“The Lenten season is conducive to using digital media as sparingly and wisely as possible. I insist on this because, in this hyper-technological world in which we live, nothing creates addiction as technology does,” Bishop Ignatie of Husi stressed in his sermon at the diocesan Cathedral in Husi at the end of the Forgiveness Vespers on Sunday.

His Grace confessed: “I am almost ashamed when I go to an airport and see hundreds of people there, all with phones in their hands. And I am one of them – instead of having a book, or enjoying what is around me, or praying, and not sitting with my eyes sunken into the screen, hypnotized by what the device I use offers me through scrolling.”

In this context, the Bishop of Husi urged us to overcome the addictions and passions to which we have become accustomed.

Fasting from technology

“In general, these days, we talk a lot about physical fast (abstaining from food) and spiritual fast (abstaining from sins). We lose sight of the fact that the era of digital media, in which we live, should also make us sensitive to another type of fasting – fasting from technology, fasting from using social networks.”

“We are all addicted; it’s an addiction. It is very difficult to imagine our lives without these devices. The phone (smartphone) has become a minicomputer, which we have permanently in our pockets, inseparable from it. We even sleep with it near our heads, and, including in our privacy, we always carry it in our hands,” the hierarch noted.

“Recent research confirms that one of the factors that disrupts peace of mind and brain health is technology. Technology, in itself, is a gift from God; we cannot demonize it. However, used inappropriately and compulsively, as if digital media drugged us, it can have catastrophic consequences for us.”

If we can detach ourselves from technology as much as possible, peace will slowly settle in our souls.

Book recommendation

Bishop Ignatie recommended a book by a German doctor, Manfred Spitzer, called “Digital Dementia”, in which the consequences of technology on our psyche (brain) and soul are analyzed.

Photography courtesy of the Huși Diocese