Time Management

Christmas might be a time for vacations, but it sure does require plenty of work. It turns out families are dedicating a staggering amount of time to Christmas preparations over their lifetimes. A survey of festivity enthusiasts reveals that holiday preparations consume almost five years of their lives.

The most substantial chunk of time goes to planning Christmas dinner, consuming nearly two-and-a-half years of preparation over a lifetime. In addition to meal planning, hosts spend a remarkable 164 weeks cleaning and tidying before welcoming holiday guests.

The decorating process itself presents its own time demands. People spend more than two days adorning their Christmas trees, and 34 hours untangling lights. For those with real trees, an additional 36 hours are spent picking up or vacuuming pine needles over a 63-year period.

The research also highlights the stress associated with holiday preparations, with 60% of respondents finding the season stressful and 45% wishing for ways to make it less so. The cost-of-living crisis has amplified these concerns, with 41% expecting this Christmas to be more stressful than last year.

Despite these challenges, people maintain their enthusiasm for the season. The survey revealed that spending time with family and friends (44%), enjoying festive food and drink (41%), and giving presents (34%) rank as the nation’s favorite aspects of Christmas.

Possible Preaching Angle:
Christmas; Contentment; Fellowship; Hospitality - As we prepare for Christmas, it's important to reflect on how we're spending our time. Are we dedicating our efforts to what truly matters, like family, fellowship, community, and the essence of Christmas? Or are we getting caught up in distractions that create stress and detract from the fundamental values of togetherness and the true meaning of the season?

Somewhere between the hustle culture sermons about “grinding for the Kingdom” and your boss passive-aggressively emailing you at 10 p.m. with a “quick question,” the idea of actual, soul-filling rest has been lost.

Rest isn’t just a luxury—it’s a necessity. A spiritual, emotional, and even physical game-changer that modern life is actively working against. We treat it like a reward for productivity, something we “earn” by checking enough boxes. But that’s not how it works. If you only allow yourself to rest when you’ve run out of energy, you’re not actually resting. You’re recovering from burnout.

For a generation that’s really into “self-care,” we sure are bad at resting. We schedule vacations that are more exhausting than our regular lives and take “Sabbath” as an excuse to binge entire seasons of prestige TV in one sitting.

The Bible starts with God creating the world in six days and resting on the seventh—not because he was tired but because he was setting the rhythm. Rest wasn’t an afterthought. It was built into creation itself.

Jesus followed that rhythm too. He regularly stepped away from crowds, left people hanging (yes, really) and took time alone to pray. If the literal Savior of the world wasn’t available 24/7, why do we think we need to be?

Here’s the thing: rest isn’t just good for your soul. It’s good for your brain. Studies show that chronic stress literally rewires your brain, making it harder to focus, regulate emotions, and be productive in the long run.

The world thrives on keeping you busy. Consumerism, capitalism, and even some versions of church culture—there’s always something else to achieve. But choosing rest? That’s countercultural.

So, take a real Sabbath. Put your phone in another room. Go outside. Breathe. Let yourself rest. Because you don’t need to “earn” it. In fact, you were created for it.

In a relatively short period of time, smartphones have grown to a near-ubiquitous status. With each passing new release, smartphones are becoming more powerful and all-encompassing. Understandably, this is leading to increased user adoption and a surge in daily screen time.

Here are some highlights (2024 Statistics):

• On average, Americans spend 3 hours and 15 minutes on their phones each day.
• People check their phones an average of 58 times each day. And almost 52% of phone checks occur during work hours.
• Worldwide statistics show that the top 5 nations in cell phone use were the Philippines, Brazil, South Africa, Thailand, and Ghana, averaging just over 5 hours a day on their smartphones.
• Around 1 in 3 (36%) Americans believe they spend too much time on their smartphones each day.

There is a correlation between generations and phone screen time per day:

Gen Z - 6 hours and 5 minutes, with 56% feeling addicted Millennials - 4 hours and 36 minutes, with 48% feeling addicted Gen X - 4 hours and 9 minutes, with 44% feeling addicted Baby Boomers - 3 hours and 31 minutes, with 29% feeling addicted

One study found that, on average, children get their first phone at age 12. That means that the average American is expected to spend approximately 12 years of their life looking at their phone.

