Every now and then, amidst the diverse internet content I encounter, a blog post comes along that really hits home. Ironically the one I'm referencing here - though written and disseminated with the full wizardry of the net - speaks out most strongly against the dangers of same. But on-tap porn and fanatical gaming cabals that turn youngsters into school yard killers don't get a look in here.
In a series of posts entitled "Don't let the screen strangle your soul" (found here and here) Kevin de Young examines the effects of something we all like to play at and which at first glance looks fairly harmless - Social Media. Writes de Young:
I was speaking at one of our top seminaries when after the class two men came up to me in private to ask a question. I could tell by the way they were speaking quietly and shifting their eyes that they had something awkward to say. I was sure they were going to talk about pornography. And sure enough, they wanted to talk about their struggles with the internet. But it wasn’t porn they were addicted to. It was social media. They told me they couldn’t stop looking at Facebook; they were spending hours on blogs and mindlessly surfing the web.
The first threat the author calls out is the obvious one - addiction. In a book entitled "The Shallows", Nicholas Carr describes how he became more and more dependent on the internet for information and stimulation. In time, his brain began to not only drift but to display a sort of hunger which could only be satisfied by the Net. The more it was fed in this fashion, the hungrier it became.
The second threat is Acedia a form of mental lethargy which inhibits creativity, belief, faith and hope. Author John Neuhaus defines it this way:
Acedia is evenings without number obliterated by television, evenings neither of entertainment nor of education but of narcoticized defense against time and duty"
In short, Acedia is a "tastes like chicken" existence.
The third threat is that of shrinking or evaporating boundaries - social media addicts are, quite simply, never alone - never in a position to enjoy the recreational benefits of solitude. It's almost like the squirreling busyness that accompanies the addiction plays right into our cravings to be heard, understood and relevant. Yet as we know, the content of that busyness is often nauseatingly transient.
Is Kevin de Young alone in his thinking? He is not. Last week HBR contributor Umair Haque explored a similar theme, only he drew a bead on the TED Talks that many of us have grown to love and keenly anticipate. Haque, meanwhile, questions the message TED is leaving with us:
The idea of our age is that Great Ideas can be simplified, reduced, made into convenient, disposable nuggets of infotainment — be they 18-minute talks, 800-word blog posts, or 140 character bursts.
TED is like an Orgasm Machine for the human mind. It gives us the climax of epiphany, without the challenge and tension of thought.
Great Ideas on the other hand - often leave more questions than solutions - they don't always resound immediately because it isn't always clear what to DO with them. In Haque's words, "they challenge us to redefine the reality of our worlds..." - or as poet John Ciardi puts it:
"A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened into place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward the hope of greening the landscape of idea"
So of one thing I am certain. While all along I thought I was mining the net it is in fact the other way around. The internet is slowly mining me. In fact it is strip-mining me. And while I haven't a clue as to how to reduce my dependance on it I'm thinking that upgrading to the latest iPhone this week was probably a bad decision!
