Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

DIGITAL AND THE RETURN OF THE REAL

By chance today I came upon Gracy Olmstead's review of The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter  by David Sax (PublicAffairs, 2016.  Hardcover, 304 pages, $25).

The following paragraphs resonated with me:

“Every day we turn around and something else has been enhanced, altered, or shaken up by digital technology: our car, our house, our job, our sex life,” Sax writes. “In the clean, orderly narrative of technological progress, the newest technology always renders the old one obsolete.… Up until very recently, if something could be digitized, its fate was a foregone conclusion.”

But then something extraordinary happened. People began seeking out old stuff, and buying it—even making new stuff in the pattern of the old. “Surrounded by the digital, we now crave experiences that are more tactile and human-centric,” says Sax. “We want to interact with goods and services with all our senses, and many of us are willing to pay a premium to do so, even if it is more cumbersome and costly than its digital equivalent.”

Sax spends the next couple hundred pages of his book revealing the burgeoning popularity of analog items. He focuses on a few companies that have sold analog items with resounding success, and considers each medium of analog commerce at a time. . . 

60 MINUTES: NO TECHNOLOGICAL DEVICE SECURE FROM HACKERS

    **  60 Minutes - We cannot trust the technology we use.    Nothing is "secure" from hackers - including our cell phones and all else besides.  Hackers can get into everything, regardless of passwords.   

CELL PHONE ADDICTION

Update: 2/22/16 - "Digitally weary users switch to 'dumb' phones"

Original post:  Jacob Weisberg -  "We are hopelessly hooked"

Photograph by Eric Pickersgill from his series ‘Removed,’ in which he shows his subjects’ attachment to their cell phones and other handheld devices by asking them to ‘hold their stare and posture’ as he removes the devices from their hands and then takes their portrait.  -  Click through to see a series of photos!!

A way out:

   ** Jenna Wogenrich - "How I quit my smartphone addiction and really started living."   

 

QUICK TAKES

 

   ** New York Times:  "An Earthling's Guide to Black Holes"

   ** Rod Dreher links to major article - "How the Fight Over Transgender Kids Got a Leading Sex Researcher Fired."     Gender dysphoria clinic head gets canned because he is not politically correct enough and because of intellectual and moral cowardice of his superiors.  

   ** Caroline Glick - Israel's defenses in dire straits over Russian deployment of the S-400 and the projected purchase of the fatally flawed F-35.   Israeli air superiority now ended.

   ** Charles Murray - Explaining Trumpism: the white working class has legitimate reasons to be angry at the ruling class.  

   ** David French - Stop Using Israel's Example to Justify the Barbaric Practice of Drafting Women into Combat

QUICK TAKES

Peter Stamford reports:  Are Smartphones Making our Children Mentally Ill?

Steve Wozniak - The Future of AI is Scary and Very Bad for People

V.S. Naipaul - Nobel winner says Isis is Now the Fourth Reich

Mark Levin - "We Don't Need a Governor as President"  (True)

QUICK TAKES

Dennis Prager - Why Obama so Dislikes Netanyahu  - Those who do not confront evil resent those who do.

Time Magazine - 30 Most Influential People on the Internet  - Matt Drudge is right up there; many I've never heard of.

Bruce Thornton - Bad Ideas Breed Bad Foreign Policy  The secular west does not understand nor can it comprehend religious motivation

The triumph of secularization has disarmed us in the fight against modern jihadism. No matter how often jihadists evoke the religious foundations of their actions, no matter how many Koranic verses and Hadith they quote, we cannot imagine a people for whom the spiritual realm is more real than the material world. We cannot imagine a life permeated with the divine and directed by submission––what “Islam” literally means––to Allah and the model of Mohammed. We ignore, as Bernard Lewis has written, the fact that “in most Islamic countries, religion remains a major political factor,” for “most Muslim countries are still profoundly Muslim, in a way and a sense that most Christian countries are no longer Christian.”