More than half of Americans believe they are too dependent on their phones (52%). As many as 3 in 5 (59%) use their phones in the bathroom, while 27% will text when at stoplights.

By 2027, there are expected to be 7.69 billion smartphone subscriptions.

Urban safety experts have long worried about the impact of distracted driving. However, a new study by researchers suggests we should be equally concerned about distracted walking.

Researchers have uncovered alarming differences in behavior between pedestrians engrossed in their mobile devices and those who remain alert to their surroundings. The study, conducted at two busy intersections in downtown Vancouver, used advanced video analysis techniques to examine the behavior of pedestrians and drivers during near-miss incidents.

Published in the journal Accident Analysis & Prevention, the findings paint a concerning picture of how our smartphone addiction is affecting our safety on city streets. Distracted pedestrians, those using their phones for texting, reading, or listening to music, tend to walk slower and maintain closer proximity to vehicles compared to their non-distracted counterparts. They also rarely yield to oncoming traffic and are less likely to change their walking direction, even when dangerously close to vehicles. This behavior suggests a significant decrease in awareness of their surroundings and reduced navigational efficiency. This creates a perfect storm for potential accidents.

The next time you find yourself reaching for your phone while walking, remember: the digital world can wait. Your safety, and the safety of those around you, depends on staying present in the physical world.

Boredom is a universally dreaded feeling. Being bored means wanting to be engaged when you can’t. Boredom is a different experience from the idleness of downtime or relaxation. Being bored means wanting to be engaged when you can’t, which is an uncomfortable feeling.

In one famous experiment, people were asked to sit quietly for 15 minutes in a room with nothing but their own thoughts. They also had the option to hit a button and give themselves an electric shock.

Getting physically shocked is unpleasant, but many people preferred it to the emotional discomfort of boredom. Out of 42 participants, nearly half opted to press the button at least once, even though they had experienced the shock earlier in the study and reported they would pay money to avoid experiencing it again.

Social psychologist Erin Westgate said, “Boredom is sort of an emotional dashboard light that goes off saying, like, ‘Hey, you’re not on track. It is this signal that whatever it is we’re doing either isn’t meaningful to us, or we’re not able to successfully engage with this.”

Boredom plays a valuable role in how people set and achieve goals. It acts as a catalyst by bringing together different parts of our brain — social, cognitive, emotional, or experiential memory. So, when we’re firing on all neurons, we’re at our most imaginative and making connections we otherwise never would have.

So go be bored, and encourage your kids to be bored too. Maybe you’ll find a new and creative “Eureka!” moment in your life, or imagine a great big new future for yourself or the world. Boredom is a worthwhile adventure.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Boredom can play a valuable role in how you set and achieve goals. Use it to motive you to action! 1) Meditation; Prayer - Don’t reach for your smartphone or the streaming device the next time you are forced to wait. Instead, use this time to set your mind on God: Read the Word, pray, meditate on God as revealed in nature. Destress yourself by centering your thoughts on God. 2) Help; Loving others; Service - You can also shift your focus toward others and their needs. Who can you help today?

Yet another study shows what should be obvious: teenagers need to spend time with dad. The study tracked over 200 families and found that time with both parents starts to decrease when kids reach the age of 15. But the University of Pennsylvania study also found that the time teens spend with their dads has critical benefits.

A CNN article stated, "The more time spent alone with their fathers, the higher their self-esteem; the more time with their dads in a group setting, the better their social skills." The article also said that time with mom helps too, but there's just something special about time with dad.

The researchers conjectured that one-on-one time with dad "may develop higher general self-worth [in teenagers] because their fathers go beyond social expectations to devote undivided attention to them."

The message is clear: dads can make a huge difference in their kids' lives.

