Andy Crouch on Why Technology Can’t Cure Loneliness

What if the thing we're craving most isn't more control over our lives, but deeper connection with other people?

As Russell takes some time away with his family this summer, we're revisiting a conversation that feels even more relevant now than when it first aired in 2022. Back then, Russell sat down with Andy Crouch to discuss technology, smartphones, social media, and Andy's book The Life We're Looking For. Listening again today, it's hard not to hear something deeper..this isn't only a conversation about screens, but about what it means to be human.

Andy argues that many of us have accepted a trade we never consciously chose: more convenience in exchange for less presence, more control in exchange for less connection, more power in exchange for less personhood. Together, he and Russell explore why so many people feel unseen in an age of constant communication, why children often recognize our technological addictions before we do, and how the church can recover a vision of life rooted not in efficiency, but in relationships.

This conversation asks: “What is the life we're actually looking for?” And in a moment when many of us feel exhausted by the digital world we've built around ourselves, Andy offers a hopeful answer.

Resources mentioned in the episode:

• Andy Crouch, The Life We’re Looking For

• This American Life, Superpowers

• Maryanne Wolfe, Reader, Come Home

• Craig Gay, Modern Technology and the Human Future

• Screen Sanity

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