Rating: 4 out of 5 stars. If you're looking to start your digital detox journey, or want to know about how being chronically online can affect your health, then you'll want to grab this book. It absolutely amazes me how much the world has changed during my lifetime - and it's easy to not realize how being online and accessible 24/7 can affect you when it's become the new norm. Gregory presents a lot of information in an easy-to-read manner, and will make you reconsider being so attached to devices all the time. A great way to start unplugging. ~ Liliyana Shadowlyn (Reviewer) , NetGalley

‘The unconscious use of social media and digital devices is diminishing our intelligence’. Jason Gregory. Well, would you ditch your smartphone, if it meant saving your health and sanity? This is the question that Australian self-help writer Jason Gregory wants you to consider as a reader of his Spiritual Freedom in the Digital Age: How to remain healthy and sane in a world gone mad. It’s not a new book, having been published in March 2022, but O-Books was promoting it recently and sent me a copy. Gregory writes in a spontaneous, conversational tone and, I imagine, how he speaks. He pulls no punches in a worthy and strident polemic against the ‘digital bandwagon’, beginning by asking two serious and conscience-pricking questions: is it natural to be distracted all the time by digital devices? And do we really need access to the internet every moment of the day? Before you play unconsciously with your phone, he says, ask yourself how that habit is training your mind. Offering ways of kicking the habit, he warns of psychological and spiritual damage being done by digital technology and social media, and advocates strongly a digital-free lifestyle. Although we’re now more connected with each other, constant conflict in the digital world means we’re more divided than ever, he maintains. So never mind your smartphone, the human organism is ‘the most sophisticated piece of technology in the known universe and most of us sadly don’t know anything about it’. People have forgotten even that they have a body and a mind, and forgotten about consciousness itself: ‘We are like fish who aren’t aware of the water.’ Living in a digital world has misallocated our energy and time, leaving scant energy for nature, creativity and productivity; maintaining a social media presence is the main energy drain, he says.... https://geoffjward.medium.com/could-you-adopt-a-digital-free-lifestyle-a1f9918c28c0 ~ Geoff Ward, Medium.com

In 2001, Steven Spielberg directed a film called AI: Artificial Intelligence. It warns of an apocalyptic world in which technology has superseded nature. This is similar to the statement made by Jason Gregory in this book. He begins by exposing the lack of innocence and of appreciation for the world in which we live. He explains that while technological advances have done much to improve our lives, they have also caused much damage. His foremost claim is that people are addicted to technology and the distraction it offers. We have become a world of entertainment junkies, our faces so firmly attached to our devices, we don’t see what is going on around us. He begs the question, “What is going on in our phones that is so much better than life?” Gregory recognizes the significance of robotics as an effort to make life easier for amputees and in other situations. He also warns against transhumanism, the effort to mesh man and machine He cites a growing movement in this direction. So are we lost? Not according to the author. He states we can reclaim our attitude of pure attention, our natural state of being present in our lives. He provides us with a recipe to do just that. ~ BuNEKE Magazine, Review

We now live in an attention economy where social media companies compete for this crucial form of currency that can be translated into advertising revenue. Our attention is even more important than our time as its quality is more limited. In this thoughtful book, the author analyses the psychological and spiritual damage of digital technology on the human mind problem reminding us that our connection to embodiment and life itself is far more fundamental. As TS Eliot put it in the 1930s, we have become distracted from distraction by distraction. Not only that, the relentless emphasis on mechanistic rationality has a dehumanising effect, even while algorithms manipulate us emotionally. The fundamental danger is the loss of soul in terms of interiority and silence. It is up to each one of us to establish a sustainable digital balance and healthy lifestyle, although there can be no going back to the days before screens. We should all be thinking carefully about the issues raised in this book. ~ David Lorimer, Paradigm Explorer

