A few months ago Tim Challies wrote about the accidental and very public release of search data by AOL. By looking at the chronologically organized search terms of a given user, it was easy to see what was going on in their lives. One user’s search began with “shipping pets” and progressed to “broken bones in cat” and then finally “mucous blood diarreah in cat”.

Well, now you know that kitty’s story…

Other user searches revealed sadder stories. Among the many searches of one user, a timeline revealed the following terms (among many):

body fat calliper 2006-03-01 18:54:10
curb morning sickness 2006-03-05 08:53:23
he doesn’t want the baby 2006-03-11 03:52:01
online degrees theology 2006-03-11 04:05:24
online christian colleges 2006-03-11 04:13:33
physician search 2006-03-23 10:20:04
what is yoga 2006-03-29 12:17:31
hindu religion 2006-03-29 12:18:56
yoga and hindu 2006-03-29 12:32:05
is yoga alligned with christianity 2006-03-29 12:33:18
yoga and christianity 2006-03-29 12:33:42
abortion clinics charlotte nc 2006-04-17 11:00:02
can christians be forgiven for abortion 2006-04-17 21:14:19
abortion clinic charlotte 2006-04-18 15:14:03
symptoms of miscarriage 2006-04-18 16:14:07
abortion clinic chsrlotte nc 2006-04-18 21:45:39
engagement gifts 2006-04-20 16:57:04
engagement rings 2006-04-20 16:58:37
high risk abortions 2006-04-20 17:53:49
wedding gown styles 2006-04-26 19:37:34
recover after miscarriage 2006-05-22 18:17:53
marry your live-in 2006-05-27 07:25:45

Challies concludes with these insightful paragraphs:

“This AOL data raised an endless number of questions and concerns. Primarily, it brought awareness to the fact that search engines know you better than you might like.

We may like to think that our searches are just searches, harmless and pointless inquiries known only to us. But the fact is that search engines keep all of that data and they keep it forever.

This all raises two great questions in my mind. First, would I be prepared to have my searches revealed to the public? There are searches that may be private but not immoral—I may be looking for information on a medical condition, for example. That information might be embarrassing but I could remain unashamed before God.

But there may also be searches that are private precisely because they are immoral. In such case shame would be the proper reaction. The second question is whether I would be prepared to address my search history with God. What would I say to him if he were to ask me about the things I have gone looking for online. Could I tell him with confidence that what I have sought is an indication of a heart that is aligned with his purposes? Or would I have to confess that my searches point to a heart that is drawn to what is evil and perverse?”

How are you doing with those two questions?

1. Would I be prepared to have my searches revealed to the public?

2. Would I be prepared to address my search history with God?

After reading this post by John Dyer (Pornography Is Not Just About Lust: The Emotional Power of Images) I wanted to restate from an earlier post how we handle the issue at our house.

It’s difficult to estimate the ill effects online pornography has had on the spiritual well-being of millions of men and a growing number of women.

While pornography was once primarily available only behind the counter of select stores, it is now accessible anywhere and any time via an internet connection. At the same time, the cost to obtain it has dwindled to almost nothing.

In the online world the temptation is constant. In pre-internet terms, the temptation is roughly equivalent to being locked in a private room with millions of pornographic magazines. Resistance is not futile, but constant exposure to the temptation will eventually yield a failure to resist.

No wise person would intentionally put themselves into such a situation, but if you have an unmonitored or unfiltered internet connection in your home this is essentially what you are exposing yourself to, which is why no one should be ashamed to have a content monitor or filter installed on their internet access point.

SET IT UP NOW!

In our home we use free filtering called “K9 Web Protection“. With this software you can either set it to monitor all traffic or  restrict access to all websites except those that you approve. Here’s how we set it up:

1. We set it to “Monitor all traffic” which means it keeps a log of every site anyone on the computer visits

2. We make it password protected and only Anne Marie knows the password

That’s it!

Setting it up this way means that she can see every site I’ve visited which has an excellent deterrent effect when a questionable link or picture presents itself for clicking. You will find yourself asking at least these two questions: Do I want my wife to know that I looked this? Do I want her to see what I’m about to look at?

Guys: have the talk with your wife or a close friend. Today can be a fresh start.

Ladies: offer to set this up with your husband without asking questions about previous history. 

Visit http://www1.k9webprotection.com/ to download the free software.

Getting information from the internet, someone said, is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant. The flow of information is overwhelming and it’s more than anyone can possibly consume.  Appropriate use of the internet then involves trying to get what you need from the torrent of information without getting completely soaked.

The mass of information can be equal blessing and curse.  If you haven’t experienced this yet, you probably will since, as novelist William Gibson states, “There’s a big cinder block stuck on the technology accelerator pedal, and we’re only gonna go faster and faster, never stopping.”

There are others who believe, like humorist Andy Rooney that, “Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don’t need to be done.” I do not share this opinion.

I am, admittedly, a voracious user of the internet, and I work hard at getting the drink I need from the hydrant without being knocked over by the force of the pressure. I don’t always succeed, which is why I chose to fast from the internet for a week.

My internet usage is rarely, in my opinion, frivolous. I read a lot of theology blogs, do research for articles like this one, answer numerous emails every day, arrange recording sessions, write notes, listen to podcasts – these are all things that I consider necessary; what is at issue here is determining how much of each I can afford to consume without it being detrimental to my spiritual well-being.

