This week, Josh Harris, John Piper, & Al Mohler have all weighed in on technology and how new forms of communication are affecting our worship and personal connections. I think that is very profitable for us to consider these things . . . things such as Tweeting (the use of Twitter), Facebooking, texting, etc. Each of these forms of communication can and do shape the messages we are transmitting, but, more importantly, they are changing the way we organize our lives and our brains when it comes to communicating with one another.
I recently watched an early 1960s television show. A real estate agent comes into the home of a couple who are putting their house up for sale. He asks the couple if he could use their phone because he forgot to tell his secretary where he was going, and he was expecting a very important phone call. How novel that seems in our time!
I don't have an objection to the use of Twitter, updating a Facebook status, or texting, but I am concerned with the obsession and constant use of such technologies. For those growing up with such, there is no other way of life. And I am afraid they are creating patterns of life that are not at all times healthy.
I guess it is no longer considered rude if you are carrying on a face to face conversation with someone, and they are texting during the entire conversation. Or a person is working and yet chatting every few minutes on Facebook. What ever happened to great dinner conversation? Here is what it tells me when I am sitting across from a person who is texting and talking to me at the same time: You are not important enough to me to have my full attention. Or, this task is not important enough to me for it to have all my energies. Now I know many would say that they can do both at the same time. And by their actions they do show that it is physically possible. But there is the unseen message sent of importance.
Remember the phrase "undivided attention?" I wonder if that exists in a Twitter world. Attention is not only divided, it is fractured.
See Josh Harris' blog at http://www.joshharris.com/2009/05/should_we_use_twitter_during_c.php
They are well worth the read.
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I agree 100%..... and I still haven't figured out the need for Twitter (even though I signed up for it)
ReplyDeleteDespite not having a cell phone, I try to keep up with what's going on in technology. We do have the internet and I'd say it's been very helpful especially when it comes to accessing Biblical teaching.
ReplyDeleteThough I don't twitter or TWEET, I do like to look at some of the missionary tweets and I do like reading Paul Washer's tweets...but these tweets are more of steering one toward Him. Yet even in that, one must be careful--just like time on the phone.
I am so thankful that when I went to school, there was no tweeting, no cell phones, no social networking. Even though I have had email since the early nineties, I am increasingly writing snail mail letters--You'd be surprised how appreciative the most GEEKy are!!
The youth at our church look so bored. They can't have a conversation or perhaps WON't as they are tied to their cell phone and especially to the texting feature. I would have loved burrowing myself into this as a young person as talking was awkward. Am I grateful that my gracious Father in heaven walked me through that.
We don't have a cell phone by choice. We have no interest. We do get our cars serviced regularly, but even when I had a flat tire, it was right next to the BART station (Bay Area Rapid Transit) and I just took my husband's car home-- which was parked at BART home--and we went back and the Husband fixed it. What a Provider our God is!
I grew up in Harney County, Oregon. It is a county the size of the state of New Jersey. Vast portions have no cell reception. Now in Bay Area California, there is reception most everywhere, except through the various tunnels. When do people have time to think, let alone PRAY?