Ed Morrissey and Washington Post editorial: Obama has to answer Netanyahu's "strong case" on Iran Deal

New York Times op ed  - Why Our children Don't Think There are Moral Facts

 

WIDESPREAD AILMENTS CAUSED BY SMARTPHONES AND TABLETS

Take a look at this sobering article.  Sandy Chevel at the Daily Mail reports:  (HT: Drudge)

• Smartphone users check their phones 150 times a day on average

• Phone addicts are often easily distracted, suffer disrupted sleep, are tempted to lie about their phone use and can become depressed

• Overuse of a smartphone can lead to a phobia of being without it, texting while asleep, phantom vibration syndrome and cybersickness

• It can also lead to hand, eye and posture problems, say experts

 The article is definitely worth a quick read. 

WHICH IS THE MORE ESSENTIAL, TABLET OR PC?

I recently bought a Samsung Galaxy tablet.  It's nifty, it will do a lot of things (which I am in the process of learning), but it definitely has limitations.  It can't replace a PC for a host of reasons.  I found the following discussion illuminating.

"Distinguishing PC Usage Reality from Rhetoric"

 

From the webpage:

Reports of the PC’s death have been greatly exaggerated—or so it would seem from reviewing the data about actual usage.

Strong sales of tablets and smartphones have prompted some to suggest that the PC is becoming an anachronism. It’s true that sales of traditional desktop and laptop personal computers do not match the exceptional levels of handheld devices. But the total installed base of PCs continues to grow, according to Deloitte’s analysis, albeit at a slower pace than historically. And these PCs aren’t just collecting dust. More than 80 percent of Internet traffic (measured in bits) still comes from PCs, Deloitte estimates. And that accounts for more than 70 percent of the hours people spend on any computing devices.

What’s behind the numbers? Physical attributes—like larger screens and keyboards—go a long way toward explaining the PC’s enduring popularity not only for work-related tasks, but also for watching videos. The demographics of PC usage may also be more complex than the rhetoric suggests. Deloitte’s “Devices, Consumption, and the Digital Landscape 2012” report found that 92 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds said the PC was their preferred device, compared with only 60 percent of those age 66 to 75.

In this TMT Predictions video, Duncan Stewart and Paul Lee, both Deloitte researchers, distinguish reality from the rhetoric when it comes to PC usage.

SURGE IN "DIGITAL DEMENTIA"

This should give us all pause ... 

"Doctors in South Korea are reporting a surge in "digital dementia" among young people who have become so reliant on electronic devices that they can no longer remember everyday details like their phone numbers."

Julian Ryall reports:

South Korea is one of the most digitally connected nations in the world and the problem of internet addiction among both adults and children was recognised as far back as the late 1990s.

That is now developing into the early onset of digital dementia – a term coined in South Korea – meaning a deterioration in cognitive abilities that is more commonly seen in people who have suffered a head injury or psychiatric illness.

"Over-use of smartphones and game devices hampers the balanced development of the brain," Byun Gi-won, a doctor at the Balance Brain Centre in Seoul, told the JoongAng Daily newspaper.

"Heavy users are likely to develop the left side of their brains, leaving the right side untapped or underdeveloped," he said.

The right side of the brain is linked with concentration and its failure to develop will affect attention and memory span, which could in as many as 15 per cent of cases lead to the early onset of dementia.

Sufferers are also reported to suffer emotional underdevelopment, with children more at risk than adults because their brains are still growing.

The situation appears to be worsening, doctors report, with the percentage of people aged between 10 and 19 who use their smartphones for more than seven hours every day leaping to 18.4 per cent, an increase of seven per cent from last year.

More than 67 per cent of South Koreans have a smartphone, the highest in the world, with that figure standing at more than 64 per cent in teenagers, up from 21.4 per cent in 2011, according to the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning.

Dr Manfred Spitzer, a German neuroscientist, published a book titled "Digital Dementia" in 2012 that warned parents and teachers of the dangers of allowing children to spend too much time on a laptop, mobile phone or other electronic devices.

