As we embrace new technologies now, we find ourselves in the
midst of a grand, though accidental, experiment. The new technologies connect us with the
world through the internet wherever we go.
We are only beginning to write the rules and reap the consequences of
our constant connection.
In the days of the Waltons, the telephone was down the road
at Ike Godsey’s store. It was used only
to convey important information, from people far away. The only interruptions came in person. The pace was slower, and people had time to
focus on writing news stories, cooking meals, and sawing lumber. Friends and families connected in meaningful
relationships.
Now with Skype and email we connect immediately with people
literally around the world—and we think nothing of it. No one ever speaks of making a long distance
phone call. But we live on constant
alert for a ringtone or vibration. Just
a few hours without checking email or phone messages can feel like an eternity.
I wonder what this constant connection does to our society
and our souls. Groups of teens are often seen with heads bowed in
reverence to their mobile devices.
Adults are quickly catching on and joining the “conversation.” We now live with divided attention. The rules of etiquette have not been
defined. Every conversation is subject
to interruption. We multitask while we
drive, work, and visit. No bit of
information is more than a few screen touches away. Or I can talk to Siri, and she will try to
obey my every command.
We cannot conceive that someone would be out of reach. We just call his phone. If he does not answer, we try again. Or we will call the phone of someone else
with him.
Our society is more disjointed in personal relationships, as
we are constantly interrupted. Some
adults are slow to accept the new normal, and conflict arises with the rude
behavior of teens. Learning and
remembering information is becoming passé—just Google it when you need it. Handwriting is a dying art. Life is now hyper-documented. Sacred moments are captured. Mundane moments are recorded. Sometimes we miss the moment, because we want
to post it or tweet it. We miss out on
life because we want to share it with the world.
It is easy to see much of the societal impact of
technology. Less obvious is the impact
on our souls. Being on constant alert
for status updates and texts alters our state of rest. Something may be more important than
listening to you. I will not know until
I check. Years ago, the home phone might
ring a few times every day. Otherwise,
we lived without interruption until a neighbor came to visit. Now we live on edge, with new information coming
at us many times every hour or every minute.
The spiritual practice of rest becomes more difficult. Dare we go for an entire day without checking
our connections? We pay for it later
with a stack of emails in our inboxes, forced to dig out, reply, read and
absorb. We have to scroll through a
whole day of Facebook posts, liking, commenting, sharing. What is the cost of this connection? It seems to produce a disconnection with God. Yeah, but my Bible is on my phone.
This week I learned that I can watch TV on my phone. All I needed was an app. Now my phone is a TV, a GPS, a computer, a
still camera, a video camera, a compass, a game console, a calculator, a voice
recorder, a flashlight, a price scanner, a blog machine, a research tool, a
message sender, and a photo album. With
such a powerful tool on my hip, it is no wonder I pay so much attention to it.
I heard about a college professor who lost his cool when he
saw a cell phone sitting silently on a student’s desk. Maybe he overreacted. Maybe he senses a technology-borne disease.
Our electronic connections are changing us. We do not really know how. Nearly all of us are subjects of the
experiment. We will have to see how it
turns out.
