You are growing up with the greatest tool for good in the history of the world – the internet. … with the click of a button you can access whatever your heart desires, and that is the key.
If you are not proactive in educating your desires the world will do it for you.
Knowing who you really are makes decisions easier.
Plug into the source of power – prayer and scripture study.
Don’t do dumb things with your smartphone. Follow the adage, “be where you are when you are there.”
The Lord provides technology to advance His purposes.
He calls this the “choice generation” because there is more opportunity for choice than ever before.
The abundance of choice, however, carries with it an equal portion of accountability. It facilitates your access to both the very best and the very worst the world has to offer. With it you can accomplish great things in a short period of time, or you can get caught up in endless loops of triviality that waste your time and degrade your potential. With the click of a button, you can access whatever your heart desires. That’s the key—what does your heart desire? What do you gravitate toward? Where will your desires lead?
As in life, the Internet will give you more and more of what you seek. If your desires are pure, the Internet can magnify them, making it ever easier to engage in worthy pursuits. But the opposite is also true.
Elder Neal A. Maxwell put it this way:
“What we insistently desire, over time, is what we will eventually become and what we will receive in eternity. …
“… Only by educating and training our desires can they become our allies instead of our enemies!” (“According to the Desire of [Our] Hearts,” Ensign, Nov. 1996, 21, 22).
I will never forget how influential this teaching from Else Maxwell was for me in my life.
May I offer four principles to help you, the choice generation, educate your desires and guide your use of technology.
First: Knowing Who You Really Are Makes Decisions Easier
Second: Plug In to the Source of Power
Third: Owning a Smartphone Does Not Make You Smart, but Using It Wisely Can
Fourth: The Lord Provides Technology to Accomplish His Purposes
The divine purpose of technology is to hasten the work of salvation. As members of the choice generation, you understand technology. Use it to accelerate your progress toward perfection. Because you have been given much, you too must give. The Lord expects you to use these great tools to take His work to the next level, to share the gospel in ways that are beyond my generation’s wildest imagination. Where generations past influenced their neighbors and their town, you have the power through the Internet and social media to reach beyond borders and influence the whole world.
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