Dr Spitzer warned that the deficits in brain development are irreversible and called for digital media to be banned from German classrooms before children become "addicted."

FACEBOOK BECOMING UNCOOL?

Maybe so.  Robert Cookson reports for the Financial Times that "many investors believe that under-25s are suffering from “Facebook fatigue” and defecting to services such as Twitter and WhatsApp."  Further, reports suggest that many are defecting to other services such as Snapchat – the app for self-destructing messages.  One reason for the alleged defection is the shift from desktop computers to mobile devices.

The article mentions another factor.  According to Cookson: 

The arrival of older relatives on Facebook is one of the top reasons cited by teens for losing interest in the platform and moving to sites that allow pseudonyms, such as Tumblr and Twitter, or messaging apps such as Line, Viber and Snapchat that are better suited for conversations between small groups of friends.

Others claim that such reports constitute an "urban legend."

Why do I post this?  Not because I'm a Facebook fan, or have invested in Facebook, or really much care about Facebook, but simply to note trends in the younger crowd who suffer from FOMO - fear of missing out.   Full story here.  [HT: Drudge]

Update:  Rupert Murdock warns Facebook faces same fate as MySpace

The New Roman Roads: Technology and Bible Reading

If I read many more articles like this one (about the incredible popularity of the Bible App and YouVersion), I may give in and succumb to buying a smart phone.  (Via the Social Conservative Review)

The Bible App and YouVersion sites make numerous forms of the Bible available to the reader and Bible student for free. While reading various electronic versions the user of the Bible App can also track their journey through a variety of reading plans and keep an online journal of their reflections and prayers. Users may also embed videos and article links they either may want to come back to personally or offer public access and interaction. This month the "Bible App" reached a mile marker of 50 million downloads, a rare accomplishment in the App World.

What Happens When Toddlers Zone Out With an Ipad

Parents and grandparents might want to read this article by Ben Worthen published in the Wall Street Journal.

GOOGLE TO DIG DEEPER INTO USERS' LIVES

The AP has printed a useful article on Google's invasive, personal data-gathering strategy.

If you're amazed - and maybe even a little alarmed - about how much Google seems to know about you, brace yourself. Beginning Thursday, Google will operate under a streamlined privacy policy that enables the Internet's most powerful company to dig even deeper into the lives of its more than 1 billion users.

Here's an example of Google's enhanced data-gathering capabilities:

The information Google learns about you while you enter requests into its search engine can be culled to suggest videos to watch when you visit the company's YouTube site.  Users who write a memo on Google's online word processing program, Docs, might be alerted to the misspelling of the name of a friend or co-worker a user has communicated with on Google's Gmail. The new policy pools information from all Google-operated services, empowering the company to connect the dots from one service to the next.

The article points out ways to minimize the data gathered.

For starters, make sure you aren't logged into one of Google's services when you're using Google's search engine, watching a YouTube video or perusing pictures on Picasa. You can get a broad overview of what Google knows about you at http://www.google.com/dashboard , where a Google account login is required. Google also offers the option to delete users' history of search activity.

It's important to keep in mind that Google can still track you even when you're not logged in to one of its services. But the information isn't quite as revealing because Google doesn't track you by name, only through a numeric Internet address attached to your computer or an alphanumeric string attached to your Web browser.

I don't find that terribly reassuring.    But what about smartphone users?  It turns out (unsurprisingly) there is a lot of anger.

One of the major gripes is that registered Google users aren't being given an option to consent to, or reject, the changes, given that they developed their dependence on the services under different rules. In particular, people who bought smartphones running on Google's Android software, and signed two-year contracts to use the devices, may have a tough time avoiding the new privacy policy. They could switch to non-Google services, but those typically don't work as well on Android software. Or they could buy a different smartphone and pay an early-termination penalty.

I plan to use Google minimally (I don't own a smartphone) and follow the advice given above.

