What Scrolling Costs You
Counting the price of an ordinary hour.
A hard, honest look at where the time goes.
The big idea
Attention is the one thing you cannot earn more of, and you are spending it all day.
What does “What Scrolling Costs You” walk through?
Teach Us To Count
Psalms 90:12 · KJV
So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
In plain English
Teach us to number our days, so that we may grow wise in heart.
Numbering Is An Act Of Faith
Moses does not ask for more days. He asks to be able to count the ones he has. Facing the number honestly is what makes a heart wise, and most of us avoid the number precisely because we suspect what it says.
Buying The Time Back
Ephesians 5:16 · KJV
Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
In plain English
Make the most of your time, because the days are evil.
“An hour is not lost when it is enjoyed. It is lost when you would not have chosen it if anyone had asked.”
Follow The Treasure
Matthew 6:21 · KJV
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
In plain English
Wherever your treasure is, that is where your heart will be.
Your Hours Are A Confession
Jesus makes attention diagnostic. Not what you say you love — what you keep returning to. Your screen time is not a moral report card, but it is an honest one.
Pray
Father, show me the number without letting me despair over it. Help me spend today on purpose. Amen.
Write it down
If your week's hours were read aloud, what would they say you love?
Time is not neutral
You cannot get yesterday back. You can decide about tonight.
Which passages does this journey use?
3 passages, drawn from Psalms 90:12, Ephesians 5:16, Matthew 6:21. Every verse appears here in the King James text with a plain-English line beside it, so you can read it without a commentary open. Allow about 6 minutes for the whole thing, or 7 short sittings.
- Psalms 90:12
- Ephesians 5:16
- Matthew 6:21
Read any of these in full on the complete KJV, or look the wording up independently at Blue Letter Bible.
More in Your Phone and Your Soul
All Your Phone and Your Soul →The Attention Diet
What you feed your mind becomes your life.
Digital Sabbath
Practising a day that does not need you.
Your Phone And Your Prayer Life
The first thing you reach for.
The First Five Minutes Awake
How a day gets its direction.
Curating What You Consume
You are allowed to close things.
Being Present With People
Half-attention is its own kind of absence.