Book Review: 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You

Something has been bothering me the last few weeks. I started to notice a change in my life. It didn’t happen overnight. Back in July, I attempted to set some healthy boundaries for my smartphone usage. I removed the email and locked down the web browser so it would have to be re-enabled before using it. I started to see growth in my focus on my family and not being pulled into constant scrolling and phrenetic update checking on my phone.

But then I re-enabled the browser. We had been looking for a house, and I decided I should start checking on house listings a bit more often - just twice a day, but I was using my phone to do it. We found an option for a house, but wanted to make some changes.

I started researching how much those changes would cost. The tabs in my browser started to build up. We decided to make an offer. With the flurry of signing and offers and counter-offers, I began checking email on my phone frequently to keep up. In my pocket there were endless possibilities of things to research and projects to plan related to our house. I began to fall into the same unhealthy habits of using my phone. My focus on my family lessened. I began to be more consumed with temporal things than eternal things. My phone was changing me.

Maybe this story sounds familiar. Think about your own phone usage. Is it a tool that you use, or does the endless availability of information or entertainment draw your attention away from what is most important? Certainly, we cannot blame our phones for our sinful failures! We are responsible for the choices we make. However, it is good to recognize the dangers and temptations we face with any tool because tools can both help and harm.

Can I encourage you to put 12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You by Tony Reinke on your reading list for 2025?

As I evaluated my recent struggle, I reread this book and found it quite helpful. Even if you have healthy habits in how you use technology, this book will help you to evaluate why it’s important to maintain them. You might even discover some areas that you need to change your thinking on in light of Scripture. Maybe you’ve developed some bad habits or poor thinking in how you use your phone. This book will provide a warning to you of areas you should be seeking God’s help to change.

A Balanced Perspective

Before you dismiss this book as a rant against technology, let me assure you that it isn’t.

Tony comes from the perspective of someone who loves to use new technology. He brings his extensive knowledge of both technology and theology to bear on this topic. He takes a step back from the excitement of what is new and gives an honest evaluation of how the technological developments of the last 16 years have changed humanity.

He doesn’t start with the iPhone, though, and he doesn’t vilify smartphones as the source of a new evil. He begins in Genesis, going all the way back to the first temptation in the garden. Having access to information can be good, but more knowledge does not always bring good into our lives.

God has commanded us to subdue the earth, but even in that pursuit we must guard against looking to technology as the solution to our problems. Although the problems in our hearts were not created by technology, tech can certainly amplify evil when used without restraint.

Numerous Important Warnings

You might think of pornography as the primary danger on the internet, and Tony does address that topic. However, he helpfully points out that there are many other perhaps more subtle dangers on the internet, many of which are exacerbated by the constant access we have to them on our phones. I was immediately convicted as I read the first warning—being addicted to distraction.

So many times I can quickly pull my phone out instead of using “dead time” to meditate on more important things. What I consume on my phone can tend toward a fast food diet of trivia instead of what stimulates the deep thinking that helps me to grow in becoming like Jesus. I miss noticing the people around me.

A Refreshing Call to Reset Our Focus

Each of the warnings in this book helps to shape our thinking about phone usage, but Tony brings it home in the conclusion with a call to the heart change that is necessary to change our phone usage. Changing settings on our phones may temporarily correct our overuse, but if we don’t focus our hearts on Christ, we have failed to properly use technology. It continues to control us, calling us to find fulfillment in something other than Jesus, making it an idol.

Each of us will have to determine what level of technology usage allows us to maintain the right focus on Christ. Some will need to ditch the smartphone altogether. Others will need to use settings to limit usage. Some can continue to use all of the features available without having attention pulled away from biblical priorities as a husband and father. All of us must answer this question carefully and prayerfully and regularly evaluate whether we need to change how we use technology.

Read or listen to 12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You and think about how your phone is pointing you toward or away from Christ. Commit at the beginning of this year to use your phone to grow in looking toward Christ and pointing those around you to him as well. Use the tools you have available to keep this as your priority.