In the genuinely thought-provoking Spiritual Freedom in the Digital Age: How to Remain Healthy and Sane in a World Gone Mad, author Jason Gregory (a man who has lived in Asia studying the spiritual traditional and meditative practices of Buddhism, Hinduism and Taoism; so he must know a thing or two about calming the mind, body and soul), offers up the viewpoint that, albeit one I think we of a certain age are almost certainly starkly aware of, that electronics are the foremost contribution to our diminishing mental and physical health. But, and as is pondered here by Gregory, if you ask a global demographic about whether or not digital technology is good or bad (overall) for the psychological and spiritual growth within us, it is most likely you would receive a substantial agreement that the positives of digital life will continue to outweigh the negatives. However, as in all great technological revolutions, digital life has and will continue to have a dark side, as is also very much subscribed to here, of course. But, and in what is a veritable page-turner, Gregory also purports that roughly a third of those who use digital media in any small to large way on a daily basis, predicts that harms to well-being will most definitely outweigh the positives in the next decade. In addition, even among those who say they are hopeful that digital life will be more helpful than harmful and among those who say there will not be much change, there are also those who also express deep concerns about people’s well-being in the future. And therein lies the rub, my friends, for as Gregory admirably, diligently plays Devil’s Advocate for both sides of the argument, the massive and undeniable benefits of digital life – access to knowledge and culture – have already been mostly realized. The side effect to that, however, is the harms have begun to come into view also, and perhaps more so in just over the past few years, and the trend line is moving consistently in a negative direction. Full Review: https://annecarlini.com/ex_books.php?id=310 ~ Exclusive Magazine, Review

“In Spiritual Freedom in the Digital Age, a writer who understands the true nature of the human mind and the way it manifests consciousness tell us how modern cyber-technology is rapidly degrading the quality of human consciousness and driving a huge wedge between human nature and Mother Nature. Jason Gregory, the author of several excellent books on spiritual awareness and the key role it plays in understanding reality and realising our full potential in life, also has a working knowledge of the human brain and the way it assembles its view of the world on the inner screen of consciousness. In this book he explains how digital screens are replacing our inner screens as the primary source of consciousness in daily life, filling the mind with useless trivia scripted by media and distracting time and attention away from the important things in life, such as health and human relations. Many "tech-addicts" spend so much time plugged into the internet that they now treat their own bodies like a piece of furniture or hardware--a chair to sit on, a garbage disposal for junk food, and a receptacle for vicarious pleasure on demand. So-called "social media" has become a hideaway for millions of asocial, and some very antisocial, people who have no social skills at all in real life, and yet this has become the norm today. Gregory's book is a timely wake-up call for a world that is dosing off in The Big Sleep of cyber-space, a sleep so deep and far removed from human nature that it's turning much of the world into a beehive of automatons devoid of basic human values. But this is not a doomsday diatribe, like so many other books on the subject. It's a cogent appeal for caution and a "user's manual" with concrete suggestions for how people can use this technology in a way that does not disconnect their links with nature.” ~ Daniel Reid, author of author of The Tao of Health, Sex, and Longevity

“Those interested in self-development and spiritual growth have a new set of hurdles to overcome. Hurdles previously unknown to the past masters; these are the hurdles of digital technology and the mind-numbingly addictive levels of distraction that they bring. I hope that people reading this book will actually take on board just how important the warnings and solutions given by Jason Gregory are if you really want the most out of life. What Jason has expertly written here is a book which echoes my own grave fears about the direction modern life is taking us.” ~ Damo Mitchell, author of A Comprehensive Guide to Daoist Nei Gong

“Jason Gregory’s latest book Spiritual Freedom in the Digital Age is a vibrant call to return to the essentials of life and to bring the value back into the art of being. Gregory, a lover of the human organism, tells us it is time to invest in ourselves. We are being desensitized by our addictions to an encroaching digital culture that can create anxiety and disconnection to the precious moments in life. This book reminds us to concentrate on cultivating focus and attention and to be truly present in our human relations. We must thank Gregory for this timely reminder to reevaluate our relationship to technology, and to understand the true value of human technology – the human being.” ~ Kingsley L. Dennis, author of The Sacred Revival: Magic, Mind & Meaning in a Technological Age

"This book addresses a critically important issue: how to transform into the “new human” in what lies beyond the Information Age, using more than just our tech-addicted brain. To access our full potential, we must include heart, feelings, and body as equally enlightened parts of our total makeup. We are human for a reason! We don’t transform by avoiding the physical world but by merging with it all the way. Pay attention to what Jason is saying here—it will wake you up!" ~ Penney Peirce, author of Transparency, Leap of Perception, and Frequency

While commenting on the possible dangers of Artificial Intelligence, few pandits today are considering how our addiction to social media is transmuting our own intelligence into what is also literally artificial, that is “made by the human hand” rather than by nature. Jason Gregory shines a bright and thoughtful light on this blind spot in the present discourse, giving wise advice on how we might avoid becoming little more than windup toys made of meat. ~ Dana Sawyer, professor of religion and philosophy at the Maine College of Art and the author of Aldous Huxley: A Biography