The number of Americans living to at least 100 is expected to quadruple over the next 30 years, to about 422,000 by the mid-2050’s, according to the Pew Research Center. Laura Carstensen, founding director of Stanford University’s Center on Longevity, says research has made surprising discoveries about the way older people view their lives. With fewer “what-ifs,” they appear to gain more clarity on their place in the world. She added “…changes will be needed to make the most of those added years.”

Most people believe that growing older is associated with loneliness, depression, anxiety, and that mental health suffers. The very good news is, it looks like people do better emotionally as they get older. This has been so surprising to researchers and to the general public that it’s probably been the most scrutinized finding about aging.

A lot goes wrong as we get older. There are physical problems, loss of loved ones, and age discrimination. There’s a lot that isn’t good about growing older, but people seem to do better emotionally. Older people have shorter time horizons. For many years, people thought that must make people miserable and scared. The interesting thing is there’s a paradox. It actually makes people feel calmer not to have to prepare for this long and nebulous future, and to be able to live more in the present.

Younger people are almost always thinking about the future. They almost always have one foot out the door, whatever they’re doing. And older people seem to do better just being able to be in the present and enjoy the moment. I think that is because they don’t have to keep planning. As people get older it’s clearer where they stand in the world and what they’re good at. And older people tend to look at the positive in life.

It doesn’t appear to be good for individuals or societies to have a large group of people kind of sit it out for 30 years. What we need to do is rethink how we live our lives from the beginning all the way through, in order to optimize these longer lives.

Possible Preaching Angle:

If you retire at age 65 or even 70 but live to be 100, what are you going to do for the Lord in those last 30 plus years? Are you really going to just sit in church for all those years? What does the Lord want you to do?

The hottest travel amenity is getting your time back—because we all hate to wait!

In November 2024, Walt Disney World began piloting a new paid service that allows visitors to the Florida resort’s four theme parks to bypass regular lines for popular attractions. Vail Resorts introduced a gear membership program meant to let skiers skip rental lines. More hotels are charging for perks like early check-in.

About half of the more than 650 theme parks, zoos, aquariums, monuments and observation decks surveyed by the travel-research firm Arival offered skip-the-line or VIP access tickets in 2024. Of those not offering these options, 18% said they would introduce similar access in 2025.

The trend highlights how cost and comfort are becoming more intermingled for travelers, especially those hitting crowded destinations. And how those with tighter budgets risk ending up worse off.

These offers are often aimed at families. Rochelle Marcus, a stay-at-home mom in Oxford, N.C., says parents have extra incentive to pay up for a pass during school breaks, when crowds are larger. “That way everyone’s not tired, cranky, and grumpy at the end of the day,” she says. And as someone else in the article concluded: “Life is too short to be spent waiting in line all the time.”

Possible Preaching Angles:

You can approach this illustration from two angles: 1) Impatience; Waiting – This shows the negative side of human nature that is impatient and wants favorable status. This status is gained by payment. 2) Advocate; Invitation; Rights - The positive side is that we have an advocate who gifted us with priority access to the Father (Eph. 3:12; Heb. 4:14-16). This status is all due to God’s grace. You cannot buy your way into access with God.

Jonathan Haidt, author of a bestseller, "The Anxious Generation," challenged church leaders to address an important issue. He writes:

As long as children have a phone-based childhood there is very little hope for their spiritual education. An essential precondition is to delay the phone-based life until the age of 18, I would say. Don't let them fall off into cyberspace, because once they do, it's going to be so spiritually degrading for the rest of their lives. There's not much you can do in church if they are spending 10 hours a day outside of church on their phones.

Believers also need to know that researchers have found evidence that religious communities and families play a crucial role in raising healthy children. Haidt continued, “The kids who made it through are especially those who are locked into binding communities and religious communities.” Meanwhile, it is the "secular kids and the kids in progressive families" who tend to be "the ones who got washed out to sea."

Haidt stressed that lives built on smartphones, tablets, and computers will change their minds and hearts:

Half of American teen-agers say that they are online 'almost all the time.' That means that they are never fully present – never, ever. They are always partly living in terms of what is happening with their posts, what's happening online….

