I’m always reluctant to use the term “friends” when talking about my Facebook network. I’ll be quite honest – I don’t know/remember who a lot of my “friends” are. There are some I’ve never even met in person.
However, I am thankful to have friends I don’t access exclusively through social networking. More than one, actually. Friends I call – not text – to visit. Friends with whom I hang around doing, more often than not, absolutely nothing (which, by the way, is the legitimate, more fulfilling version of being online the same time). These are friends who I wouldn’t even really consider Facebook chatting because showing up at their doorstep just makes more sense in the context of the bond we share.
I’m thankful for them. But I’m less thankful for the other thousand or more people with whom I am allegedly linked (if Facebook says it, it’s gotta be true) but probably won’t ever talk to again. Given the right circumstances, there might have been potential for a genuine friendship with one or more of these people, but you can’t grow close to someone through a computer screen. It’s just not natural.
And yet, because the internet is awesome or something, people still try.
So you wanna talk about the most frustrating trends in the Christian community? Try the most frustrating trend. At least, the most frustrating to someone who has grown up in a culture affected by it more and more every day. The traditional relationship, it seems – whether romantic, platonic, familial, mentoring, whatever - has been relegated to the digital realm. Permanently, maybe, if something isn’t done about it. We interact with one another (in some cases exclusively) via texting and the internet and consequently, spend far less time in personal, face-to-face contact.
It’s fairly obvious at face value. Cold hard fact: we text and we communicate online. A lot. Everyone knows that. What isn’t obvious, unfortunately, is why it’s a problem.
If you take the time to think about it, you’ll realize, like I have, that we’ve been robbed. The various social networking portals initially created to “connect” us have stripped us of a responsibility we should bear naturally – the responsibility of being intentional with one another. They have made us capable of coming and going in and out of one another’s lives as easily as a vapor might escape through an open door. We owe each other little to nothing and conversely, we’re less inclined to demand intimacy from one another. In short, the Virtual Third Wheel has made us completely unaccountable because we don’t have to deal with the personal implications of being actively involved in one another’s lives if we don’t really want to.
However, there’s a kicker. Because we do want to be actively involved in each other’s lives. SO badly. We are just so averse to the road less traveled (in this case, making a telephone call or, God forbid, seeking out someone in person), that we’ve convinced ourselves that “easy” equates to “better”. Despite the fact that we desperately want a real connection to another human being, we connect via methods that are…fake. Impersonal. Artificial. Digital. And why? Well, because it’s easier to just…not text back. Or worse, sign off. Rather than deal with even the slightly uncomfortable gesture of carrying on a pauseless conversation face to face.
If you’re waiting for the “here’s the solution!” section of the blog, it’s not coming. There’s no universally applicable prescription to being so addicted to social networking that your real life community takes a back seat to it. It’s just not realistic. Of course, you can always diagnose at the individual level and just deactivate your own Facebook account or remove texting from your cell phone plan. But even if you have the balls to do that, there are still disadvantages, the most obvious of which is losing access to an extensive network of friends, acquaintances, and…you know, a bunch of clowns you don’t even know.
For some reason, I’m reminded of that one scene in Fight Club where Edward Norton’s alter ego blows up his apartment. For a while, Norton’s character mourns his lost belongings – his IKEA couch, his table cutely shaped like a yin-yang, his dishes with tiny bubbles and imperfections, proof they were crafted by the honest, simple, hard-working indigenous peoples of…wherever. But eventually, after weeks of getting the crap beat out of him and of existing free of his household “necessities”, he realizes he really didn’t care about, or need for that matter, a single stick of furniture he owned.
It’s a flawed analogy, I know that. But what do you want from me? I don’t have the answer to this problem. And I’m certainly not going to try to bridge the obvious dissonance between my critique of social networking and the fact that not only do I still have a Facebook, but I’m blogging right now.
What I do know is this: relationships weren’t meant to exist virtually. They’re supposed to be real and sometimes, they’re supposed to be hard or awkward. So don’t let technology impersonalize our community. De-digitize. Call her. Break bread with him. And if you’re going to have the audacity to interject yourself in someone’s life, don’t use a keyboard. It might be a little uncomfortable but don’t worry…it’s supposed to feel that way.
I am Jack’s cold sweat.
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