I have a confession to make. Sometimes I write about a concept to help me think about it. I write these things stream-of-consciousness (and then wonder if that should be hyphenated or not). Today I came across an article that initially I wanted to say was revolutionary. This was The State of Our Culture, 2024 by Ted Gioia. He writes an extensive article describing the death of art and entertainment. The murderer? Those addicted to just being distracted. Distraction has done a drive-by shooting at culture and taken it captive to work in its mines.

As the armchair aficionado of Francis Schaeffer, I can say art has already taken a deep nosedive in our culture. Schaeffer traces Western art’s decline from ideal to real to romantic to random. Something unique about art is that it attempts to find truth in ways prose cannot approach in its pigeonhole. What makes art beautiful is its attempt to mine for truth no matter how difficult it may be to survey or hew. Of course modernity said truth can be known only through prose. And modern art became cubical and scientific. Postmodernity said truth cannot be known. And postmodern art became bananas duct taped to walls. . . and then being eaten.

Art became an endangered species when people preferred to just be entertained. While art (at least good art) attempts to mine for truth, entertainment mines for pleasure. So while art primarily attempts to target the mind then feelings, entertainment primarily attempts to target the feelings then (perhaps if there’s an agenda) the mind. And if one is honest, there’s always an agenda. Art and entertainment are not formed in a vacuum, but from a worldview.

These thoughts have been swirling around in my vacuous head since reading Schaeffer years ago. The eureka movement in the above article was not about an analysis of art or entertainment, but rather the death of entertainment. It’s natural to see a culture crave pleasure in a world that has given up on what Schaefer called “true truth.” But, as Gioia points out, our culture has moved beyond entertainment to just mere distraction.

I wanted to expand on Gioia’s article. I commend his excellent cultural analysis because it is precisely what I’ve been experiencing with American teenagers. And I want to expand by considering teleological, ontological, and moral implications. In this post I am focusing on teleology (the study of ends, or goals).

Earlier I mentioned the goal for art was mind first and the goal for entertainment was feelings first. The goal for distraction is to not have to think or feel. Nearly everyone has experienced the mind-numbing effect of social media. When I first had social media (Xanga, lol) it was mostly very lengthy posts of written text. I don’t even remember having a feed where you could see everyone’s posts all together. I think it was mainly just like a blog (although my memory is sort of fuzzy on this).

Myspace came around and definitely had a single page where you could scroll through and see other friend’s posts. When Facebook was first popular and widely used, it would only show friend’s posts. I remember that it would give some blurb like “Nothing new” when you had already seen everything your friends had posted. But then the infinite scroll was invented to keep people engaged with the platform. Text wasn’t enough so pictures were added. Pictures weren’t enough so short videos were added.

People used to turn to booze to drown out their feelings, now all they have to do is scroll. And to top it all off, Gioia points out the dopamine reaction in the brain which makes the doomscrolling addictive. So not only is distraction numbing the mind and emotions, its also enslaving. Dopaminers are now jumping from video to video to forget about real reality because quite frankly it sucks. Whenever the dopaminer sets down his pickaxe and realizes how dark and terrible the cavern of distraction is, he is drawn to pick it up again and continue hueing away. Not to discover truth. Not to be entertained. Just to forget where he currently is. He uses distraction to save himself from the consequences of being distracted. Instead of mining for the gold of truth or coal of pleasure, the dopaminer mines pebbles, lets them drop to the cold, damp floor, and never picks them up or cares about them again.

What happened? All of this is proof the Bible is true. We live in under a curse of sin (Gen. 3). Man has always been distracting himself from the reality that he lives under a curse. First, it was by seeking power over nature and death by use of gods and religion. Then it was by seeking reality through philosophy. Then it was by seeking truth through reasoning or experience. Then it was through feelings and romance. Then humanity found out none of those things can free mankind from the curse. So, we have to settle with just being distracted. Power reminds us we are cursed. Reality reminds us we are cursed. Knowledge reminds us we are cursed. Feelings remind us we are cursed. If we can just distract ourselves enough. . .but it won’t work.

But there is a solution. “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13). We cannot overcome the curse with our own power. We cannot get past the curse by adventuring outside reality. We cannot ignore the curse and truly be happy. But we can overcome the curse by turning to Jesus Christ. He took the curse in our place. Jesus defeated the curse in his death and undid it in his resurrection. The end goal for the Christian is not to understand, feel happy, or be distracted. Rather it is to glorify God. This is the only end goal that satisfies.

So put down your pickaxe. Christ can unlock your chains. Escape that dungeon of distraction and come into the light of the Lamb. Surely, you will find “pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11).