Breaking The Digital Spell
Austin Gravley
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Top 10 Breaking The Digital Spell Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Breaking The Digital Spell episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Breaking The Digital Spell for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Breaking The Digital Spell episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
Can Content Warnings Make Instagram Safer for Kids? (Buy Me a Coffee Member Preview)
Breaking The Digital Spell
10/25/21 • 13 min
When the Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook knew that Instagram was toxic and harmful to teen girls, it lit up a firestorm greater than any of the other stories the Journal would break in it’s “Facebook Files” series. Nick Clegg, VP of Global Affairs, recently went on to CNN to discuss the Journal’s report and revealed that Instagram would be rolling out several features that will help curb Instagram’s harmful impact on teenage mental health. But will things like warning labels for harmful content or nudges to “take a break” actually make a difference? Is Facebook’s emphasis on problematic content a sincere attempt to fix the issue, or a diversion from the true source of the problem?
Episodes like this are an example of the bonus content you can expect with a Buy Me a Coffee membership to Breaking the Digital Spell. For $5/mo, you can support the podcast and receive extra episodes, commentary, behind-the-scenes previews, and more. Media literacy is the biggest gaping hole in our discipleship, and every dollar of your support (even a one-time tip!) goes towards creating content and (one day) resources that will help close that gap!
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Buy Me a Coffee and keep Breaking the Digital Spell a high quality ad-free experience! Leave a one-time tip (without making an account) or unlock exclusive content with a $5 monthly membership at buymeacoffee.com/digitalspell!
Purchase a copy of Chris Bail's "Breaking the Social Media Prism"
“Forget the Echo Chamber - Social Media is a Prism” on FaithTech.
“What Is Media Ecology? A Conversation with Austin Gravley” on YouTube
Connect with Austin and Breaking the Digital Spell
* Twitter: @DigitalSpell and @gravley_austin
* Instagram: @breakingthedigitalspell
* YouTube: Breaking the Digital Spell
* Facebook: BtDS Facebook Page
* Email: [email protected]
Support the show (http://buymeacoffee.com/digitalspell)
SA-4: Should Christians Leave Social Media? A Conversation About Digital Babylon
Breaking The Digital Spell
10/18/21 • 59 min
The Bible gives us a framework for understanding and navigating a world dominated by social media: Christians are to live as faithfully obedient exiles in the midst of Digital Babylon. This is the claim we explored on the prior episode of Breaking the Digital Spell, and we ended the episode open to pushback or objections to this idea. In this bonus episode, Austin sits down with Jacob Cates, executive pastor of Redeemer Christian Church, to talk through some good questions and objections to the “Digital Babylon” framework. Are there other analogies that are more helpful to us? How could the “Digital Babylon” framework be improved? But most importantly: If social media is truly akin to Digital Babylon, shouldn’t Christians try to come out of that empire and get off social completely?
Clarification: many of Jacob's comments on individualism/identity come from Carl Trueman's "The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self." As it is with all the books we've featured on BtDS, quoting an author favorably on one point does not mean an endorsement of everything an author says or does elsewhere.
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Buy Me a Coffee and keep Breaking the Digital Spell a high quality ad-free experience! Leave a one-time tip (without making an account) or unlock exclusive content with a $5 monthly membership at buymeacoffee.com/digitalspell!
Purchase a copy of Chris Bail's "Breaking the Social Media Prism"
“Forget the Echo Chamber - Social Media is a Prism” on FaithTech.
