lately facebook has made me mad. ACTUALLY, it would be much more accurate to say that my use of facebook has made me mad. i'll log on with a purpose - to get an address or send a word of encouragement or check on something that has to do with something related to my current spot in life....but then 15 minutes later (or some other amount of time), i log off having forgotten to do the very thing i set out to do and feeling like i just wasted a chunk of time that could have been spent much better (and often feeling like i don't measure up to someone else). most of the time, my eyes during my time on facebook are focused on myself or on others, rather than fixed on Him - therein lies the issue (at least for me!).
i read a neat article by shane hipps and it really made me think...then after what keith shared yesterday in his sermon, i thought it appropriate to share these quotes from an article that was in relevant magazine: "What’s [actually] on your mind?" by shane hipps (alot of points in the article are things i've been thinking - just much better stated than the rumblings in my head...i don't think i would have ever been able to put the words to my thoughts like this article does). i don't (ever) want to come across as one who is against technology or one who is sitting in judgement, i just long for every area of my life to be surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus - facebook included (blog included).
this quote was actually what hipps ended his article with - but i think it's an appropriate place to start: "i have no interest in trying to end or stop such technological innovations, to do so is like trying to resist the wind or the tides. Instead I want us to understand them with depth. Not with naïve embrace, or fearful rejection. If we learn to wake up and understand, perhaps we will be able to use them rather than be used by them."
this goes along with what keith said: "These hidden technologies are rewiring our mental processing without our permission. Not only this, technology is dramatically transforming our understanding of ourselves, our definition of community and our experience of God."
other various & assorted quotes throughout the article:
…we seem quite unaware of the bargain we make when we adopt a new technology into our lives.
They congratulated me on joining Facebook – an achievement I didn’t consider worthy of accolade. I was also a bit mortified. Not just at how invasive facebook was, but how excited these people were.
While there is a little voyeurism, there is a lot of exhibitionism on Facebook. (voyeurism assumes the people you are watching don’t want you to see them. The people I’m looking at want me to see everything I’m seeing.)
This kind of regular self-inspection eventually gives rise to a subtle narcissism.
We become creators and consumers of our own brand…a pseudo self. A self image controlled….however, we are rarely what we project. This image approximates reality but it is not reality.
this one was pretty significant: The heavily edited and carefully controlled self easily hides certain parts of ourselves we don’t want others to see. This is hardly new, of course. In any social situation, we seek to control the impression we give. The problem is that in real social settings, there are limits to what we can hide. At a certain point people intuitively see through us. Eventually they get a sense of who we really are. And in this way, real friendships can function as a healthy mirror. They become an honest mirror that loves but doesn’t flatter us. Facebook is more like a funhouse mirror. Feeling short and squatty, no problem, just bend the mirror and presto! You are who you wish you are. Over enough time, this subtle effect creates a minor split in us. A split between who we are, and who we think we are. This tiny fracture may seem insignificant, but if we remain unconscious, it leads us away from a life of wholeness and integration.
Facebook is the perfect cocktail: a medium that focuses much of our attention on ourselves, while appearing to focus our attention on relationship with others. Its is a mirror masquerading as a window.
Practice a technology fast.
Twitter helps me believe even my most mundane thoughts are now somehow important and need to be shared. It begs me to step out of the stream of experience long enough to record it. The effect is that we are no longer present in any of our experiences.
i need to do this: Pay attention when you an impulse to check Twitter (or facebook) and ask yourself, what is this about? Am I bored? Restless? Lonely? Curious? Feeling disconnected? Needing a break from the monotony of existence? Then sit with the feeling.
there ya go. take what you like...leave what you don't (always).