THE TWENTY-FIVE MOST VALUABLE BLOGS IN AMERICA - 2011

That's according to the blog, 24/7 Wall Street (which lists itself as #25).  (HT: HotAir)  The list is based on the supposed financial value of the various blogs.  I dunno...   A good number of the blogs I know nothing about.  That may be because many are entertainment-centered/gossipy blogs.   When I have more time, I'll take a closer look.   I'm a sucker for lists... 

HOW TO MANIPULATE YOUTUBE

I was pleased to come across an especially helpful article in today's Wall Street Journal, "Hidden Tools Find What You Want on Youtube."

[...] Sharing videos with friends is one of the most popular uses for YouTube, but sometimes you      want to share just the best part of a video. With two clicks, you can trim videos to begin exactly where you want and then share them. As a video is playing, right click at the point where you'd like your video clip to start and select "Copy video URL at current time" to get a URL for the trimmed video. When others open the link, it will start right at the spot in the video where you right-clicked. No longer will a video clip take too long to reach the best part . . .

Edit Better

If you've ever recorded a video shot in portrait mode that you'd rather share in landscape or vice versa, the video can be switched to the correct viewing angle, saving viewers from tilting their heads to one side to watch. Do this with YouTube's editor in the cloud, youtube.com/editor. Here, people can edit (including rotate) existing videos or upload new videos. Content can be mixed in with other video clips from the Creative Commons site, soundtracks can be added by choosing from a selection of music, and text slides can be dragged in to display between video clips.

If you'd rather use a third-party company for editing, multiple options are listed at youtube.com/create. A company called Vlix recently announced its integration with the YouTube site, bringing its editing features from the Vlix iPhone app—like artsy designs and text slides—to the site. Magisto automatically skims videos for the best footage and creates short clips with that content, and the Xtranormal Movie Maker lets people add text, such as a personal narration, to an animated video. (Never underestimate the entertainment value of hearing your words come out of an animated bear with a robotic voice.) . . .

FIVE WAYS THE INTERNET IS RUINING OUR CULTURE

This article by John Hawkins is worth reading.  I continually wrestle with the amount of time I spend on the internet.  How much of it is truly important and worthwhile?  Could I be spending my time more wisely doing other things?   And then there are other questions:  How is the internet changing the way we think?  What about our attention span? and so on..

Hawkins notes that les than 150 years ago many of the life-altering inventions we take for granted today were invented during that very limited time period.

Just to give you a few examples, here are the years when the following inventions first became mainstream enough to be acquired by 75% of American households: radio – 1937, refrigerator – 1948, television – 1955, telephone – 1957, automobile – 1960, and the VCR – 1992. The Internet just hit that same magic mark in 2007 and the ramifications of that may be more serious than we realize.

The interest has brought enormous benefits.

... every person reading this column could reel off a plethora of great things about the Internet: connecting friends across the world, cheaper communication via email and Skype, new business opportunities, games, MP3s, internet dating, file trading, social networking, streaming movies, Amazon, Google, eBay, Craigslist — it goes on and on.

But he suggests the negative results of the internet tend to slip under most people's radar.   He suggests five ways the internet negatively affects us:  1) Pornography  2) A coarsened culture  3) Time-waster, concentration-breaker, short-term-attention maker  4) The rise of conspiracy theorists, and  5) Dramatically increased press bias.

He does a good job elaborating each of the five ways the internet negatively affects us.  I recommend clicking through and reading the entire article.  More excerpts follows.  (This blog post revised 9/19/11)

GOOGLE CUTS CHURCHES OUT OF NON-PROFIT PROGRAM

Christianity Today has the story.  In short, faith-based groups must now pay for search giant's tools. It's sad because if Google wants to do good, as it claims, it has just cut itself off from one of the best ways of doing so.    Chuck Colson explains how short-sighted and unwise it is if Google wants to make a positive contribution to the world.

[...] Presumably, Google made its office tools available to nonprofits at a discount because nonprofits provide beneficial services to society — and visibly supporting charity is good public relations and good business. But is Google now saying that those societal benefits count for less than the easily offended sensibilities of a small minority of its potential customers?