There is a degradation effect that is overwhelming, but most people haven't noticed…. I am hoping that religious communities will both notice it and be able to counteract it. But you can't counteract it if the kid still has the phone in a pocket. The phone is that powerful.

Pollution. When you hear that word what do you think of? Perhaps dangerous gases are being emitted into our atmosphere. Garbage floating around the ocean. Sick animals due to toxic food. But there's another pollutant lurking in our society. An invisible one that we encounter every single day. Information. It's in our phones, televisions, text chains, and email threads. It's packed into devices we wear on our wrists and in the checkout lines at the grocery store.

In our modern society, escaping the barrage of information is impossible. But are we equipped to handle it? In a 2024 letter published in Nature Human Behavior, scientists argued that we should treat this information overload like environmental pollution. It may not affect our drinking water, but it affects our brains at every turn.

The brain is the most complex organ in the body. But the brain can only process a certain amount of information. When we exceed that peak level, it can almost feel like our brain is filled to the brink and totally frozen, incapable of performing its most basic duties that help us get through our days.

When we reach that point of paralysis, we can't process and act on the information we consume. If this is feeling familiar, you're not alone. According to the Real Time Statistics Project, as of January 2023, there were nearly 2 billion websites on the internet. 175 million tweets were sent every day, and 30 billion pieces of content were shared monthly on Facebook. How was it possible to not get distracted by all that information?

Of course, technology is useful. We can look up healthy recipes or determine if a headache is just a headache or something more problematic. But because of modern technology, we're all slaves to the amount of information we can consume. The American Psychological Association defines information overload as the state when the intensity of information exceeds an individual's processing capacity, leading to anxiety, poor decision-making, and other undesirable consequences.

In today’s digital age, entertainment is always at our fingertips. Whether it’s the endless scroll on TikTok or jumping from one YouTube video to another, the way we consume media has drastically changed in recent years. But is this content stream of entertainment really entertaining us? A new study finds that scrolling through videos online to cure your boredom can actually make you even more bored!

Researchers from the University of Toronto delved into the curious phenomenon where our attempts to avoid boredom by rapidly swiping through digital content might actually be making things worse. The findings reveal a counterintuitive outcome: the very behavior meant to stave off boredom — quickly moving through entertaining videos — ends up intensifying it.

Digital platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Netflix have revolutionized how we consume media. With just a swipe or a click, we can skip over content that doesn’t immediately capture our interest. This behavior, known as “digital switching,” is when users switch between different videos or fast-forward through parts of a video in search of something more stimulating. At first glance, this seems like an efficient way to maximize enjoyment and avoid dull moments. However, research suggests that this behavior might be doing the opposite of what we intend.

You might wonder why switching between content would make you more bored. After all, if you’re skipping the “boring” parts, shouldn’t that make the overall experience better?

When you engage deeply with a video, your attention is focused, and you’re more likely to find the content meaningful. However, when you constantly switch, your attention is fragmented. This fragmented attention doesn’t allow you to become fully absorbed in what you’re watching, leading to a feedback loop where you’re constantly seeking something better but never fully satisfied and therefore more bored.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Not only does endlessly swiping from one video to another lead to wasting time and boredom, it can also open the door to the temptation to view inappropriate content for an emotional high.

Have you ever wondered what happens in your brain while you sleep? A good night's sleep does more than just help you feel rested; it might literally clear your mind.

A study published in the journal Cell shows how deep sleep may wash away waste buildup in the brain during waking hours, an essential process for maintaining brain health. According to one researcher, “It’s like turning on the dishwasher before you go to bed and waking up with a clean brain.”

Research sheds light on how deep sleep plays a crucial role in “cleaning” the brain by flushing out waste products that accumulate during waking hours. This process, known as glymphatic clearance, is driven by the brain’s glymphatic system to remove toxic proteins associated with neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease.