“What Is Media Ecology? A Conversation with Austin Gravley” on YouTube
Connect with Austin and Breaking the Digital Spell
* Twitter: @DigitalSpell and @gravley_austin
* Instagram: @breakingthedigitalspell
* YouTube: Breaking the Digital Spell
* Facebook: BtDS Facebook Page
* Email: [email protected]
SA-3: On Esther, Daniel, and Exile in Digital Babylon
Breaking The Digital Spell
09/27/21 • 96 min
The Babylonian exile is arguably the most important event in the history of the Old Testament. Israel's long descent into apostasy ends with the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, and the people of God are forcibly relocated to a pagan nation that they did not want to live in. But the Babylonian exile is more than just a date and time in history - it is a framework, used by New Testament writers and by Christians for millennia, that helps us understand what faithful obedience to God looks like in a sinful world. In this episode of Breaking the Digital Spell, we look at the Babylonian Exile and the lives of Esther and Daniel and how these can help us understand what faithful obedience to God looks like not just in a sinful world, but a digital world - in Digital Babylon. How would applying this biblical framework to our social media world shape our understanding of the world that we currently live in and how we are called to live in it? Like the exiles who asked "how do we live in Babylon?", how do we live in Digital Babylon?
Full episode manuscript: https://digitalbabylon.substack.com/p/on-esther-daniel-and-exile-in-digital
Chapter Divisions
- Part One: The Top of the Rabbit Hole - 1:10
- Part Two: Introducing Digital Babylon - 29:58
- Part Three: The Reality of Exile - 43:23
- Part Four: Engagement in Exile - 51:23
- Part Five: Providence in Exile - 1:16:58
Tanak Order Reading List
- The introduction of "A Biblical-Theological Introduction to the Old Testament", ed. by Miles V. Van Pelt.
- "Dominion and Dynasty" by Stephen Dempster
- "Know How We Got Our Bible" by Ryan M. Reeves and Charles Hill
Purchase a copy of Chris Bail's "Breaking the Social Media Prism"
Connect with Austin and Breaking the Digital Spell:
- Twitter: @gravley_austin and @DigitalSpell
- Facebook: BtDS Facebook Page
- Email: [email protected]
SA-2: On Students and Brett McCracken's "The Wisdom Pyramid"
Breaking The Digital Spell
08/30/21 • 14 min
Media literacy is the biggest gaping hole in our discipleship. We can feel its effects in our churches and our lives in the same way we can feel the effects of poor financial stewardship or failing marriages in our churches. Plenty of courses and programs exist for churches to address financial literacy and building healthy marriages, but what about for media literacy? The problem has festered for so long feels so overwhelming; it's hard to know where to start! In this episode of Breaking the Digital Spell, we look at one particular resource, Brett McCracken's "The Wisdom Pyramid", and report from the field of trying to fill the gap with some high school students - and offer some helpful perspective on why doing something imperfectly is better than doing nothing at all.
Produced by Austin Gravley and Andrew Akins. Hosted by Austin Gravley. Mixing by Andrew Akins. Additional vocal talent from Melissa Gravley.
SA-1: The Asterisk Year
Breaking The Digital Spell
08/09/21 • 27 min
Episode manuscript: https://digitalbabylon.substack.com/p/sa1-the-asterisk-year
When 2020 began, none of us factored in the possibility of a pandemic being the defining reality of our year. Our plans and predictions for the world were thrown into chaos, and our sense of "normal" upended overnight as we embraced a strong sense of uncertainty about our future. But how "normal" was our pre-pandemic "normal"? What exactly did Covid-19 change, and how lasting are those changes? How should we think about our confidence in our ability to plan, predict, and control or understand our future in a world armed with tools and techniques aimed at giving us confidence (or dread) about what tomorrow holds? Is there a better way forward?
Produced by Austin Gravley and Andrew Akins. Hosted by Austin Gravley. Mixing by Andrew Akins. Additional vocal talent from Melissa Gravley.
S1E13: ...Is To Break The Spell
Breaking The Digital Spell
11/20/18 • 25 min
Episode manuscript: https://digitalbabylon.substack.com/p/s1e13-is-to-break-the-spell
Our love for the technology and media in our lives has left us held under a spell that leads us to believe there is nothing worth seeing or experiencing beyond the screen in front of our face. On the season finale of Breaking the Digital Spell, we look at what it means to live our lives with the digital spell broken.
Produced by Austin Gravley and Andrew Akins. Hosted by Austin Gravley. Mixing/music by Andrew Akins. Additional vocal talent from Melissa Gravley.
