OK warning right up front – there are a lot of links here – don’t even try to read them all. But there is also something for everyone if you’re interested in developments in our increasing technological society and how as Christians we live well in that. I’ve done my best to group them to make it easy to navigate and find what you might be looking for.

Disclaimer: I’m not endorsing any or all of these articles, just that they’re interesting and we can learn something from most of them whether they are Christian or not.

You’ll get to smartphones quick because I reckon most of us need to think about those delightful machines in our pockets but before then I want to pull out one article for special attention.

The Amish understand a life-changing truth about technology the rest of us don’t 

There are killer quotes and insights on almost every paragraph. Here are a few that stood out to me:

It’s not that the Amish view technology as inherently evil. No rules prohibit them from using new inventions. But they carefully consider how each one will change their culture before embracing it. And the best clue as to what will happen comes from watching their neighbors.

The reason the Amish rejected television is because it is a one-way conduit to bring another society into their living rooms. 

As soon as you have a car, your ability to leave your local community becomes significantly easier.

I asked one Amish person why they didn’t use automobiles. He simply smiled and turned to me and said, “Look what they did to your society.” And I asked what do you mean? “Well, do you know your neighbor? Do you know the names of your neighbors?” And, at the time, I had to admit to the fact that I didn’t.

We redesigned our world to be safe for automobiles and dangerous for children.

On smartphones

• The Ubiquity of Smartphones, as Captured by Photographers
• This photo of people taking photos haunts me
• Two quotations – the first one is a stinger
• We Have Reached Peak Screen. Now Revolution Is in the Air. (I don’t think we’ve reached peak screen at all)
• I tracked my iPhone usage for a week and this is what I learned
• Nikola Tesla predicted the smartphone in 1926 (this is amazing)
• On Seeing the Dead Sea Scrolls and Pondering My Own Household God
• The lost art of concentration: being distracted in a digital world
• 7 strategies to keep your phone from taking over your life
• I Want To Buy Your Cheapest Phone!
• Would you buy a smartphone that does less than your current model?

On kids & technology

• 10 Amazing Websites to Activate Your Child’s Passion for Learning
• Kids’ Brainpower Tied to Exercise, Sleep and Limited Screen Time
• Children Really Need to “Go Play Outside” to Prevent a Serious Eyesight Problem, Researchers Warn

On society & technology

• Underpaid and exhausted: the human cost of your Kindle (Disclosure: I own 2 kindles)
• I subscribe, therefore I am?
• On Believing What You See

On the future

• Yuval Noah Harari on what the year 2050 has in store for humankind
• Survival of the Richest
• God is in the machine

On religion, church & technology

• We Need a Theology of Technology
• The Technological Church (long read)
• Scripture Before Phone, and Other Habits That Could Change Your Life
• Distrust and Disdain in the Internet Age
• Pastoring in light of technology: Shepherding souls shaped by screens
• 3 Ways Googling Hinders Your Growth and Your Church
• Blockchain was always a religion. And now it’s got its own church

On a cashless future

• Spare change is dying, and the UK’s homeless people are worried
• Sweden’s Push to Get Rid of Cash Has Some Saying, ‘Not So Fast’
• Why owls might suffer in a cashless-society
• Hang on to your cash. This dash to digitise payments is dangerous
• The cashless society is a con – and big finance is behind it

On robots & artificial intelligence

• Will Robots Rule the World?
• Does theology help makes sense of Artificial Intelligence?
• The Technology That Can Destroy The Church and the World As We Know It (the headline is a little overdramatic)
• Should we care that the sex robots are coming?
• This Is How Stressed Elon Musk Is About Artificial Intelligence (there’s an awful lot of hype in this area, don’t believe at least half of it)

On driverless cars

• Why you have (probably) already bought your last car
• Driverless cars are here – but the roads aren’t ready for them

On the human body & technology (transhumanism)

• Extreme biohacking: the tech guru who spent $250,000 trying to live forever
• Evading death and mind-uploading: The ambition of transhumanism (paywall article)
• Thousands of Swedes are inserting microchips into themselves – here’s why
• The Transhumanism Revolution: Oppression Disguised as Liberation
• Transhumanism (a poem)

On practical tips & advice

• How to Clean Your Filthy, Disgusting Laptop
• How to Wipe Your Smart Gadgets Before You Get Rid of Them
• The Best Productivity Apps for Mac in 2018: Unbiased Reviews (I’m not a Mac user so I can’t speak to any of this but I was sent the list by a reader, so am happy to include it)
• You Need to Deal With Your Digital Legacy Right Now