ENGLEWOOD, NJ — Metr. Saba (
@SabaIsper) of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America has urged Christians to exercise discipline and discernment in their use of social media, warning that technology can become spiritually harmful when it begins to dominate a person's life rather than serve it.
In a reflection published June 4, the hierarch recounted advice given decades ago by Archimandrite Isaac Atallah, a disciple of St. Paisios the Athonite. When questioned in the 1980s about the newly introduced home video player, Fr. Isaac responded that the problem was not the device itself but the user's ability to turn it off when it became harmful. Metr. Saba suggested the same principle applies today to social media platforms and digital technologies.