Is it time to tame your phone?

How can device-lovers enjoy their phones without getting addicted? How can we protect our spiritual lives when cat videos, Temu and TikTok come calling? Care for the Family’s Katharine Hill answered these questions and others at a recent Limitless event.

When Katharine Hill wrote the first edition of ‘Left to their own Devices’ in 2017, our tech world was vastly different.

“Put your computer in the family room,” was one of her tips for parents trying to create a safe digital world for their kids.

Today, as she prepares the fourth edition, her updated advice for all ages is directed towards an evolved landscape of AI, algorithms and smartphones for all.

But the question she addresses remains the same: how can we equip our children and young people to use tech wisely and healthily? As she researched the book, Katharine quickly realised that part of the solution lies a little closer to home.

As well as putting good boundaries in place for our children, we need to pay attention to our relationship with technology, and this is a theme that she takes up in her latest book ‘Born Free – a call to be still, know God and flourish in a hectic world’.

“I look at the things that impact our spiritual formation – our environment, the people we hang out with, the habits we adopt, the things we love and pay attention to, that all shape the people we become – and I realised technology plays a massive part in that. And so above all else we need to be intentional,” says Katharine.

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