“How do you discern an addiction?” Richard Foster asks. “Very simply, you watch for undisciplined compulsions.”
I’d add, watch also for things that enable those compulsions.
If checking a tiny screen is a compulsion, notifications enable the habit.
In my case, I chose to delete Facebook off my phone altogether, but still having an account led me either to (a) check it through a mobile Web browser or (b) re-download the app to my phone. And Facebook for me, was not worth working toward the discipline of even limited interaction. Why not just be done with it and spend my time on other things? So I am finding other ways to stay in touch with the friends and family members that constituted my final reason for remaining on that platform.
* * * * *
But I still experience a desire to check my phone–for something. I could never not have an email account, and I use text messaging too often to go back to a ground line alone. And I am out and about enough that Google Maps and Safari are useful to me when on the go.
What about notifications?
I was in the working world way too long before I realized that (a) you could turn off new email notifications in Microsoft Outlook and (b) you could close Outlook and open it only when you wanted to check email. I know. Novel ideas.
They apply to the phone, too. You don’t need email notifications on your phone–you can turn off sounds, lock screen notifications, and badge app icons, so that you only know if a new email comes in when you are checking at a designated time. That way you don’t have to resist the urge to see what new email just came in while you’re changing lanes on the highway! The compulsion-enabler that is a notification won’t even be there.
Same thing with text messages–it’s rare that you’ll receive an urgent cry for help via text or email, so make sure your phone ringer is on, and put some or all text messages on Do Not Disturb. You can still keep your badge app icon on, so that if you have gone a whole two hours without texting and can’t stand it anymore, you can simply look at the icon on your screen and see if you’ve gotten anything new. But we don’t really need a noise or vibration every time one comes in.
So, too, with other apps–I’m glad to know, Ebay, that there are new items available for bidding that match my saved search, but can’t it wait? That notification–whether it’s a banner or a badge app icon I MUST PROCESS AND CLEAR OUT–is unnecessary.
* * * * *
If I may be so bold as to advise you, reader: allow yourself to go through your apps. Which ones do you really need notifying you there is something new, and which ones merely enable a compulsion to check your phone? And, most of all, relax–you can always pick up the phone to check anything you need to at any time. But with notifications at bay, you will start to experience the constant device checking less and less as an undisciplined compulsion.
* * * * *
Stay tuned for more related confessions and reflections:
On Facebook, Off Facebook, On Twitter, Off Twitter… On Instagram
Taking Email Off Your Phone (Mostly)
Why I’m Taking the 16 GB iPhone Upgrade over 64 GB
Pre-Dinner, Child-Induced Frenzy and My Escape Screen
It took my quitting Facebook to realize I have an iPhone addiction.
I’ve quit Facebook in the past, signing off with an epic status (soon to disappear, of course) that detailed why I was leaving. It’s not you; it’s me… but also you. I wasn’t intending to be pietistic. It’s just that it’s difficult for the “Why I’m Quitting Facebook” line-in-the-sand not to come across as a little holier-than-thou.
So the last time I quit—and I trust it really is the last time—I didn’t comment on it. I don’t even remember if I had a “Here’s my email” post—I just sort of left.
I’d taken the Facebook app off my iPhone at least a dozen times—only to re-download it again within a few days each time. It’s so inefficient to look at a tiny, few-inch screen and just keep swiping through. I could see more of my News Feed (or whatever they call it now) way faster on a computer! But the phone was so handy, and the Facebook app—as poorly developed as it is—was just a-reach-into-the-pocket away.
* * * * *
No, I didn’t go through Facebook withdrawal. That social media platform is actually pretty unremarkable, my wonderful friends and family members notwithstanding. It’s just that I was right back on my phone, now flicking through my Twitter feed.
If you read the tech pundits long enough, you’ll wonder: How is Twitter even in business anymore? But leaving Facebook made me latch on to that bizarre platform even more tightly.
It got even worse once I downloaded Tweetbot. (This is usually the point in my blog post where I give you an App Store affiliate link, on which I earn approximately 0.00000000000001% commission, but nobody needs to be on Twitter more, and the App Store is an enabler, so I eschew the hyperlink.)
Tweetbot allows you to set up adjacent columns, each of which can be a curated list of folks you follow on Twitter. How fun it (really) was to check out all my “Writing Implements” people on Twitter and see what they had to say about fountain pens. And my “App Developers” list? Those folks are hilarious—some of the best social commentary (especially about Twitter-the-company) that you’ll find anywhere.
But I had simply replaced Facebook with not-quite-but-still-kind-of-Facebook, and then started spending even more time on Twitter.
* * * * *
The same process followed—delete Tweetbot off the phone, check it on the computer. Re-download it to my phone since I was accessing it on the computer anyway. Get frustrated with myself. Check Twitter to assuage the feelings of Twitter-induced guilt. Etc.
