Smartphones and Spiritual Health | Jeff Sajdak and Aaron Einfeld

When's the last time you checked your smartphone? Does the mere mention of your phone make you reach for your pocket? If your use of your smartphone borders on addiction, you're not alone.

Calvin Seminary held what we called a "Smartphone Retreat", a week-long series of exercises and practices designed to help us answer the questions “how much and how well do we use our smartphones?” and “what are the positive and negative effects they have on us?” Jeff Sajdak, Dean of Students, and Aaron Einfeld, Director of Lifelong Learning, planned and facilitated the week. Our then Educational Technologist, Nathan Bierma, talked to them about why they started the smartphone retreat, based off a TedTalk by Manoush Zomorodi and her book "Bored and Brilliant", and what they learned.