University’s Digital Rest Effort Refocuses Students on God
Students at Liberty University are stepping away from their phones for a 28-day digital rest, a campus-wide effort aimed at refocusing attention on God and other people. The challenge encourages students to log out of all media platforms and delete nonessential apps. Importantly, they’ll reconsider how constant connectivity shapes their spiritual health.
The college’s second annual initiative provides students with a an easy-to-understand and structured guide featuring scripture readings, devotionals and even reflection prompts. Participants are encouraged to engage with the guide daily on weekdays while reducing screen time. The university has also placed 300 Brick devices — tools that temporarily block social media access — in residence halls to support the effort.
The digital rest launched last month during Liberty’s convocation, where Joey Odom warned that excessive phone use can “choke out every good thing in our lives.” Invoking Jesus’ parable of the sower, Odom described worries, pleasures and wealth as “thorns” exacerbated by social media.
“The deceitfulness of wealth and the constant comparison of our social media feeds is a reminder of what we don’t have, which opens up our hearts to the lie that we are incomplete without that wealth,” he said. “This is the thorn that chokes out truth.”
He called them “digital thorns.”
“What it looks like to live differently is this,” Odom said. “We have to stop bringing our phones to every moment of our lives. When we bring our phones into potential moments of fruit, we’re just bringing thorns to a fruit party. Don’t bring thorns to a fruit party. Get into the daily practice of spending time apart from your phone.”
Odom also cautioned that mobile devices can be used by the enemy to “separate us, our mind, our will, our intentions, everything, from God.” He contrasted modern distractions with those of the 1940s.
“But why would he waste a temptation on a capital-S sin like murder when simple distraction can do the trick? In the 1940s, the greatest distraction this brilliant man could think of was a deck of playing cards. If only that were our greatest distraction today.”
Unlike the mid-20th century, Odom noted, roughly 10 million games are accessible through cellphones today, alongside TikTok, YouTube and other platforms competing for attention. It’s a flood of distraction.
“So let me ask a question,” Odom said. “How on earth are we supposed to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind and with all our strength? And then, once we nail that, love our neighbors as ourselves? This feels impossible.”
The digital rest initiative also aligns with a recent Harvard Medical School study that found a one-week voluntary social media detox reduced anxiety by 16 percent, depression by 24 percent and insomnia by 14.5 percent.
For Liberty University students participating this month, the goal is simple, even if it isn’t easy: fewer digital thorns, more spiritual fruit.
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–Alan Goforth