So I finally gave up browsing Twitter for Lent. Tweetbot is gone, and I only still have my Twitter handle because this blog automatically Tweets with a link to a new post. I’m otherwise not on it, for the most part.
“How do you discern an addiction?” Richard Foster asks. “Very simply, you watch for undisciplined compulsions.”
You know you’re addicted to your phone when you delete one social networking app and—within a day—your compulsion to just check something leads you to replace it with another.
* * * * *
Stay tuned for more related confessions and reflections:
On Facebook, Off Facebook, On Twitter, Off Twitter… On Instagram
Notification Weaning
Why I’m Taking the 16 GB iPhone Upgrade over 64 GB
Pre-Dinner, Child-Induced Frenzy and My Escape Screen
It’s been a quiet week at Words on the Word. Don’t worry–I’ve been working on some future posts, not the least of which is a review of the new Caspian record. In the meantime, just for fun, here are the top six posts that keep people coming back to the blog, based on traffic, in increasing order.
You Google yourself about every three months, too, right?
To my surprise, a few months ago I found that Words on the Word had been quoted in a Brill book about digital humanities in biblical studies. (Apparently “digital humanities” is an academic field in which this blog participates.)
Ancient texts, once written by hand on parchment and papyrus, are now increasingly discoverable online in newly digitized editions, and their readers now work online as well as in traditional libraries. So what does this mean for how scholars may now engage with these texts, and for how the disciplines of biblical, Jewish and Christian studies might develop? These are the questions that contributors to this volume address. Subjects discussed include textual criticism, palaeography, philology, the nature of ancient monotheism, and how new tools and resources such as blogs, wikis, databases and digital publications may transform the ways in which contemporary scholars engage with historical sources. Contributors attest to the emergence of a conscious recognition of something new in the way that we may now study ancient writings, and the possibilities that this new awareness raises.
You can find the book at Brill here and here at Amazon. Looks fun! But, of course, now I’m biased.
Last weekend I built a sandbox; this weekend I’m cleaning up the study. I have a few books I’m trying to unload. Contact me here if you’re interested.
Simplified Guide to BHS (Hebrew Bible) (Scott, 1990 Second Edition, includes Ruger’s English Key to Latin Words, bound together), hard to find in print. One page has writing, but is helpful to understanding text. Previous owner’s name inside front cover; sticker residue on back (slight). $20
Handkonkordanz zum Griechischen Neuen Testament (English and German) Super-handy small concordance to Greek New Testament… I just don’t have use for it recently. See reviews at Amazon link here. Good to Very Good condition (sticker on back, some regular wear, but clean inside and strong binding). $22
C.L. Seow’s Grammar for Biblical Hebrew (1987)
Pencil notations throughout (one page pen), otherwise great condition. Old sticker on back. $10
The increasingly hard-to-find NIV Triglot Old Testament
Yes, English, Greek and Hebrew. It’s a big and impressive-looking hardback. Really good condition. Name inside front cover. No markings that I’m aware of. No dust cover (but you were just going to take that off as soon as you got it anyway, right?). $22
Behold, the Triglot
Spurgeon’s 3-Volume Treasury of David
Commentary on the Psalms, hardcover (green dust jackets). Hardly used, in great shape. One volume has a small coffee splash on page edges. Not a set of books I’d normally want to part with, but I have it electronically now. $29
Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Volume 7 (Fiction from Tegel Prison)
Hardcover. Brand new, still in shrink wrap. $14
Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Volume 9 (The Young Bonhoeffer, 1918-1927)
Hardcover. Still in original shrink wrap. Just a tiny bit of bumping to spine edges, one corner ever-so-slightly dinged. $20
Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Volume 10 (Barcelona, Berlin, New York: 1928-1931)
Hardcover. Dust jacket, page edges, and corners show some wear/bumping, but not much. Insides unmarked, never used. $25
Right now there are four good-to-own biblical studies books on sale for less than $3 (and two of these are less than $2).
How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth (Fee and Stuart), $1.99 on Kindle (here). I’ve read this, though it’s been some time now. Solid book.
Holman QuickSource Guide to the Dead Sea Scrolls (Craig A. Evans), $2.99 on Kindle (here). I just got this–haven’t read it yet, but flipping through, it looks like a great introduction to the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (N.T. Wright), $1.99 on Kindle (here) and iBooks (here). I haven’t read this (I know! I need to get on it) but several folks have highly recommended it to me.
Paul’s Letter to the Romans (Pillar Commentary Series), Colin G. Kruse, $2.99 on Kindle (here). The couple times I’ve used this have led me to think this is a good resource.
(This blog participates in the Amazon Associates Program, so any purchase from Amazon that comes from a link on this site sends a small percentage of the purchase price to upkeep and maintenance for Words on the Word.)