Remember, churches and religious organizations provide an incredible amount of needed services to their communities — and flourishing communities make for better business environments. The University of Pennsylvania’s Ram Cnaan estimates that the average urban congregation provides over $476,000 worth of social services to its community every year. This includes nearly $95,000 of volunteer hours worked; $79,000 dollars in economic benefits for drugs and alcohol treatment; $22,500 worth of divorce prevention, plus other economic stimulus for crime prevention, and so on. Ironically as well much of it goes to helping people with AIDS.

And in almost every case, such church aid is not contingent on the recipient’s beliefs. . . 

MARC ANDREESSEN - THE GROWING ROLE OF SOFTWARE IN ALL ASPECTS OF LIFE BOGGLES THE MIND

Andreessen (founder of Netscape and current venture capitalist) titles his insights, "Why Software Is Eating the World."  The excerpts below don't begin to do justice to the overview Andreessen offers.  He points out how and why, in his way of putting it, software is indeed "eating the world."

[...] More and more major businesses and industries are being run on software and delivered as online services—from movies to agriculture to national defense. . .  Over the next 10 years, I expect many more industries to be disrupted by software, with new world-beating Silicon Valley companies doing the disruption in more cases than not . . .

Six decades into the computer revolution, four decades since the invention of the microprocessor, and two decades into the rise of the modern Internet, all of the technology required to transform industries through software finally works and can be widely delivered at global scale.

Over two billion people now use the broadband Internet, up from perhaps 50 million a decade ago, when I was at Netscape, the company I co-founded. In the next 10 years, I expect at least five billion people worldwide to own smartphones, giving every individual with such a phone instant access to the full power of the Internet, every moment of every day...  [more...]

E-TOTALITARIANISM AT GOOGLE

Scott Cleland, author of the new book “Search & Destroy: Why You Can’t Trust Google Inc.” (Telescope Books, 2011) has penned a fine shorter article on Google I found worth reading.  It reinforces impressions I have been steadily developing.  "Totalitarianism" may be just the right word.

IS "FACEBOOK" TO BLAME FOR MILLENNIALS REJECTING CHURCH?

I think Richard Beck makes a good argument for his thesis. 

[...] Church has always been about social affiliation. You met your friends, discussed your week, talked football, shared information about good schools, talked local politics, got the scoop, and made social plans ("Let's get together for dinner this week.").

Even if you hated church you could feel lonely without it. Particularly with the loss of "third places" in America. But Millennials are in a different social situation. They don't need physical locations for social affiliation. They can make dinner plans via text, cell phone call or Facebook. In short, the thing that kept young people going to church, despite their irritations, has been effectively replaced. You don't need to go to church to stay connected or in touch. You have an iPhone.

Sure, Millennials will report that the "reason" they are leaving the church is due to its perceived hypocrisy or shallowness. My argument is that while this might be the proximate cause the more distal cause is social computing. Already connected Millennials have the luxury to kick the church to the curb. This is the position of strength that other generations did not have. We fussed about the church but, at the end of the day, you went to stay connected. For us, church was Facebook.

The pushback here will be that all this Millennial social computing, all this Facebooking, isn't real, authentic relationship. I'd disagree with that assessment. It goes to the point I made earlier: Most of our Facebook interactions are with people we know, love, and are in daily contact with.

Facebook isn't replacing "real" relationships with "virtual" relationships. It's simply connecting us to our real friends. And if you can do this without getting up early on Sunday morning why go to church? Particularly if the church is hypocritical and shallow? Why mess with it?

Why are Millennials leaving the church? It's simple. Mobile social computing has replaced the main draw of the traditional church: Social connection and affiliation.

Basically, Facebook killed the church. May it Rest in Peace.

