Satan's "Nothing" Strategy by Tony Reinke

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

In order to keep my earlier review of 12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You from being too long, I opted to put this lengthy quote in a separate post. In this passage, Reinke recounts scrolling through his newsfeed after a tiring day of work. 

On and on I flicked down a list of disconnected and fragmented items, most of them only barely important or interesting. I was not edified or served, only further fatigued because of missing a nap I should have had or a walk I could have taken.... What I am coming to understand is that this impulse to pull a lever of a random slot machine of viral content is the age-old tactic of Satan. C.S. Lewis called it his "nothing strategy" in Screwtape Letters. This nothing strategy is very strong, strong enough to steal away a man's best years - not in sweet sins, but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why in the gratifications of curiosity so feeble that the man is only half aware of them. A hamster wheel of what will never satisfy our souls. Lewis' warning was prophetic to our digital age. We are always busy, always distracted, diabolically lured away from what is truly essential and truly gratifying. In our digital idleness, we fail to enjoy God and we fail to love our neighbor. We give our time to not what is explicitly sinful, but also to what cannot give us joy or prepare us for self-sacrifice. Satan's nothing strategy aims at feeding us endlessly scrolling words, images and videos that dull our affections instead of invigoration our joy and preparing us to give ourselves in love. 

(This is the exact same thing that Francis de Sales addressed in my previous post on his advice to Philothea: It is a pity to sow the seed of vain and foolish tastes in the soil of your heart, taking up the place of better things, and hindering the soul from cultivating good habits.) 

Lots to think about!

Blessings,