The study identified norepinephrine, a molecule released during deep sleep, as a key player in this process. Researchers observed in mice that norepinephrine waves occur roughly every 50 seconds, causing blood vessels to contract and create rhythmic pulsations. These pulsations act as a pump, propelling brain fluid to wash away waste.

These findings, which likely apply to humans, highlight the importance of high-quality, natural sleep for maintaining cognitive health. Poor sleep may disrupt waste clearance, potentially increasing the risk of neurological disorders. Researchers noted that understanding these mechanisms can help people make informed decisions about their sleep and overall brain health.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Sleep is a precious gift from God, reminding us of the importance of rest in our lives. By modeling rest himself, God teaches us that taking time to recharge is necessary. Renewing our minds is crucial, and rest allows us to do just that—refreshing our thoughts and rejuvenating our spirit.

Disney is trying to be as addictive as Netflix, and they want to grab and keep your attention. Disney spent years trying to attract new subscribers to its Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ streaming services. Now it is trying to make sure those customers spend more time glued to the screen. The entertainment giant is developing a host of new features aimed at lengthening the amount of time subscribers spend viewing its shows and movies. The goal is to mitigate customer defections and generate more revenue from advertising sales.

A metric known as “hours per subscriber”—a measure of user engagement—has taken on increased importance at Disney in recent months, current and former streaming employees say. Netflix, famous for enabling binge-watching with batch releases of episodes, has also given priority to improving user engagement and return visits in recent years.

New features in the works at Disney include a more-personalized algorithm to power content recommendations, customized promotional art for new shows based on subscriber’s tastes and usage history, and emails sent to viewers who stop watching in the middle of a series reminding them to finish.

The bottom line is this: many organizations are vying to capture your attention. What will you choose to set your mind on?

A man from Scotland noticed positive changes in his lifestyle after he decided to stop watching television in the evening. 41-year-old Stephen Clarke said, “Now I spend my time creating the reality I want rather than numbing myself from the one I have.”

Mr. Clarke grew up watching television at home as it seemed like a normal thing for him to do. After completing work, he would watch movies or DVDs. Since he already followed a healthy lifestyle, he didn’t experience any glaring negative effects from watching television, but it was the “not-so-obvious side effects” that he eventually became aware of.

Mr. Clarke noticed, “I could feel the energy I was taking on board from the movies and shows I was watching. The drama, the violence, the stress, not to mention the blue light from screens late at night activating and heightening my nervous system and exaggerating all of this.”

Describing television as a “hypnosis machine,” Mr. Clarke said the blue light along with the flashing images that constantly change at a fast pace makes the narrative a part of your subconscious. “The news is constantly giving us reason to be scared, why we’re different from one another, and why we all need to shield and protect ourselves.”

He also felt that while watching television, he wasn’t processing his own thoughts, but rather numbing them, his emotions, and his energy. Instead of working through them, he began blurring his clarity and vision for life. “I experienced big transitions in my life, and I was numbing the feelings of that with screens in the evening, rather than doing what I should have been doing.”

Knowing this, he was keen on making a change.

The father of three began to learn new things such as wood carving, playing a musical instrument, and more. Additionally, he was able to spend more time reading books, cooking, and going on adventures.

He said, “Every month that passes without constant TV exposure gives me more clarity on what I’m doing and how I choose to live my life. My relationships are transforming as well as my working life.”

Mr. Clarke hasn’t cut television out of his life completely, but when he does watch it, he tries to bring value to what he is watching.

If you find yourself being more impatient than ever before when interacting with people in customer service roles—or if you’ve noticed other people having a shorter fuse and snapping more quickly—you’re not alone. Lines can be a source of anger, frustration, and arguments. Twenty-seven percent of consumers get annoyed by fellow shoppers when in line and 19% of shoppers have even had an argument with a partner or friend in a line.

The vast majority of consumers associate waiting in line with negative emotions. Nearly 67% of the consumers surveyed report feeling impatient, bored, annoyed, frustrated, or disrespected when they have to wait.

