Your Feed Isn't Numbing You: It's Forming You
Sociologist Felicia Wu Song and Bible scholar Brian Doak talked at Christianity Today's Big Tent about how technology shapes the soul.
Your feed doesn't numb you; it forms you. It's eleven at night. You swore you'd be asleep an hour ago, and you're still scrolling. That's what a Christianity Today panel talked about at its Big Tent event in Oakland, California.
The conversation features Felicia Wu Song, a cultural sociologist who researches how digital technologies shape contemporary life, and Brian Doak, associate vice president of digital programs and professor of biblical studies at George Fox University. Haleluya Hadero, an editor at the outlet, moderates the discussion.
The video, released on November 6, 2026, is titled "Shock, Anger, Stimulate, Numb." Those four states sound familiar to me. Not because of a study, but because of any late night with a phone in my face.
«A feed doesn't take your time the way someone takes your wallet: it teaches you, without warning, what deserves your anger.»
A feed doesn't steal your time; it teaches you how to feel
Song doesn't look at screens out of statistical curiosity. She studies what they do to everyday life, and that approach changes the conversation. The usual question for a young Christian is how many hours they spend online. The one this panel puts on the table is different: who is forming you while those hours tick by?
I think there's an insight here that shouldn't be downplayed. A feed doesn't take your time the way someone takes your wallet.
It teaches you, without warning, what deserves your anger, what deserves your laughter and what deserves your indifference, and it repeats it until you learn it. When you open the app in line at the bank, you're no longer choosing what to feel: you're reacting to what the design put in front of you.
That's why I struggle with the word "detox." It sounds like a thirty-day diet, like willpower, like coming back on Monday with the same soul and the same appetite.
Resisting on willpower alone falls short
The panel also set out to talk about what Christians can do in the face of this influence. That's where I want to pause, because resisting is a necessary verb and, at the same time, an insufficient one.
Scripture doesn't ask me to grit my teeth in front of the screen. It asks for something deeper: "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect" (Romans 12:2, ESV).
Transforming is not the same as blocking. It's a change of owner. What orders the soul is not the absence of stimulus, but a worship that puts every stimulus in its place.
And that worship almost never happens alone with an app. It happens in a body, with others, singing badly and out loud on a Sunday; it also happens at the table on any given Tuesday.
Jesus was direct: "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (Matthew 6:21, ESV). The heart follows the treasure. If my treasure is the approval that arrives in notifications, my heart moves there every morning.
Faith in two languages, one single attention
For many young Hispanics between the United States and Mexico, faith and digital life don't live on separate schedules. People pray on the bus and open TikTok in line, sometimes in the same minute.
I don't think the problem is technology. Creation is good and is received with gratitude: a Bible study coordinated over WhatsApp or a video call with far-away family are common graces. The problem is attention handed over without examination.
I wonder whether our churches are forming young people who can sustain an hour of prayer without stimulation, or whether they compete with the feed using its own weapons: lights, rush, impact.
Silence also disciples, and silence is the first thing the screen takes from us.
This week, before you open the app, ask yourself a simple question: who are you giving your attention to? If the answer makes you uncomfortable, don't throw your phone away. Find someone to pray with you, go back to your church and let the Word take the place the feed wants for itself.
Formation starts there, and you won't find it by scrolling.
