Mark Buchanan is an author that I have been reading a fair amount since mid-summer, and am planning on continuing to read. He has been a pastor in British Columbia, and is now a pastoral professor at Ambrose University College in Calgary. One of the chapters in his book Your God Is Too Safe was the spark for my first point here, much as Bob Goff set off my thinking 2 months ago in my last post. As a result, I am going to quote a significant block from his book, because he says this so much better than I can.
We've pinned so much hope on machines. The yearning and wishing we once attached to relics, saints' bones, and talismans, we now give to gadgets. The energy we once poured into prayer, we have shunted over to computers. And in truth, the machines we keep coming up with are increasingly more wonderful. They speak to us, and we speak back to them. They work, unceasing and uncomplaining, while we play, eat, sleep. They can save the little girl whose back was broken in a car accident from being a cripple for life, save the man with a clogged and bloated heart from sure death. The blind see; the lame walk; the hungry have good things to eat. That is technology's blessing.
But here's an irony: Machines are so wonderful that they have killed wonder in us. Here's another: They are such an answer to prayer that they have almost eliminated our sense of the need to pray. And another: They are stunning monuments to the power of our imagination and have come close to obliterating our imaginative powers. We now watch eclipses on television or simulate them on interactive CDs. The screen has replaced the heavens.
The fallout from this is very great. We have largely lost our capacity for wonder and imagination. All blame for this, of course, can't be laid at the feet of technology. Though technology has been a catalyst for it and a crowning of it, the loss of imagination has been a long time in the making. (Buchanan, Your God Is Too Safe, 52-53)I see this same effect in regards to pictures that I see on Facebook. I'll see an amazing sunset, or display of northern lights, or pristine beach, or gorgeous mountain view, and will then ignore the "less awe-inspiring" moments where I am present. Perhaps my thinking goes on a bit of a tangent from where Mark was going, but I really think that our access to so many images of wonderful things has made it hard for us to see the wonder in our day-to-day lives. Perhaps in a similar way to fashion, where a model is photo-shopped and presented in the most favourable light so that an unattainable standard of beauty is presented to both men and women, our sunsets and northern lights seem puny and pathetic compared to the perfect ones we can find online. Therefore, why go outside and enjoy what you have when we can search for "best 49 horse pictures", or whatever? And perhaps I'm in the minority on this. Maybe most people prefer to be able to see the wonderful and spectacular, rather than be content with the "less wonderful" and "less spectacular" present in their own lives. But I don't think so. I've been tip-toeing around my second point, so I might as well put it out there now.
A similar, but separate problem with the modern proliferation of technology and social media, is that it often results in us not being fully present where we are. I particularly noticed this phenomenon when I was still using my Twitter account. As little 140-character posts popped up on my feed, my mind was taken into a million different directions. For 2 seconds it was reading about the Boston Marathon bombings, then it was off to what my friend was having at Starbucks, then a post on the Edmonton Oilers' 135th overall draft pick, then a picture of Switchfoot working on their new album, and on and on. Stories about hockey, then soccer, then music, then school, then news, and all in this FLASH FLASH FLASH format. You wouldn't have time for something to sink in before you were already on to the next post. So this divided me from where I was at, splintering my attention into a hundred different directions. In a very similar way I see this in my Facebook use, my cell phone use, even my internet in general use. And all of this distracts me from the present. It distracts me from who I'm with, it distracts me from dealing with how I'm feeling, it distracts me from observing what's happening around me, and perhaps most dangerously, it distracts me from hearing God's voice. If I cannot slow down and be willing to observe what's going on, then I'm going to miss what God has for me right here, right now. Another effect is in your inter-personal relationships. How can you build into a person, unless your attention is on them? Vulnerable conversations don't often occur if you're busy checking Facebook or texting while talking.
"Wherever you are, be all there." -Jim Elliot
I found this fellow while in the midst of thinking through these things. I love the concise and pointed way he makes you think about the effect technology is having on us.
What does this mean for me? It means that I will often leave my phone in my car if I'm going to a friend's place. Texts can wait for later. If I'm in one-on-one conversation I will try to avoid checking my phone - and this becomes more important if it's a serious conversation. But those are what I am already doing. As for what I will do, I think it's time to shut down Facebook browsing altogether for a time. It will stop using the internet mindlessly - which means having a defined purpose for being online, and sticking to that purpose only. I think it means, as my friend Matthew once taught me, being willing to be bored if that's what living in the present requires. And I am convinced that recognition of these issues and discussion with others will bring more applications to mind. The habits and mindsets that I make now will carry over and affect how I am as a husband and father someday, Lord willing, and so I'd better work on this now. What does this mean for you?
No comments:
Post a Comment