I sit here in my little place of authorship. I have a TV on my right giving me the news of the day. I have three computer screens in front of me. One has my home security cameras going to make sure I know what the weather is like just outside of my walls. The main monitor is 34 inches and is high definition; I justify it because my eyes are not as good as they used to be. My third monitor has my email split with my instant messenger. I guess someone looking in would think I was pretty well saturated with technology. I am often distracted by another app running behind the current task of writing by a new post on Facebook.
I have to ask the question: What does all this technology and social media affect my life? Further, what affect does this plethora of technology have upon the way that you and I have of the church?
Facebook is mostly positive. Lots of pictures of dogs and food. Once and a while there is a reaction to news or something really affecting one of my Facebook “Friends”. I have a link on my main screen that takes me to the church I attend. The church has certainly leveraged this technology to advance the cause of Christ. This blog is my way of making my voice heard in the din of voices in the internet. I don’t know if anyone is reading this stuff, but it is enough to know I am out there. The technology is not the illness.
The issue is the direct affect this glut of information upon the church. I have concerns and so should you.
I just reviewed a book on the social media and how it is affecting the morals and behaviors of its adherents. MIT professor Sherry Trukle wrote to point to the dangers and advantages of social media. Here are a few thoughts I have to agree with professor Trukle as I look at today’s “Facebook culture.” The sickness names are just a simple way to characterize the issues and are not from Trukle’s work.
- Facebook Attention Deficit Disorder (FADD)
I read a great deal. Real books on real paper is my medium. Sure I use the internet to get a different opinion on a subject, but for the most part, the books I have in my small library are the prime sources for both inspiration and new thoughts. But the pervasive invasion of Facebook and like sources has become the only place where some find information. Short texts, tweets, likes, and smiley faces have become the medium of today. How do we expect a person from the FADD (Facebook Attention Deficit Disorder) to come to church and listen to a preacher for forty minutes? Do we insist each part of the service to be accentuated by a slick video presentation. Do we expect the message to be broken up by a joke or a funny antidote? I believe the only medicine for the church member suffering from FADD is to teach them on how important big thoughts can be. To teach them that the message is more than a bunch of tweets and thumbs up, but the very prophecy of God.
- Facebook Authority Syndrome (FAS)
Our church small groups have changed by the mindset that everyone’s opinion is as worthy as everyone else’s. There is no hierarchy of authority. Social media has broken down the barriers of the authority of source. If I say on my Facebook page that my opinion is just as good as the local minister, there are few that would contradict me. Not because it is true but because I have freedom of speech and in the egalitarian world of social media there is no consequences to being wrong. Everyone has a voice. We all have a platform to speak our mind, to say our piece. After any article or news story, anyone can offer an opinion. And certainly much of this is good. But it leads to the view that if all have an authority to speak, then no one can be an authority. We have come to a place where no one person’s opinion should be valued or weighted more than any other’s. Needless to say, this presents problems for the church and pastors to have real God-given authority in the lives of its people.
- Facebook Artificiality Ailment (FAA)
In a book by a MIT professor Sherry Trukle, she states “On social-networking sites such as Facebook, we think we will be presenting ourselves, but our profile ends up as somebody else—often the fantasy of who we want to be.” What she was saying was even though social media users may feel more connected, they become even more artificial. We post only what you want others to know about you. The good stuff. Sometimes this good stuff is not entirely true but slanted to make the poster feel better. Consequently, those with FAD (Facebook Artificiality Disease) become more and more distant. “I posted, therefore I am social.”
The church was founded upon and demands that we engage with each other. And this engagement has to be truthful, loving and forgiving. We have to engage with people as they really are. It is only in honesty that we can face our sin and grow together with Jesus.
- Social Media Phantom Malady (SMPM)
I remember when the nickle postcard went up to ten cents. It was a method of communication that was limited to just a few lines of script. It was open for all to see. Sure this medium lasted quite a while but has morphed into a marketing tool and little else. Today, I find people readily admitting they would rather leave a voicemail or send an e-mail than talk face-to-face. Social media has reduced human contact to a point which is limited to a couple of lines in a tweet. Modern technology, can create an almost non-physical, quasi-phantom existence SMPM.
If I read the church web page and watch my favorite preacher on YouTube it is enough. But the church was born in a face to face encounter. A hand shake or a polite hug is more gratifying that a million lines of tweets.
- Negative Accountability and Commitment Condition. (NACC)
Probably the most attractive features of the use of social media communications is that it does not require much of a commitment and little or no accountability. We control to the last letter of our posts, the duration, degree of the radical, and level of our contact. There is little commitment to the those we are spewing to. There is a mindset that “everybody” wants to know my meal plan. It is a low-commitment and low-accountability form of interaction.
But the Christian life and real Christian relationships don’t work this way. We do have obligations to one another to be real. Oh there are times we would rather not have those obligations. There are times we would rather not have accountability. But the Christian Church is one of commitments and obligations. In the church there is something called a covenant. The Christian church has a corporate aspect that stands directly against the individualistic and self-determined relational patterns of our modern technological age.
The Bitter Pill
So is the answer is to unplug and shut it all down? Should we all move away from it all and get back to our old time religion roots? Not at all. Do we abandon technology, move to the countryside, and adopt an Amish-like existence? I am not here to condemn methodologies but to point out the symptoms. Symptoms of a sickness that could well be infecting your life.
Yes, we may well need a sabbatical from this all purveying contagion of illness. But in reality we can’t get away from it all. My bitter pill is to be honest with your posts. Have accountability. Don’t let the ease of communication become the only communication. Realize there are authorities in life. People are not all the same: love them, keep them in your prayers and go to church and shake a hand.
Tell me what you think.