Notably, impatience skyrocketed this year (2024)—increasing by 176%. This suggests that consumers are shifting from boredom and annoyance towards impatience. This finding is unsurprising given our current social climate. Technology is increasing expectations for instant gratification while high levels of anxiety are shortening fuses. Surveys have shown that 25% would only wait a maximum of two minutes. Fifty-nine percent would wait no longer than four minutes. Seventy-three percent would abandon their purchase if they had to queue for more than five minutes.

Furthermore, the widespread transition to remote work during the pandemic resulted in reduced face-to-face interaction. And with a decrease in this time spent with our fellow humans, it has likely been more difficult to develop empathy and patience. Too much screen time may have caused “keyboard courage” to bleed into our day-to-day conversations, leaving us more abrupt and even rude in our communications.

Another cause of heightened emotions is the overall challenges people in the world are facing, including polarization, war, the underlying stress of inflation, supply chain issues, or looming economic uncertainty.

All of these factors are pushing people to their limits and resulting in an increase in burnout, frustration, and impatience in their interactions with others.

Religious and non-religious people alike think that many people are living shallow and superficial lives. They have noticed that many are rushing through life at break-neck speeds, with little regard or thought to what they are doing. Author Pete Davis explores this issue by going back to 1986 and the improbable opening of a McDonald's restaurant in Italy:

When the burger chain opened in the Piazza di Spagna, one of the most famous squares in Rome, an outcry erupted across Italy. Thousands rallied to protest what Italians saw as the desecration of a historic center by a symbol of shallow consumerism. One of the chain's opponents, Italian journalist Carlo Petrini, thought sign and angry chants were not enough to convey the depth of the protest's message. So, he went to the square and handed out bowls of pasta, a symbol of Italy's deep culinary tradition. Petrini and his compatriots shouted: “We don't want fast food. We want slow food.”

Thus, the International Slow Food movement was born, advocating not just for local cuisines but "slow and prolonged enjoyment.” The Slow Food movement spread around the world. It was perfectly timed for an era when people were beginning to notice the downsides of the global forces that had been prioritizing quantity over quality, spectacle over depth, and the fast over the slow. It felt bigger than food. It was a whole different mindset than that being served up by the global corporations of the day.

Davis ends the segment by quoting Ralph Waldo Emerson and elaborates:

“In skating over thin ice, our safety is in our speed.” When there's not much underneath the surface of our superficial routines, best to move fast to distract ourselves from our shallowness. When we force ourselves to move slow again, as the Slow movement calls us to do, we confront it. The confrontation can be terrifying. But as we move through it, we can begin to rediscover depth.

Emotional farewells are a common sight at airports, but travelers leaving the New Zealand city of Dunedin will have to be quick. A new three-minute time limit on goodbye hugs in the airport’s drop-off area is intended to prevent lingering cuddles from causing traffic jams.

“Max hug time three minutes,” warn signs outside the terminal, adding that those seeking “fonder farewells” should head to the airport’s parking lot instead.

The cuddle limit was imposed in September to “keep things moving smoothly” in the redesigned passenger drop-off area outside the airport, CEO Dan De Bono told The Associated Press. It was the airport’s way of reminding people that the zone was for “quick farewells” only. “[It’s] plenty of time to pull up, say farewell to your loved ones and move on,” says De Bono. “The time limit is really a nicer way of saying, ‘You know, get on with it.’”

A 20-second hug is long enough to release the wellbeing-boosting hormones oxytocin and serotonin, De Bono said. Anything longer was “really awkward.”

But passengers need not worry unduly about enforcement. “We do not have hug police.” Visitors might, however, be asked to move their lingering embraces to the parking lot, where they can cuddle free of charge for up to 15 minutes.

Possible Preaching Angle:

For Christians, goodbyes are never final. Farewells in the Bible often serve as a moment of transition, marking the end of one chapter and the beginning of another. They are moments of reflection, blessing, and often, divine revelation. They remind us of the importance of relationships and the enduring presence of God in our lives.

Editor’s note: For more on this topic you can click here.

