Its not their fault: Relationships in the age of Blackberries and Facebook
The electrons, I mean - its not their fault. The false intimacy of immediate communication doesn't necessarily lead to real intimacy in a relationship. When we were ministering with singles a common question went something like this, "Pastor Alan, what do you think about meeting people on ____________ " (fill in the blank - eHarmony or some other "Christian singles" web site)? My standard answer was (Thinking they really wanted an answer) "I don't believe in it."
Not that I don't believe there are good measures that reflect the possibility a potential marriage partner is "compatible". The questioner would inevitably respond that (name of a friend they knew) had tried it and they had a successful relationship/date/engagement/marriage. That's a utilitarian view of truth that I can't embrace. By the same standard Stalin was a great guy because the trains ran on time.
Imagine my surprise when I found someone who echoes some of the same sentiments: This is worth thinking about:
I have two friends who are best friends. Each was the best man in the other's
wedding. They talk every day, sometimes more than once, on their cell phones.
They live only a few blocks from each other. Yet recently, one told me that he
hadn't seen his best friend in two months—two months! That's more than a
hundred phone calls, and countless chances to hop in the car or walk a few
blocks to see each other. Their friendship is withering from lack of true contact;
each person has separately lamented to me that they don't feel they know the
other person. Is it a stretch to think that the illusion of real contact provided by
the cell phone has something to do with this sad story?
Electronic culture disembodies and separates us from those closest to us.
Most of us are quite unaware of this phenomenon and, in fact, believe our
technology is bringing us closer.
I was eating lunch with one of those friends when his phone rang and he
answered it. He briefly apologized for the interruption and then joined his
wireless conversation. In that moment, he was deported electronically,
leaving me to dine by myself. …
The near become far, and the far become near.
This is the paradox of the electronic age. In this sense it retrieves andcombines the characteristic of two previous media eras. If oral culture
is tribal and literate culture is individual, the electronic age is essentially a
tribe of individuals. This is a confused state of being in which we are thrown
together from far-off places. We desire connection and community in our
increasingly nomadic existence—yet we wander around the globe,
glancing off other digital nomads without ever knowing or being known.
Shane Hipps, Flickering Pixels
(Zondervan, 2009), pp. 106-107
That's why your mother does not turn her
cell phone on now you are starting to
do the same thing
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I missed the connection between internet dating and a communist dictator. Other than that I agree.
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