S1E12: Conclusions, Part Two
Breaking The Digital Spell
11/13/18 • 51 min
Episode manuscript: https://digitalbabylon.substack.com/p/s1e12-conclusions-part-two
We live in a world defined by the Internet and the technology and media it has created. How does this change the way we think about God and the way we love our neighbor? “In Conclusions, Part Two”, we come full circle as the season begins to come to a close.
Produced by Austin Gravley and Andrew Akins. Hosted by Austin Gravley. Mixing/music by Andrew Akins. Additional vocal talent from Melissa Gravley.
S1E10: The Useful Distraction of Smartphones
Breaking The Digital Spell
10/23/18 • 24 min
Episode manuscript: https://digitalbabylon.substack.com/p/s1e10-the-useful-distraction-of-smartphones
Smartphones are incredible useful. They’re also incredibly distracting. They can help us manage our lives and distract us from our lives at the same time. How does this change the way we think about God?
Produced by Austin Gravley and Andrew Akins. Hosted by Austin Gravley. Mixing/music by Andrew Akins. Additional vocal talent from Melissa Gravley.
S1B2: Surviving Elections On Social Media
Breaking The Digital Spell
10/18/18 • 17 min
Earlier this week we looked at social media's impact on us by offering us a limitless amount of content to consume. That content often gets nasty around election seasons - is there anything we can do to mitigate that nastiness and survive the toxicity of social media during election season? In this BONUS episode of Breaking The Digital Spell, we look at three practical ways to help us get through the ugliness of online politics during election season!
For more information about Breaking the Digital Spell and for supplemental content related to each week's episode, like our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter @DigitalSpell. Wherever you're listening to this, please consider subscribing and leaving a review, and sharing the episode with your friends!
Produced by Austin Gravley and Andrew Akins. Hosted by Austin Gravley. Mixing/music by Andrew Akins. Additional vocal talent from Melissa Gravley.
SA-6: Distorted Beyond the Funhouse Mirror
Breaking The Digital Spell
12/06/21 • 43 min
Episode manuscript: https://digitalbabylon.substack.com/p/distorted-beyond-the-funhouse-mirror
When you stand in front of a funhouse mirror, your image in distorted in some bizarre and unusual way. Whether you get huge legs or a giant head, you know a funhouse mirror is not meant to give you a true reflection of yourself the way a normal mirror does. But what happens when a society or culture mistakes a funhouse mirror for a mirror capable of accurately reflecting culture and society around us? What if social media gives us outsized views of polarization, extremism, or other distortions of ourselves while pretending to be a truthful mirror, and what if - unlike a normal funhouse mirror - those distortions we see in social media stay with us even after we've stopped looking in the mirror? What direction do those distortions go, and how do they change how we see ourselves and those we disagree with?
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Purchase a copy of Chris Bail's "Breaking the Social Media Prism" and check out the Polarization Lab!
“Forget the Echo Chamber - Social Media is a Prism” on FaithTech.
“What Is Media Ecology? A Conversation with Austin Gravley” on YouTube
Connect with Austin and Breaking the Digital Spell
* Twitter: @DigitalSpell and @gravley_austin
* Instagram: @breakingthedigitalspell
* YouTube: Breaking the Digital Spell
* Facebook: BtDS Facebook Page
* Email: [email protected]
Support the show (http://buymeacoffee.com/digitalspell)
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FAQ
How many episodes does Breaking The Digital Spell have?
Breaking The Digital Spell currently has 25 episodes available.
What topics does Breaking The Digital Spell cover?
The podcast is about Society, Culture, Podcasts, Christianity, Technology, Religion & Spirituality, Education, Theology and Media.
What is the most popular episode on Breaking The Digital Spell?
The episode title 'SA-7: Internet Trolls and the Quest for the Inner Ring' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on Breaking The Digital Spell?
The average episode length on Breaking The Digital Spell is 34 minutes.
How often are episodes of Breaking The Digital Spell released?
Episodes of Breaking The Digital Spell are typically released every 7 days.
When was the first episode of Breaking The Digital Spell?
The first episode of Breaking The Digital Spell was released on Aug 11, 2018.
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