*****

AN Episcopal priest I sent this story too made the following comment: "This is actually close to the truth. The felt need for community that would have been met by a local church fellowship has, in part, been replaced by the internet. Young adults spend HOURS on the computer talking with friends. This is an outlet that is available to a generation that is brand new. No previous generation had this, or anything comparable, at their disposal. Is it inadequate? Sure- but only when you've known better in your life. If the internet is the "normal" medium through which you relate to your fiends, you have no idea how inadequate it is UNTIL you hit a significant crisis and need more than texting to get you through. But, even in significant crises, people can get by on the internet if they are socialized to think that being the lone ranger who is connected through the internet is enough. They know of NOTHING richer."

Theology, Research ... : Experimental Theology: How Facebook Killed the Church Posted by David Virtue on 2011/4/8 12:20:00 (828 reads) Experimental Theology: How Facebook Killed the Church By Richard Beck http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/ April 1, 2011 There has been a great deal of hand wringing in the Christian community about the onset of Web 2.0 relationality (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, blogs, MMOGs. See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massively_multiplayer_online_game> ). The concern you often hear is that "virtual" relationships are no replacement for "authentic" relationships. No doubt this is true. But I've done some research in this area and here's my general conclusion: Facebook friends tend to be our actual friends. No doubt, the vast majority of the people in a friend list on Facebook are strangers, acquaintances, or old school friends you haven't seen in years. But no user of Facebook is confused enough to think that she is "in relationship" with any of these people. These are just the penumbra around the core of our Facebook interactions, connecting with people we actually know and are friends with. In short, Facebook isn't replacing real world relationality. Rather, Facebook tends to reflect our social world. For example, in a soon to be published study some ACU colleagues and I used Facebook to predict student retention at our school (i.e., which freshmen return for their sophomore year). We found that on-campus Facebook activity was significantly correlated with measures of "real world" relationality. Further, on-campus Facebook activity also predicted who would come back for their sophomore year. For example, if you had a lot of Facebook Wall Posts you felt more socially connected and were more likely to come back to ACU for a second year. Which makes sense. Who would be posting on your Wall day to day? Sure, old friends might give you a shout out from time to time on your Wall. But for the most part Wall posts come from people who you'll actually see today. Or at least this week, month or year. The point is, you know these people. Talking with them via Facebook is authentic relationality. It's staying in touch, coordinating plans, offering up encouragement, saying a prayer, working out misunderstandings, and sharing a moment. Over at my friend Mike's blog there was a recent discussion <http://preachermike.com/2010/02/26/bailing-out-of-church> about why Millennials (also known as Generation Y) are leaving the church. His question was, why are they leaving? Most of the answers took aim at the church. Churches are too shallow, hypocritical, judgmental, or political. Many surveys have shown these attitudes to be widespread among Millennials. Consider the Barna research summarized in the book unChristian <http://www.amazon.com/unChristian-Generation-Really-Christianity-Matters/dp/product-description/0801013003> . Young Christians and non-Christians tend to feel that the church is "unChristian." Too antihomosexual. Too hypocritical. Too political. Too judgmental. That's how young people see "the church." And it's hard to blame them. But my argument at Mike's blog was that the church has always been this way. Is the church of 2010 much different from the church of the '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s, or '90s? I don't think so. So, yes, the church is screwed up. Always has been. The church has been a depressing constant over the generations. So the change isn't with the church. The change is with the Millennials. If so, in what way and how has this change related to the church? <http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_W8k_-zfUyVg/S5ETEcCZZSI/AAAAAAAAB3Y/i12ci3Ecu0o/s1600-h/0702featcellchart.gif> The most obvious change is in mobile and Web 2.0 connectivity. Generation X didn't have cell phones. Nor did they have Facebook or text messaging. And you can't tell me that Millennials see the church any differently than Generation X saw it. Look to the right at cell phone subscriptions plotted by decade. Most have Generation X as birth dates between 1961 to 1981. Which has Gen X as college students in the years 1979 to 1999. As you can see, most Gen X'ers didn't have cellphones. And based on the sociological evidence Gen X was much more cynical and anti-establishment