Last Wednesday was Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. Lent is the time when the Christians remember the passion of Christ.

This year something unusual happens. The Islamic Ramadan, a month of fasting and the Christian time of Lent, traditionally a seven-week fasting time, coincide. It is unusual as Ramadan shifts every year due to the shorter lunar year (355 or 356 days versus 365 or 366 days), while Lent always begins in late winter and ends in spring at Easter.

Easter is determined by the first Sunday after full moon in spring and thus can only move about five weeks between March 22 and April 25. This year Ramadan began on February 17, and Lent on February 18.

However, Ramadan and Lent are very different in many aspects. Ramadan is 30 straight days of obligatory fasting, meaning healthy adults have to fast from sunrise to sunset. It is one of the pillars of Islam to gain righteousness in Islam.

Lenten fasting is voluntary, and there is no biblical instruction when and for how long we should fast or what is allowed or forbidden. While the Bible often talks about fasting, including criticising certain types of fasting, fasting in Lent is a tradition from medieval times, and for that reason many Protestants object to it or keep it very loosely.

Another difference to Ramadan is that in Lent the six Sundays between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday don’t count, as every Sunday (remembering the Lord’s resurrection on a Sunday) is a small Easter celebration, and you cannot fast on Easter. Thus Lent has 40 days, just as Christ fasted 40 days in the desert, but they are not straightforward.

So what could that fasting look like?

Some Christians fast in regard to diet, giving up meat, alcohol, or sweets, or reduce certain foods. Some might even combine it with an attempt to lose some weight or for other health reasons.

But Christian fasting can be much more than eating less or nothing. It can mean to change a behaviour or substitute it with a new behaviour, and in Protestant understand it is not done to gain or earn anything.

It is a voluntary exercise to find back to inner balance and renew the relationship towards God and towards neighbour, as the highest commandment is to love God and to love your neighbour as yourself.

Not eating or drinking has usually just an effect on self, less on God and neighbour. So how could a modern fasting look like? What is in the way of our relationship with God and others?

Sitting in my computer writing this column, I wonder. Maybe the excessive use of electronics could be mentioned here. You probably have seen people who are constantly checking their smartphone, or keep the TV running even during dinner time, spending hours gaming on a PC or console.

So how about a digital detox? How about a time limit or local restriction: no electronics during meals, no phone or TV in the bedroom, no violent video games, or less soap opera and more conversation, no work e-mail checking after 5pm or on the weekend (in France there is a new law forbidding companies to contact employees in their free time). Could we do that? It might be a challenge for some.

Maybe let us begin with a consequent no phone in the car fasting. After all it is the law and it is a distraction, some experts say it is worse than driving under the influence of alcohol.

Even at the official speed limit (yes, it still is at 35 kmh!), a vehicle moves about ten metres in one second. Checking a short message might take two seconds, thus 20 metres of “flying blind”.

Those damaged walls, even on straight roads, come from some distraction like that, and sometimes it is not just walls and our distraction might cause accidents causing injury or even death.

I know we all think we can multitask, and we all have multitasked at times, but while riding a bike or driving a car? I am shocked when I see bikers texting while riding, parents with children in the car, or professional drivers in taxis or trucks with the phone in the hand.

The consequences can be life-altering not only for oneself but for others. A little digital fasting in traffic, waiting those two to ten minutes when we stop anyway before we read and respond, could save lives.

As a lot of our electronic behaviour is habitual. It can help to replace it with something different to make it easier to change the pattern. How about eye contact and real interest at the next date night instead of scrolling?

I will try to read more instead of watching videos. Other replacements could be taking a walk without the phone along the railroad track or on the beach, or playing with your child or pet.

Have you ever checked yourself, how many hours a day you are spending before screens? Not just TV, but also on our computers or smartphones. Smart phones especially can be a time trap and very antisocial.

Australia just forbade children to have social media accounts, not because they should not have fun, but because social media content has destroyed children’s lives.

In the United States, Mark Zuckerberg just had to testify in court this week because a teenager is taking Meta to court for ruining her childhood by allowing hate messages and cyberbullying for too long.

But even without negative comments or content, we have so many social media to follow that we have hardly any time left for true social contact and spending time with friends in person.

I can understand that it is interesting, even addictive to scroll through YouTube shorts, Instagram and co, to check who liked us on Facebook, what people wrote us on WhatsApp or even the old fashion e-mail.

Those apps made communication in same cases easier, especially with family abroad. However, some of these apps are programmed to keep us scrolling, offering us content that we apparently seem to like. A lot of the division we feel theses days comes form living in our own information bubble, which often is a disinformation bubble.

It can be hard to interrupt such a scrolling pattern, to turn off the smartphone, especially while we are sitting with loved ones at the table, or while driving.

While lawmakers can pass laws to restrict mobile phone use (and there are laws in place when it comes to driving with a handheld device), ultimately it is only us who can change our behaviour.

It is not a religious requirement to get into Heaven (although you might get to Heaven faster), but it is a challenge each and everyone of us has a choice. Why not let Lent help us to find enjoyment in different things again?

• Karsten Decker was the pastor of Peace Lutheran Church in Bermuda from 2010 to 2017, and after returning from Germany is now the temporary pulpit supply at Centenary United Methodist Church in Smith’s