That’s right. We’re being poisoned.
Actually, that’s only half the truth. The other half is that we’re unconsciously poisoning ourselves.
But before I get to the cure, take just a partial glimpse at the growing avalanche of toxins:
- In 2019, a single minute on the Internet saw the transmission of 188 million emails, 18.1 million texts, and 4.5 million videos viewed on YouTube.
- By 2020, there were 40 times more bytes of data on the internet than there were stars in the observable universe.
- Some estimates suggest that by 2025, 463 exabytes of data will be created each day online — the equivalent of 212,765,957 DVDs per day.
Now consider this: just five exabytes is equivalent to all the words ever spoken by humans since the dawn of time. And projections are that by 2025, that amount of data will be created every fifteen minutes!
What’s more, in just the first quarter of 2019, out of an estimated population 368 million internet users in North America, roughly 95 percent — 345 million people — spent an average of 3 hours and 57 minutes per day online just through mobile devices.
And that’s just content from the internet. Compounding the problem of information overload is that approximately 90 percent of all media news is negative.
You see, it’s not just the sheer volume of information that is burying us. It’s that 26.7 percent of people exposed to negative news go on to develop anxiety issues. (No wonder that an astonishing 37 million Americans now take antidepressants.)
In fact, our human addiction to negativity is such that one Russian news website, The City Reporter, lost 66 percent of its readers when it published positive stories for a day.
What’s the toll? In addition to mounting depression, suicides, and violence, the resulting mental disorientation and fragmentation is feeding the aggressive and impulsive behaviors we now see daily in headlines. Neuroscientist Daniel Levitin summarizes the impact of our increasingly frenetic multitasking:
“Asking the brain to shift attention from one activity to another causes the prefrontal cortex and striatum to burn up oxygenated glucose, the same fuel we need to stay on task. And the kind of rapid, continual shifting we do with multitasking causes the brain to burn through fuel so quickly that we feel exhausted and disoriented after a short time. We’ve literally depleted the nutrients in our brain….
This leads to compromises in both cognitive and physical performance. Among other things, repeated task switching leads to anxiety, which raises levels of the stress hormone cortisol in the brain, which in turn can lead to aggressive and impulsive behavior.”
In short, rather than being transformed by the renewal of our minds (Romans 12:2), millions of people are daily being deformed by the relentless assaults of on our brains. And sadly, most of the self-inflicted wounds are due to destructive addictions eagerly fueled by the profit-driven algorithms of Big Tech.
The good news is there’s a cure for those willing to break the addiction: The Wisdom Pyramid.
Borrowing from the well-known image of the food pyramid, Brett McCracken’s book, The Wisdom Pyramid: Feeding Your Soul in a Post-Truth World, provides , provides an antidote to the information overload that is accelerating our mental and spiritual decline.
Recognizing that the internet and other media also represent an enormous potential for good, he writes, “Wisdom is sort like a healthy kidney: it retains what is nutritious and filters out the waste.”
Developing these filters is absolutely critical in our post-truth world. One that is simultaneously drowning in information yet starved for wisdom.
While I’m eager to send you this important and very timely book to say thanks for your support, consider this:
Approximately, 900,000 people have been going online for the first time every day since 2018.
That number is simply staggering.
What’s more, internet traffic is increasing exponentially. In 2020, global internet traffic was 92 times greater than in 2005.
When you consider the unprecedented opportunities this presents for equipping fellow believers to think and live Christianly, it’s mind-blowing.
It also presents jaw-dropping opportunities to put biblical wisdom before the eyes of millions of seekers growing increasingly disenchanted with the existential emptiness of secularism and the ultimately self-destructive seductions of unbridled hedonism.
That’s where CRI’s vast resources—-developed over more than 60 year or rigorous research, writing, and programming—can be veritable oasis to multitude of parched hearts and minds seeking answers to the greatest questions in life.
Because we have the content and need only support from partners like you to continue making our resources available to a spiritually hungry world, I hope I can count on your support with a generous gift today. Click here to learn more about receiving The Wisdom Pyramid and other resources for your partnering gifts!
Your partnership and generous gift today help to ensure that CRI’s 24/7 outreaches and resources remain available to those seeking the life-changing truths that together you and I can provide. My deepest thanks for the profound difference your partnership makes in so many lives daily!
…because Truth matters, Life matters more,
President
P.S. Matt Smethurst, Managing Editor for The Gospel Coalition, writes:
“The digital revolution has transformed — not tweaked — the fabric of daily life. Never has it been easier to gain attention, or discover entertainment, or obtain knowledge. No wonder we’re addicted. But Google is a pitiful substitute for wisdom. Indeed, if we’re not careful, life online will make us aware of everything and wise about nothing. That’s why I’m so excited for Brett McCracken’s antidote to the inverted priorities of our age. If you live on an island without Wi-Fi, read a different book. Otherwise, The Wisdom Pyramid is for you. Few things reinvigorate the soul, after all, like exchanging the stultifying air of a Twitter timeline for the fresh sea breeze of an excellent book. And this is an excellent book.”