Questions
How Do Algorithms Form Our Loves and Habits?
Summary: Algorithms are not neutral delivery mechanisms but formative environments. They train our attention, shape our desires, and reinforce specific habits of reaction — quietly cultivating a kind of person while we believe we are simply consuming content.
Every major digital platform is engineered to maximize engagement, and engagement is maximized by appealing to fast, reactive emotion: outrage, curiosity, fear, comparison, pride. These are not random byproducts; they are what the systems are optimized to produce. The result is a formative environment that, with sufficient repetition, trains users into specific dispositions: faster reactions, shorter attention, sharper polarization, lower tolerance for ambiguity. None of this requires conscious intent on the user's part. The formation happens in the background.
Christian virtue points in the opposite direction. Patience, gentleness, self-control, discernment, and love require slowness, attention, and the capacity to hold complexity without collapsing into reaction. A Christian whose attention is shaped by algorithms but whose stated commitments are to virtue is in a kind of internal contradiction — attempting to cultivate slow fruits in a soil engineered for fast harvests. Resisting algorithmic formation is not a peripheral matter of digital hygiene; it is a core component of contemporary spiritual formation.
Key Takeaways: Algorithms as Formative Environments
- Core Concept: Engagement-optimized platforms train reactive emotion as a habit.
- The Formation Mismatch: Algorithms cultivate fast reactions; Christian virtue requires slowness and attention.
- Scripture: Galatians 5:22–23 (the fruit of the Spirit as slow growth).
- The "So What": Spiritual formation in the digital age requires deliberate counter-formation against algorithmic defaults.
About the Author — James Spencer, PhD, is a theologian, author, and host of the Thinking Christian podcast, where he writes and speaks on Christian formation, political theology, and technology. He holds a PhD in Theological Studies from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and an MA in Biblical Exegesis from Wheaton College. He serves as president of the D. L. Moody Center in Northfield, Massachusetts, as an Associate Research Fellow at the Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology, and as adjunct faculty in Wheaton College’s MA in Leadership program. His forthcoming book is Digital Discernment (InterVarsity Press). Learn more at thinkingchristian.org.