I watched my second grader use his chubby hands—normally occupied with hockey sticks and our dog—to deftly navigate my smartphone. He was unfazed by this technology.
Unlike his mother, with her furrowed brows and instruction manuals, my son is a digital native. His world has always included the digital technologies that we parents are still trying to decipher. We use them, yes. But we don’t know them intuitively like our children do.
Digital technology can be a part of the transforming power of God by giving us access to friendship, beauty, peace, truth, and justice. But we won’t be able to teach our children how to harness its power for good if we only navigate the intersection between family life and the digital world with “parental controls.”
Speaking as an immigrant, I don’t know if I’m ever going to become fluent in this digital world, but I am going to be open to it as a servant for loving God and my neighbor.
This message was adapted from “Do Not Be Conformed” by Elyse Nelson Winger that first appeared in the May 2011 issue of Lutheran Woman Today (now Gather) magazine. If you are reading “Daily Grace” online, sign up to receive it by email daily.
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