Carlos Whittaker: Rage Is The Drug—Your Phone Is The Needle

Recently, influencer Carlos Whittaker posted on Instagram that rage is a drug, and your phone is the needle. If that’s so, what is the cure?

Of course, Whittaker doesn’t mean just your phone, but whatever device you use to consume media, and especially social media. The Christian author, blogger, speaker, and worship leader says, “If rage is filling your heart…see the means of which it is entering your soul, and remove it.” Your soul, Whittaker says, only has a certain capacity to carry such emotions, and many of us are carrying too much.

Getting Reconnected

Whittaker is the author of many inspirational books. Not long ago, he conducted an experiment to detox from his phone and get reconnected to himself and to God. According to Goodreads:

“In the summer of 2022, podcaster and author Carlos Whittaker spent seven weeks entirely screen free, splitting his time between a monastery, an Amish farm, and home with his family. Blending the inspiring story of this experiment with practical guidance, Whittaker reveals how you can reset your relationship with screens and step into a life of real connection.”

The result was Whittaker’s book, “Reconnected: How 7 Screen-Free Weeks with Monks and Amish Farmers Helped Me Recover the Lost Art of Being Human.” Not everyone can take a break like this author did. But Whittaker offers many practical ways to step back from the phone and step up to more important things.

This past Lenten season, I read his book while giving up social media for forty days. When I would normally open Facebook, Instagram, Threads, or Bluesky, I decided instead to read books, engage with the humans around me, and even check in with God from time to time. Whittaker’s writing helped me to get reconnected in a way that few books have done.

Some Suggestions for Disconnecting

Whittaker’s book is definitely worth reading, not just for his practical advice, but also for the rich stories he tells. Some of the reasonable suggestions he makes for decreasing your phone’s control over you are:

Charge your phone outside the bedroom
Don’t pick up your phone first thing in the morning
Set your phone to “Do Not Disturb”
Use print media instead of apps whenever possible
Embrace boredom, solitude, and getting lost
Notice, wonder, and savor the beauty around you
Rebuild rhythms from older or simpler ways
Reset relationship with technology (rather than demonize it)

By implementing some of the suggestions in Carlos’s book, I began to feel a sense of regained freedom and spiritual peace during this past Lent. Of course, since social media is a huge way that I share my writing, I didn’t disconnect from it altogether—while I did post my blog to it, I didn’t look at it. You don’t have to give it up cold turkey, either. But, if you can find ways to reduce your phone’s grasp on your mind, you can find peace.

The Drugs and the Needle

Many of the people I work with struggle with addiction. So, when I heard Carlos compare rage to a drug and social media to the needle, I took notice. He makes a good point. There’s something addictive about the combination of the phone itself, combined with social media. It’s a quick fix, ready for you whenever you want to pull it from your pocket. Your phone delivers a powerful hit of bright colors and sounds, like junk food or narcotics for the brain. It makes all your sensors light up and rewards you with every tap and click. And, unlike a book with boring cream-colored pages and unmoving black print, the constant scrolling satisfies all your ADHD urges.

Plus, there’s the drug of outrage. A 24/7 newsfeed means you’re not just getting an occasional hit—you’re hooked up to an IV drip of constant threat and fear. You check your device throughout the day, somehow shocked that those people you dislike did another horrifying thing. And, every time they do, they confirm your bias that they’re nightmare people. Then, when their followers support their evil deeds on social media, it confirms your assumption that they’re big dummies and you are morally righteous and more intelligent than those deceived, brainwashed sheep.

Superadditive and Superaddictive

According to the National Library of Medicine, “When 2 or more drugs are given in combination the effect may be superadditive (synergistic); that is, they may demonstrate action that is above what is expected from their individual potencies and efficacies.” In other words, the effectiveness of combining certain drugs is greater than the sum of their parts. So, 1+1=3.

This is what happens when you combine the drugs of rage and self-righteousness and deliver them through the needle of your phone. The result is that the ingredients become superadditive and superaddictive. Together, they’re worse than the sum of their parts.

And this is when terrible things start to happen. You lose friendships over Facebook. You alienate people on Instagram. Work associates become idiots who support the wrong political view. And it’s all because you’re hooked. The needle and the drugs have a hold on you. If you don’t detox, someone’s going to get hurt.

Re-Tuning Your Algorithm

How can you detox from the poisons of rage and self-righteousness? Besides reading Carlos Whittaker’s books, I suggest retuning the algorithms on your social media. You can’t retrain the AI—this is something that computer scientists do when constructing an AI model. But you can retune the algorithm by nudging it into better alignment with the things you want to see. By re-training your feed, you can affect the things you see on social media, which can keep you from being so rageful and lead to a greater degree of spiritual peace.

Beyond tweaking your algorithm on social media, you can retune the algorithm of your brain. This will help you move away from outrage and towards inner peace.

These two topics—retraining your social media feeds and rewiring your brain—are the subjects of my next article, “How to Retune Your Algorithm for Spiritual Peace.” I invite you to Breathing Space next week. Until then, don’t forget to breathe.