Restless Devices

Recovering Personhood, Presence, and Place in the Digital Age

We're being formed by our devices. Today's digital technologies are designed to captivate our attention and encroach on our boundaries, shaping how we relate to time and space, to ourselves and others, even to God. While we enjoy the benefits of digital tech, many of us feel troubled with its power and exhausted by its demands for permanent connectivity. Yet even as we grow disenchanted, attempting to resist the digital "powers that be" might seem like a losing battle.

Sociologist Felicia Wu Song has spent years considering the personal and collective dynamics of living in digital ecosystems. In this book she combines psychological, neurological, and sociological insights with theological reflection to explore two major questions: What kind of people are we becoming with personal technologies in hand? And who do we really want to be?

Song unpacks the soft tyranny of the digital age, including the values embedded in our apps and the economic systems that drive our habits and their subtle yet pervasive effects. She then explores pathways of meaningful resistance that can be found in Christian tradition, especially counter-narratives about human worth, embodiment, relationality, and time. Considering digital practices through the lens of "liturgy" and formation, she offers practical experiments for individual and communal change.

©2021 Felicia W. Song (P)2021 eChristian

Thoughtful, Engaging, & Challenging

The author brings a sociologist’s insight and a theologically-rich vision of what it means to be human to this examination of the way we are formed by digital tools—and the counter liturgies we might adopt to reshape who we are.