We looked at our most-downloaded episodes of 2023 and compiled the highlights here. Listen for excerpts from five of listeners’ favorite episodes of the year, with selections from every Know Why Series series of 2023!
In this episode, you’ll hear snippets of the following interviews (click to listen to the full interviews or read more):
Are you prepared for a world where AI bots have replaced customer service workers, tutors, and even therapists? Do we lose part of our humanity when inconvenient, messy conversations with people are replaced by streamlined, efficient chatbots? Here to think through this with us and provide some answers is Kate Lucky, senior editor of audience engagement at Christianity Today. She shares insight from her recent feature article, “AI Will Shape Your Soul,” a deep-dive into what theologians and tech experts are saying about AI chatbots. Listen to part one of this interview now!
Something Different
Kate points out that Artificial Intelligence has been around for a long time and has many helpful uses. But a more recent development in AI technology are chatbots like ChatGPT, released by OpenAI last year. These systems can generate poetry, replicate art, and carry on convincing conversations. While fascinating, the humanness of such chatbots made many people uncomfortable, Kate says.
“We feel that there’s something important to our bodies, to our humanity. We feel that there’s a difference when we’re on a zoom call and when we’re sitting around a meeting table in person.”
Kate Lucky
Some people are enthusiastic about the potential uses for these kinds of chatbots, but Kate warns that we will miss out on life’s “richness” when authentic human interactions are replaced by AI. “A chatbot won’t pushback on you, won’t challenge your perspective on something,” Kate told Know Why. “You can’t really learn humility from a chatbot.”
To learn more about how our interactions with chatbots have the potential to form our habits and our souls, listen to Part 2 of Kate’s interview next week. You can also see the resources below.
How can problematic technology use hamper a child’s emotional development? How can you tell if a child’s relationship with media is problematic? Answering these questions and more on the Know Why Podcast is Jane Shawcroft. A PhD student at UC Davis, Jane studies the effects of media and technology on children and adolescents. Whether you have kids, work with kids, plan to have a family in the future, or are simply curious about how media is impacting all members of the family, you’ll want to hear Jane’s insight.
“What we kind of have evidence for is that parents are forgetting about tablets when they set rules about media use, and that was associated with more problematic media use overtime,” she said.
Media Use and Emotional Regulation
Jane also discussed the importance of filling out young children’s “toolbox” with the tools they need to deal with everyday emotions. When media is overused, it robs children of tools they may need to regulate their emotions down the road.
“It’s not that giving a phone or letting them watch some videos because they’re upset is necessarily bad,” she told Know Why. “It becomes a problem when that’s all children are doing and that’s the only way they know how to calm down.”
“When kids use media to regulate a lot, they end up needing it more and more.”
Jane Shawcroft
What about families that haven’t implemented screen time rules in the past, but want to start? Jane acknowledges that technology restrictions are a difficult terrain to navigate, since today’s parents don’t have the benefit of recalling how their own parents regulated tablets or social media time; so much of what parents deal with today is new. Jane offers advice for introducing new media rules as a family, and also gives some practical tips for knowing whether your child has had too much screen time in a day—or whether they have a problematic relationship with media in general.
There are actions everyone can take in helping to foster better habits and norms for children and technology, Jane said. “Children are spending so much time online and with technology, and it’s really a space that was not designed for children,” Jane told Know Why. She encourages listeners to learn about relevant laws such as online safety laws and child media regulations in your state, and to advocate family-safe policies by contacting your elected officials. Find links to do so below.
When college students enter Dr. Brad East’s class at Abilene Christian University, they’re often spending six hours or more on social media per day. Then he challenges them to give it up. Listen to this episode as Dr. East shares what young adults gain when they give up their screen addiction—and what you lose when your life is spent staring at your screen. And if you’re brave enough, take Dr. East’s 60-day challenge!
Giving Up Bad Tech Habits For Something Better
In a recent article at Christianity Today, Dr. East argues that certain tech habits are important factors in retaining one’s faith in college. For instance, students should forgo online church services and attend a local house of worship, even if they go to a Christian college or university.
“God is our creator and he knows what we need, and what we need is actual, flesh-and-blood, in-person community,” Dr. East told Know Why, adding, “The community is not a kind of ‘extra’ that might help you in your personal journey of faith—it’s actually essential. It’s actually the thing that God, from the beginning, has been doing and continues to do—calling and forming a people in the world.”
“God is our creator and he knows what we need, and what we need is actual, flesh-and-blood, in-person community.”
Dr. Brad East
Dr. East also recommends that college students’ faith will stay stronger if they delete social media in college. As shocking as that seems to many of his students, those who participate in his 60-day challenge are often surprised by the multiple benefits they experience afterward.
What could you gain from developing better tech habits?
Are you in control of your screen time… or is it the other way around? Listen as Doug Smith helps kick off Know Why’s series Know about Healthy Tech Habits. In the episode Liberty and Doug discuss his recent book, [Un]Intentional: How Screens Secretly Shape Your Desires and How You Can Break Free, written from his perspective as a former software developer. Doug offers insights that are both sobering and hopeful—you don’t want to miss them!
Identity
Identity is a big question many people wrestle with. Who am I? What do I like? What do I want? What do I believe? We’d like to think that we are fairly autonomous in determining our identity. But Doug argues that isn’t the case.
“We end up thinking we’re constructing a unique identity when we’re just constructing an identity that’s been formed for us and tends to lead us to a bad end,” he told Know Why.
“They’re exploiting weaknesses in our behavioral psychology and neurology to teach us to make decisions that are most profitable for them, but often harmful to us and certainly against our God-given purpose.”
Doug Smith
What’s forming our identity for us? Our screens—or more precisely, the companies, algorithms, and technology behind them.
Reclaiming Our Habits
There is hope for reclaiming our identity and decision-making willpower, but it involves developing new habits that aren’t centered on screen time. In his book, Doug points to the Bible as helpful in this journey.
“We are learning a lot in terms of the details about how the brain works,” he said. “But what we continue to find is that these truths are just confirming what we’ve already learned in ancient wisdom, especially in the Bible.”
