by Bishop James D. Conley

But first a note: Be sure to tune in tomorrow night - Thursday, June 12th at 8 PM Eastern - to EWTN for a new episode of the Papal Posse on 'The World Over.' TCT Editor-in-Chief Robert Royal and contributor Fr. Gerald E. Murray will join host Raymond Arroyo to discuss the emerging papacy of Leo XIV, the removal of art by Marko Rupnik from the Vatican website, and other issues in the global Church. Check your local listings for the channel in your area. Shows are usually available shortly after first airing on the EWTN YouTube channel.

Now for today's column.

Professor John Senior, my godfather and one of the professors of the famed Integrated Humanities Program at the University of Kansas, was a master of hyperbole. He once hinted to us, his students, that we should just go home and smash our television sets. Perhaps he didn't mean this literally, but he suggested that this was something we should consider. I know of at least one fellow student who took him at his word and dropped his 19-inch Motorola black and white television set out of the window of his fourth-floor dorm room onto the concrete alley below.

Today, the lightweight plastic screen would barely make a sound when it hit the pavement. But in the 1970s, the dozens of sealed tubes (this is why some still call the TV "the tube") exploded with a thunderous noise. It was so satisfying. So cathartic.

TV was a relatively new technology at the time; it had taken a generation or so to begin to realize what it was doing to us. Instead of being active, seeking, critical engagers with the real world, filled with wonder and joy, we were becoming lazy, slack-jawed, and flat-souled accepters of an often false or incomplete mediated version of reality.

The sound of a TV exploding on the pavement helped mark a new phase of life for us. One in which we made a commitment - a commitment deeply related to our faith (I converted to Catholicism through influence of the IHP) - to refuse to allow this technology to shape us in these negative and distorting ways.

Today, we are faced with a similar problem, but on a wildly greater scale. Artificial Intelligence and related technologies will now be able to use our reliance on screen-delivered mediating technologies and throw us into something close to total confusion about what is real and what isn't.

Deep-fake videos are now often indistinguishable from real ones. Soon, you won't know whether you are in a Zoom meeting with a real person or with an AI-created chatbot who looks just like a real person. Voices can now be faked to the point where even family members cannot tell the difference. "Proof of reality" is going to become a thing.

Two generations after John Senior, I wonder: do we need to do the equivalent of "smashing our TVs" once again? I also wonder if, this time, the ideas and call of Pope Leo XIV might be our inspiration for doing so.

The Holy Father has certainly made it clear that one of the reasons he chose his name was to signal that he would be like Leo XIII, a pope who helped the Church and world respond to the massively disruptive Industrial Revolution of the 19th Century. Today, our Holy Father understands we are in the midst of another technological revolution, one that promises some good things but is likely to raise our passivity in the face of distorted reality to levels never seen before.

What would it look like to "smash our TVs" in 2025? Fewer people are even watching what we might think of as traditional television. But "cutting the TV cord" doesn't automatically mean less screen time. Our many other screens have, if anything, led to even more time looking at screens. This is especially true for young people, but I myself often feel this way about my phone and computer screens.

Last week, Clare Morell released her new book, The Tech Exit. It's geared toward parents wrestling with these matters, especially for their children, but it can be read with profit by virtually anyone. Morell a...