Church in a Time of Brain Rot

More of a good thing is not necessarily better. And what starts as a good thing may not stay that way.

This is a lesson we’ve had to learn and relearn in recent years while living through rapid shifts in digital communication technologies. It’s vertigo-inducing how a given tool or platform can have one effect in its infancy and an opposite one in its maturity. 

But perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising: Scale and proportion matter. Our bodies need some salt, for example, but too much salt will make us ill. Communication technologies have a similar effect on the body politic. The same tool that at a low dose can contribute to mutual understanding and consensus can, when adopted on a wider scale, foment confusion and antipathy.