FASTING

The purpose of any fast is to focus more fully on God by abstaining from something that is not a bad thing in itself, but can become a binding habit if left unchecked.  When we experience intentional lack we can objectively study the effect of the absence of the thing we are fasting from.  Abstaining from an activity is not necessarily an indication that there is something wrong with it.  It is, rather, a step back from something that is precious to you in order to examine it more objectively.  Perhaps some of the time spent on the thing you’re abstaining from would be better spent in prayer and reading God’s word, or talking to a friend.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981), pastor of Westminster Chapel in London, believed that

“Fasting if we conceive of it truly, must not . . . be confined to the question of food and drink; fasting should really be made to include abstinence from anything which is legitimate in and of itself for the sake of some special spiritual purpose.”

Anything that threatens the level of our dependence on God as the source of our joy is fair game as the target of a fast.  Food is one example of course, but equally valid is a fast from sports, television, or the internet.  A fast will reveal the extent to which we have allowed ourselves to be enslaved by something otherwise good.

“The greatest enemy of hunger for God,” John Piper says in his book A Hunger for God, “is not poison but apple pie. It is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite for heaven, but endless nibbling at the table of the world. It is not the X-rated video, but the prime-time dribble of triviality we drink in every night.” This “prime-time dribble” – or “constant dribble” of the internet – is a problem we don’t often consider; but is it possible to deny that our diet – physical and intellectual – will determine the shape of both our bodies and our thinking?

If we feast on triviality yet only occasionally find time to spend with God, should we expect to enjoy spiritual depth?  If we regularly gorge at McDonald’s and only occasionally eat a spear of broccoli, should we expect to enjoy good health?

We sometimes use electronic media to anesthetize ourselves, to dull our senses, or worse to escape reality for extended periods.  This feasting on triviality and escaping from reality inevitably leads to a crisis of meaning, which in turn is both the result and the cause of our hunger for triviality. This cyclical pattern ensures its survival.  Meaninglessness, as G. K. Chesterton said, does not come from being weary of pain; meaningless comes from being weary of pleasure.

GRAVEYARDS OF INFORMATION

I am a gatherer, a collector, of items both digital and physical. As the number of information sources expands, so does my desire to monitor them; I am constantly attempting to consume more than I can process.

Futurist and philosopher John Naisbitt, in his recent book MindSet, proposes a solution to this scenario: when you begin to monitor something new, you must drop something else.  To continue to monitor an ever-increasing pool of information is to create, in Naisbitt’s words, “a graveyard of information”– stuff we collect but never use.

My own information graveyard is pretty big. I have tried to apply Naisbitt’s principle to both my physical and digital life, ruthlessly discarding or selling off things I keep but never use.  But in the digital realm there is less incentive to do this since  storage costs almost nothing and takes up no more physical space when it’s 250 gigabytes of information than when it’s one.

The questions I keep asking myself are: What am I afraid I’m going to miss?  What am I going to miss?  What am I really going to miss?

SUMMARY

Will I do this again?  Yes.  Do I want to?  Not really, no.  There was a price to pay and it did cause some distress.  The communication aspect of my life is so intertwined with the internet that a week offline took some time to recover from.  I spent a lot of time the following week trying to catch up on all the reading I missed.  I went to bed too late, worried about email I STILL hadn’t answered, and spent a lot more face-time with screens than I did with human beings.

With an internet fast, unlike a food fast, there is an opportunity to catch up on what you missed.   Unlike a stack of unread books, the internet is an inexhaustible and constantly expanding source of information.  You can never finish it, put it down, and feel satisfied that you’ve finished reading it.

You can never, as was attempted by the pointy-haired boss in the Dilbert comic strip, ask someone to bring you a hard-copy of the internet, spend a few days reading it, and then feel satisfied with having finished it.

But still, I would never shun the internet.  For me it is a technological conduit for spiritual growth; one that I hope never stops expanding.  At the same time, I need to be wary of its endless offerings of trivial pursuits and their potential for spiritual poisoning.

I haven’t completely figured out how much is enough and, like food, there will always be the temptation to over-indulge.  But as long as I can see this use of my time like all other uses, that is, as opportunities to strengthen my relationship with God and with others, I’ll continue with periodic re-evaluations, making adjustments as necessary.

***************************************

Practice Safe Internet Usage

It’s difficult to estimate the ill effects online pornography has had on the spiritual well-being of millions of men and a growing number of women.

While pornography was once primarily available only behind the counter of select stores, it is now accessible anywhere and any time via an internet connection. At the same time, the cost to obtain it has dwindled to almost nothing.

In the online world the temptation is constant.  In pre-internet terms, the temptation is roughly equivalent to being locked in a private room with millions of pornographic magazines.  Resistance is not futile, but constant exposure to the temptation will eventually yield a failure to resist.

No wise person would intentionally put themselves into such a situation, but if you have an unfiltered internet connection in your home this is essentially what you are exposing yourself to, which is why no one should be ashamed to have a content filter installed on all of their internet access points.

In our home we use free filtering software called “K9 Web Protection”. With this software you can restrict access to all websites except those that you approve.  There are many “pay for” services and software packages that do a much poorer job of filtering content than this free service.

Visit http://www1.k9webprotection.com/ to download the free software.