Whenever I’m around my nieces, Rory, 16, and Cameron, 13, their relentless TikToking, Snapchatting, and FaceTiming annoy me. I’m puzzled by the amount of time they devote to their online lives. Then something sobering happened to me recently. Out of curiosity, I looked on my iPhone to see how long I had spent on it that day. Seven hours, 42 minutes. I was sick about it. YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and texting clearly occupy more time than I realized. (Apologies to my nieces.)

It is 1963 in Detroit. Mattie Moss Clark (Aunjanue Ellis), mother of five daughters, gets an idea for a gospel song in the middle of the night.

Express outrage, offer prayers, do nothing; express outrage, offer prayers, do nothing; repeat! Sound familiar? This is our pattern after every mass shooting. We hear about a horrific shooting where many men, women, children (fill in the blank) are killed by—depending on if the person is white, black, or Muslim—a terrorist, thug, or mentally unstable individual. We are shocked. The talking heads on TV ask: “How this could happen? “

COVID-19 is still wreaking havoc on communities across the country. I have no way of knowing what will happen next week or next month.

Just as uplifting news stories seem to get buried under the more salacious and exploitative items, the efforts to spread goodness and well-being via technology are often overshadowed by mind-numbing games and unhealthy use of social media. Although we ought to tread carefully in the web-based world of content, we should also keep an open mind to where it can be beneficial to our psyches and spirits.