With a desperate look the student looked at the vice-principal: he would lose his cell phone for one week. This is the punishment for letting it go off during class. The rule is simple: the person who makes his cell phone seen or heard must live a week without it. An almost impossible undertaking: living one week without contact, being shut off from the world. How could he survive!? The world of youth is the world of connectedness. The school sets restrictions. Are restrictions useful and necessary?

Signs of MSN-Junkies⤒🔗

Recently in the Netherlands an article was written entitled “Enslavement to being connected”. The main focus was a great diversity of possibilities for communication: hyperlinking, blogging, chatting, e-mailing, phoning, msning, and twittering. It is beyond the scope of this short article to analyze all these modern means of communication. One thing is very clear: young people make use of many possibilities to keep in touch with each other. The author of the Elsevier article speaks of,

msn-junkies as being enslaved to phoning and msning. At home, at school, at the work place, with friends, yes, everywhere young people are within reach. This is important: I just need to tell you this; I just need to pass on to you that. Wait! I am expecting still a text-message. They look at their messages on their cell phones. Quickly they send yet another text-message. Then with unrelenting anxiety they look to see if an an­swer comes. At night, they continue to keep in touch. The cell phone is even used in God’s house.

‘MSN-junkies’ is a word that can be added to Webster’s dictionary. What does the dictionary say about addiction, a word from an earlier era? The definition of this word is: “the phenomenon that someone can no longer abstain from the use of something that (in the long run) will be damaging to him”.

Why so attached to MSN?←⤒🔗

Scholars have carried out studies to determine the particular behaviour of the cell-phone user. Where does that need for constant connectedness come from? What does it offer? Various sociologist offered these answers:

• To deal with loneliness and insecurity.
• To deal with estrangement in our modern world.
• To strengthen the sense of belonging.

Marks of Digital Addiction←⤒🔗

One researcher identifies five marks of digital addiction:

1. it costs too much time and money;
2. it is hard to stay away from;
3. one never turns off one’s equip­ment;
4. one becomes desperate when one’s equipment does not work;
5. one carries on despite the damage it does.

Media-consciousness and depen­dence also encourages cell phone usage. A media orientation predis­poses a person to digital addiction.

The Bible & our Cell Phones←⤒🔗

Cell phone usage costs too much time and money. Young people spend too much time on digital connectedness. Each spare moment is filled with phoning or msning. They often keep their cell phone in the “on” position. Is that a profitable use of their time? The apostle Paul writes “the time is short” (1 Cor. 7:29). Time is limited. The time given to us is a time of grace. Do not the eternal concerns suffer under this abuse of time? A cell-phone and a subscription can cut into the budget heavily. Do those costs equal the profit of digital connect­edness? Money must be used wisely. It is a gift from God and wasting it is against His Word. Moreover young people are forced to spend additional time in a second job to gain more income to cover their expenses. Too much time and too much money are absorbed. Parents do well to take their responsibility seriously in the upbringing and guidance of their children.

The next three marks of addiction can be summarized by a strong depen­dency on equipment. God’s Word calls us to put the things of the world into perspective: having and yet not having, possessing and yet not possessing. A great attachment to the things of this world is not well founded. God’s Word warns us not to set our hearts on the things of time. We may use the things of this world, but not abuse them (1 Cor. 7:29-31). Sometimes using and abusing are very close together.

Digital contact addiction is harmful for our young people. From this per­spective parents and teachers may indeed set limits. Use of the cell phone can be good and necessary. Excessive use, which absorbs one’s entire life and budget, must be opposed by parents. Cell phone-free times and places in the home are helpful, just as limits to one’s budget. Do parents point out the harm of the wrong use of time and money to their children? Do the parents point out their harmful effects? And then yet one more important question in closing: do parents give a good example or are parents also MSN-junkies?