With substantial breakthroughs in science and technology come both the hope of benefit and danger of destruction. Humanity must find the balance of using its new knowledge responsibly and safely. Consider fire and nuclear fission. In either case, when humanity discovers it, there is potential for danger and good. We can burn or we can have light and warmth. We can destroy or we can treat cancer and have energy. Human progress is not merely discovering knowledge, science, or technology. The key to real progress is discerning how to use the new knowledge for the best good and the least bad.

We are living in an era of technological revolution called the Digital Age. This revolution is affecting the life of no one more than young people. Access to this technology is important for their advancement. It also has the potential to be dangerous. The internet and digital media are as helpful or as dangerous in a young person’s hands as a burning flame.

Much attention could be given to the kind of material and exposure that a young person can experience via digital media. There is a lot of dangerous material that the internet can bring to light for people of all ages. Only the most naïve, lazy, or demented parent could dismiss the danger of pornography and other material that is only a click away. The importance of vigilance cannot be overstated.

The more general danger of digital technology is the disconnection from real interpersonal interactions. The more any person, and especially young people, turn to the digital world, the less in tune they can become to the world around them.

Something that readers hopefully notice in the gospels of the New Testament is how Jesus does not only deal with the masses but interacts with people intimately. Jesus lives with, speaks to, eats with, teaches, ministers to and touches people personally. He gives the example of how real human interaction happens through personal contact.

To be human is to be in relation with others. Wholistic human relationship means being present to the other with our whole person. In other words, while digital media enables communicating aspects of personality like our thoughts or ideas or opinions or knowledge, it does not make possible a complete human relationship.

It is this I would encourage parents to be attentive to in the digital age. Help your children to have authentic human interaction and form real human relationships that are not dependent on, and therefore hindered by, digital media. Whether it be with family members in and out of the house, or peers, or God, every human person must develop contact with the other that is unbounded by the sterile and impersonal nature of digital media. All of us, of all ages, are in need to unplug from our technological devices of communication so that we can do more than communicate, but relate with each other and our Creator.

By Father Todd Lloyd, Pastor of Most Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church