The following is part of the Patheos book club for Living into Focus.

Living Into Focus: Choosing What Matters in an Age of Distraction by Arthur Boers, is a book that invites us into a journey of discovering what it means to be fully human. The author urges us to consider our usage of technology and how such use can deter us from truly focused lives. In this age of distraction, fueled by the age of technology, we’ve run around frivolously it trying to fill voids within our souls. The problem is that these sorts of voids can only be filled if we begin to remove to distraction and purse to focal priorities.

“When we allowing devices and machines to reside at the center of our lives, we displace values and practices that once enriched the quality of how we live. Which end up serving our gadgets instead of using them as tools to support our priorities. Technology itself becomes the center and purpose of how we live” (19).

Albert Borgmann is the source for our author’s philosophical perspective. For Borgmann, contemporary culture with its emphasis on both consumerism and technology, lead people down a path that actually deforms their human existence. Because of this, he names several ways in which technology subverts relationship and humanness. One of the most telling examples of this is the focal point of one’s home.

If you were like me, you’re living areas are most likely centered around the position of the television set. One thing that the author points out, is that such an orientation and once home can actually have an effect on the family dynamic. Television then, becomes the reason families gather in the living room. Instead, families ought to be gathering for times of conversation and shared experiences that offer opportunities for mutual involvement in activities beyond simply staring at a screen. This is one example of many. [Read more...]