How's your fantasy team shaping up? A recent Statista article takes stock of the United States' growing fantasy sports phenomenon. ESPN, DraftKings, and Yahoo, have spearheaded the growth of the online market, with the overall number of fantasy sports platforms increasing to 651 in 2023.

Between 2015 and 2022, the number of fantasy sports players in the US grew steadily. As of 2022, the total number of US fantasy sports players reached 50.4 million who spent $9.48 billion US dollars.

All that money goes to a booming fantasy industry—filled with scouting reports, insider magazines, draft conventions, and even entire cable channels dedicated to the pastime. Think for a moment of the sheer magnitude of this collected time, energy, research, and money. Cumulatively, there are entire human lifetimes—incalculable hours and moments—and vast fortunes going toward a particularly abstract form of entertainment.

Stats like these are a powerful reminder that our lives are supposed to be about more than dreaming about imaginary draft picks. What could we do if we directed all that energy in a more productive direction? What does it say about our sense of collective stewardship? What does our entertainment say about our hearts?

(Editor’s Note: Stats are the most current available as of 10/24)

The following 10 things will happen around the world every 60 seconds of this new year:

• Births: Approximately 250 babies are born worldwide every minute. (Source: Worldometers)

• Deaths: Approximately 105 people die worldwide every minute. (Source: Worldometers)

• Marriages: Around 116 people get married worldwide every minute. (Source: The World Bank)

• YouTube Uploads: Approximately 500 hours of video content are uploaded to YouTube every minute. (Source: YouTube)

• Packages Delivered: Amazon delivers approximately 1,200 packages per minute. (Source: Amazon)

• Emails Sent: Approximately 200 million emails are sent worldwide every minute. (Source: Statista)

• Google Searches: Approximately 40,000 Google searches are conducted every minute. (Source: Google)

• Social Media Posts: Approximately 1.5 million social media posts are made every minute. (Source: Statista)

• Netflix Streams: Approximately 100 million minutes of content are streamed on Netflix every minute. (Source: Netflix)

• Twitter Tweets: Approximately 500,000 tweets are sent every minute. (Source: Twitter)

Note: These statistics are approximate and can vary based on various factors.

Possible Preaching Angles:

1) Divine Knowledge; Omniscience of God – The multiplied billions of events around the world each minute are no match for the infinite knowledge of God. With him, a day is like a thousand years (2 Peter 3:8), he has an infinite amount of attention for each person’s hopes, pain, thoughts, and prayers (Matt. 10:30; Luke 12:7). (2) Redeeming the Time—Ephesians 5:16 reminds us to make the most of the time because the days are evil. (3) Accepting Christ; Conversion—This can also be the moment when you turn from sin and give your life to Christ.

New York Times Columnist Ezra Klein notes his theory why the Internet feels “so crummy” these days. It puts us into “shame closets.” He explains:

A shame closet is that spot in your home where you cram the stuff that has nowhere else to go… It can be a garage or a room or a chest of drawers… as the shame closet grows, the task of excavation or organization becomes too daunting to contemplate.

The shame closet era of the internet had a beginning. It was 20 years ago that Google unveiled Gmail… Everyone wanted in. But you had to be invited. I remember jockeying for one of those early invites...I felt lucky. I felt chosen.

A few months ago, I euthanized that Gmail account. I have more than a million unread messages in my inbox. Most of what’s there is junk. But not all of it… According to iCloud, I have more than 23,000 photos and almost 2,000 videos resting somewhere on Apple’s servers. I have tens of thousands of songs liked somewhere on Spotify. How many conversations do I have stored in Messages, in WhatsApp, in Signal, in Twitter and Instagram and Facebook DMs? There is so much I loved in those archives... But I can’t find what matters in the morass. I’ve given up on trying.

The social networks made it easy for anyone we’ve ever met, and plenty of people we never met, to friend and follow us. We could communicate with them all at once without communing with them individually at all. Or so we were told. The idea that we could have so much community with so little effort was an illusion. We are digitally connected to more people than ever and terribly lonely nevertheless. Closeness requires time, and time has not fallen in cost or risen in quantity.