s what you’re doing so that you teach value for work and clarify you’re not ignoring anybody. (Ironically, as I’m writing this, I just had to practice this one because my three-year-old asked if she could watch something on my computer.)
• Don’t be a screen-gazer. If there’s no legitimate reason to look at a screen, find something more valuable for your eyes.
• No phones at tables unless there’s an understood purpose. Our dinner table is the “throw-phone-no-phone-zone.” If we have our phone at the dinner table it gets tossed from the table (lightly). This has become a fun game in our house. You might want to get Apple Care, though.
• Teach your children with both terminology and usage that phones are tools, not sources of life or happiness. Something like “mommy and daddy are actually happier when we’re not stuck in our phone.” And if that’s not true, you’ve got a greater concern.
• Don’t rush technology into your kids hands. Until they actually need to communicate with you for safety purposes, phones aren’t justifiably safe.
• The earlier you introduce video games, the earlier you introduce the fights pertaining to video games. Don’t open worlds of wasted time, mature themes, dangerous connections with strangers, and online bullying too early.
• Have time restrictions and enforce them. If your kid overplays their games regularly or stretches screentime, it’s a clear indication they don’t expect you to take your own rules seriously. Don’t be surprised when they don’t.
• Communicate the “why” behind the danger of devices (media, strangers, sexual temptation), otherwise you have no redemptive basis for enforcement.
• Don’t be a digital wanderer. You’ll end up in a dangerous land or grow comfortable with an idle mind.
• Create a family culture of technology being used worshipfully. Have family worship from an iPad, watch some Christian based shows, teach them to send encouraging text messages or post Scripture, etc.
• Ask your kids if they feel like they compete with your phone for attention. If they say yes, apologize, hug them, and take the change seriously.
• Cultivate relationships beyond screens. If your kids can’t carry on conversations, look people in the eye, or understand the need for human contact, don’t feed the deficiency by letting them hide behind a screen.
• Take them to the magical land called outside. God’s creation and natural technology is life-giving. Man’s creation, called media, can be a leech.
• Enjoy a family culture where identity in Christ and being loved in the home are the most satisfying values, not how many likes they get, which iPhone they have, or how many levels they beat.

I hope this has been an encouragement and these suggestions are practical helps for you. This is a lot to tackle, I know. Perhaps pick one or two and try to implement them progressively into the rhythm of your life.

Be resolved.

Count.

Invest.