We’re here; we blog about the Bible; get used to it.
Charles Spurgeon is reported to have said, “If you have to give a carnival to get people to come to church, then you will have to keep giving carnivals to keep them coming back.”
And so we who blog in the fields of academic biblical studies and theology keep giving carnivals.
So let Words on the Word be among the first to wish you and yours a Happy New Year! Let’s welcome the year ahead with a recap of what went on in the so-called biblioblogosphere in December 2012.
Newtown, Connecticut, December 14
On December 14 there was the horrible news of a shooter who killed 26 other people at an elementary school in Newtown, CT, 20 of them young children. Peter Enns shared some thoughts from an unsettled state. Jim West wrote about it quite a bit and excoriated the NRA.
With the generous lead support of the Leon Levy Foundation and additional generous support of the Arcadia Fund, the Israel Antiquities Authority and Google joined forces to develop the most advanced imaging and web technologies to bring to the web hundreds of Dead Sea Scrolls images as well as specially developed supporting resources in a user-friendly platform intended for the public, students and scholars alike.
A number of bloggers wrote about this, not a few of whom Jim McGrath links to.
That wasn’t all that went online in December. Evangelical Textual Criticism notes quiteafewothermanuscriptsthatare now online. (As proven by the fact that every word of that last phrase is its own hyperlink.) Charles Halton of awilum.com highlights the availability of A. Leo Oppenheim’s Ancient Mesopotamia as a free pdf. Readers of this carnival may also like to take some time with ASOR’s weekly archaeology roundups in December, here, here, and here.
Septuagint
December saw a plethora of posts about παρθένος/עלמה in Isaiah 7:14, and Matthew’s use of that verse. Here is T.M. Law, saying that Greek Isaiah’s use of παρθένος for עלמה is not without precedent in the LXX (“The Greek translator of Isaiah used a perfectly acceptable rendering for עלמה.”). Here’s the Jesus Creed on the virgin birth. Krista Dalton notes, “[T]he author of Matthew is not saying that Isaiah was envisioning the birth of Jesus.” Kevin Brown of Diglotting posts here about it. And, looking at hermeneutics more generally, Brian LePort suggested three paradigms to use in studying the virgin birth.
J.K. Gayle at The WOMBman’s Bible (“An Outsider’s Perspective on the Hebrew Males’ Hellene Book”) posted reflections from Greek Isaiah not 1, not 2, not 3, not 4, not 5, not 6, but 7 times in December. Set aside some time and read them all.
Codex Sinaiticus dropped in price to just under $200 at CBD this month–a facsimile edition, that is. Theophrastus of BLT notes it here. He will later lament (which I, too, lament) that Oxford University Press no longer prints their wonderful Comparative Psalter. And while we’re on those Ψαλμοὶ, did their Greek translator(s) have Aristotle and Greek rhetoric in mind?
Anthony Le Donne is taking on the Wikipedia entry on “Historical Jesus” (best biblioblog comment of the month: here). James Tabor asked how December 25 got to be the day we observe Jesus’ birthday (with more thoughts here). Mark Goodacre produced a Christmas NT Pod in which he “explores the differences between the Birth Narratives in Matt. 1-2 and Luke 1-2 and asks how this can be the case if Luke is familiar with Matthew.” The Sacred Page produced a podcast on “the first Christmas.” For a fresh translation of Luke 1:34-38 (with the Greek reproduced beneath the English), see “She spoke yet-Miriam did.” Daniel Street even gave us some Christmas songs in Greek!
Anglican minister Rach Marszalek calls for nuance in discussions on the Trinity, as well as an appreciation of “the perichoretic beauty” of the Same. Read her “Eternal functional subordination and ontological equality?” here. While we’re on Anglicans, Brian LePort asks whether he needs a Bishop?
Gaudete Theology offers a feminist reading of “the bride of Christ” language. (“The image of the Bride of Christ needn’t be viewed only through the patriarchal perception of woman’s nature as inherently passive, docile, compliant, and receptive.”) Alice C. Linsley at Just Genesis would, I think, agree that the image and office of priest should also not be viewed through a patriarchal lens. She says, “Luther Was Wrong About the Priesthood.”
And, finally, may I offer thanks to Amanda at Cheesewearing Theology for this excellent December 2012 theology roundup? She covers yet more territory in theology than I have already covered here. If you’re disappointed that this carnival is about over, spend time reading the posts she collects.
Ευχαριστω/תודה/Thank you
Thanks for coming, and keep coming back! I blog regularly, so feel free to follow/subscribe by going back up to the right sidebar of the blog.
The WordPress.com “stats helper monkeys” prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 32,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 7 Film Festivals.
Scot McKnight lists the “Jesus Creed Books of the Year” 
Speaking of Greek Isaiah… more than 150 of us are reading through 
Words on the Word 