I've been having a bit of an internal struggle. Facebook is a social networking phenomenon. Everywhere I go it seems people have their own facebook page. And alongside this is the expectation that you will update it everyday, meet new friends and generally live your life on facebook, including lining up social engagements.
The problem is, I don't particularly like it. For starters I don't like meeting people over the internet, maybe I'm just an uncool person but it seems that increasingly facebook is being used as an alternative to actually meeting people face to face. It feels dehumanising to me. And then there's all this friending and unfriending stuff.
But I guess what really gets to me is the plethora of mindless drivel that gets put on facebook pages. I really don't need to know where a person is 24/7 and I really don't need to know what they are doing every minute of the day. I wonder whether the internet is actually a bad way to make friends and connect with people.
As I am writing this I am being told that there is (yet another) website that provides an online forum to discuss why/how so many people are leaving church and not coming back; and invites such people to take part in this forum. I'm actually going to suggest that the presence of this website is symptomatic of the problem - connection. There seems to be a train of thought that believes we are living in an age where we can substitute real meaningful, face-to-face relationship for an online chat forum. I wonder if we haven't been sold the dummy of believing that emails can replace a phone call, texting can replace conversation and real friendship can be fostered on facebook, myspace, twitter and any number of social networking chat sites. I'm not that certain anymore that we can!
Don't get me wrong, I have an iphone, I'm on my laptop daily and I have a blog. I can pretty much communicate with people without ever seeing them face to face. I'm alone in front of my laptop communicating my thoughts and feelings to the world without ever hearing another voice, seeing another human being or speaking another word. I could do that if I want to, I'm naturally an introvert so its no real problem to me. But I choose not to, I think I need people, I think I need physical presence, I think I need to hear another voice, to see another face and speak thoughts out loud. And I think God wired me that way.
Just do it Andy :) It's not about making friends online, or replacing real life contact with virtual conversations, At it's best it's about augmenting current relationships. Personally, I don't know anyone who's been stalked online! It's an extra layer of connection.
ReplyDeleteGo for it!