Thinking Out LoudWhen the iPhone was released in 2007, Apple’s fanbase dubbed it the “Jesus phone”: miraculous, revolutionary, all-powerful.
Nearly 20 years on, the religious language doesn’t seem as … laughable? blasphemous? overhyped? as it maybe sounded. Actually, many of us found – to use the language of conversion – that when we accepted a smartphone into our lives, it surely did transform us.
Whether we’re happy with how? That’s a different matter.
Three out of four Australians check social media as soon as they wake up. Four out of five check it before they go to bed. When Jesus invited his followers to ‘abide in me, and I will abide in you’, this is something like what he was talking about: an attentiveness so complete that it’s more like a state of consciousness than a series of actions.
In 2025, the average Australian spent more than 2.5 hours a day on their phone – but that figure was actually down 9 minutes from the year before. In a list of 49 countries, more than half of them reported a lower average screen time for 2025 than 2024.
If our experience of life on our smartphones has come to seem a bit cultish – detaching us from people we love, and things we used to enjoy; turning us into glassy-eyed zombies; making us more anxious and defensive, instead of freer and more thankful – there’s a growing appetite for change. Whether reverting to a dumbphone or simply reducing their use, people are dethroning the Jesus phone from its place in their lives.
The actual Jesus famously said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened … and you will find rest for your souls.” As more and more of us join the ranks of the digitally exhausted, that’s a release that’s worth the hype.
This Thinking Out Loud was first published on Facebook. This column draws on Felicia Song’s book Restless Devices, and an interview with her that features in this week’s Life & Faith episode ‘The Year of Getting Off Your Phone’, coming out on Thursday 19 February 2026.