The Olympics are coming to close, and the talk of the global town is on the shocking dropout of Simone Biles. Flashback to the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro where she became the first female U.S. gymnast to win four gold medals at a single Games, This year, in Tokyo, she was set to dominate the competition; think Michael Jordan in his prime taking on a middle school B team.

But, that didn’t happen.

Biles pulled out of the competition and her reason for doing so flirts with the diabolical. When asked for an explanation for her withdrawal, she said, “As soon as I step on the mat it’s just me and my head… dealing with demons in my head (…) I have to do what’s right for me and focus on my sanity and not compromise my health and my well-being.” She later went on to say she felt like “the weight of the world” was on her shoulders.

Biles has 6.7 million Instagram followers, 1.6 million on Twitter, and another 1.5 million on Facebook. With a simple scroll through those feeds with her chalked up finger, she surely felt trapped; anyone with such a large online following would feel that pressure. It’s enough to plant several seeds of doubt in your head.

That’s what demons do.

Demons are infiltrating the Olympics, and Biles isn’t the first to notice it.

Suni Lee, the eventual All-Around Gold medalist from the U.S., recognized the demons too, but she called them by a different name – social media. 

After rising to an all-time high after winning the All-Around events, Lee took to the uneven bars, an event she was heavily favored to win, and managed to win the bronze. After her disappointing finish, she told Insider that she “got distracted and lost focus a little bit when I won the gold medal.” She further explained that it was her massive growth in her social media audiences (1 million followers in one weekend!) that overcame her focus.

Demonic activity is present wherever there is hope. It doesn’t matter if you are a chiseled Olympian seeking gold in Tokyo or a withered widower seeking holiness in an adoration chapel,  if you seek to better yourself, the demons are coming for you to distract, divide, and destroy that hope.

Their primary mode of transportation? Screens.

Screens kept Suni Lee from a gold medal.

Screens gave Biles the “twisties.”

Your device (which shares the same latin root word as, you guessed it, demon), is keeping you from the perfection you desire.

To be clear, as I mentioned in my book Detached, “Your phone isn’t the devil. On the contrary, your phone has an immense potential for good, just as it has an equally immense potential for bad. Everything hinges on your ability to contemplate the good that can be produced through the use of your phone. The thing itself isn’t the issue. It is how you choose to use it that makes screen time either a holy encounter or a self-destructive behavior.

We  reached a moment in human history where our digital lives intertwine dangerously into real life. If athletes are recognizing the negative effects of our devices and loosing out on gold medals, maybe we should call out our own screen addictions before we miss out not only on our current lives, but the eternal life to come. 

Time to do a digital detox? Please consider getting a copy of my award-winning book, Detached: Put Your Phone in Your Place, a 21 day retreat from your screens.