when compared to the Millennials. So you can't tell me Gen X'ers didn't see the church as judgmental, hypocritical, or sold-out. They did. So what happened? Why didn't Gen X leave the church while the Millennials are leaving in droves? The difference between Generations X and Y isn't in their views of the church. It's about those cellphones. It's about relationships and connectivity. Most Gen X'ers didn't have cell phones, text messaging or Facebook. These things were creeping in during their college years but the explosive onset of mobile devices and social computing had yet to truly take off. So why has mobile social computing affected church attendance? Well, if church has always been kind of lame and irritating why did people go in the first place? Easy, social relationships. Church has always been about social affiliation. You met your friends, discussed your week, talked football, shared information about good schools, talked local politics, got the scoop, and made social plans ("Let's get together for dinner this week."). Even if you hated church you could feel lonely without it. Particularly with the loss of "third places" <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place> in America. But Millennials are in a different social situation. They don't need physical locations for social affiliation. They can make dinner plans via text, cell phone call or Facebook. In short, the thing that kept young people going to church, despite their irritations, has been effectively replaced. You don't need to go to church to stay connected or in touch. You have an iPhone. Sure, Millennials will report that the "reason" they are leaving the church is due to its perceived hypocrisy or shallowness. My argument is that while this might be the proximate cause the more distal cause is social computing. Already connected Millennials have the luxury to kick the church to the curb. This is the position of strength that other generations did not have. We fussed about the church but, at the end of the day, you went to stay connected. For us, church was Facebook. The pushback here will be that all this Millennial social computing, all this Facebooking, isn't real, authentic relationship. I'd disagree with that assessment. It goes to the point I made earlier: Most of our Facebook interactions are with people we know, love, and are in daily contact with. Facebook isn't replacing "real" relationships with "virtual" relationships. It's simply connecting us to our real friends. And if you can do this without getting up early on Sunday morning why go to church? Particularly if the church is hypocritical and shallow? Why mess with it? Why are Millennials leaving the church? It's simple. Mobile social computing has replaced the main draw of the traditional church: Social connection and affiliation. Basically, Facebook killed the church. May it Rest in Peace. ***** AN Episcopal priest I sent this story too made the following comment: "This is actually close to the truth. The felt need for community that would have been met by a local church fellowship has, in part, been replaced by the internet. Young adults spend HOURS on the computer talking with friends. This is an outlet that is available to a generation that is brand new. No previous generation had this, or anything comparable, at their disposal. Is it inadequate? Sure- but only when you've known better in your life. If the internet is the "normal" medium through which you relate to your fiends, you have no idea how inadequate it is UNTIL you hit a significant crisis and need more than texting to get you through. But, even in significant crises, people can get by on the internet if they are socialized to think that being the lone ranger who is connected through the internet is enough. They know of NOTHING richer."   Social Bookmarking         --> FlatThreadedNested Oldest FirstNewest First The comments are owned by the poster. We aren't responsible for their content. Poster Thread CH-Discern Posted: 2011/4/8 23:58  Updated: 2011/4/8 23:59 Home away from home Joined: 2009/10/10 From: Posts: 663  Re: Experimental Theology: How Facebook Killed the Church The real question is: Will the Millennials come back? It is a very old truth that those who grow up in the church often leave between the ages of 18 to 28. It was certainly true for my Baby Boomer generation. It is amazing how many of my old hyper-liberal, hippie friends are solid Christians (and politically conservative) now that they are in their 60's. You have probably heard the saying: Young people who are conservative have no heart; old people who are liberal have no brains. In our youth, we are idealistic but naive. However, the experience that comes with age makes us cynical, practical, and more in tune with reality (both spiritually and regarding the nature of the world). angler2 Posted: 2011/4/9 11:42  Updated: 2011/4/9 11:43 Just can't stay away Joined: 2006/6/19 From: Posts: 143  Re: Experimental Theology: How Facebook Killed the Church Silly me! I thought attending church was about salvation, not social networking. The idea that church should be a place to "connect" with friends is the problem, not the solution. mmartha Posted: 2011/4/10 12:59  Updated: 2011/4/10 13:24 Home away from home Joined: 2010/8/18 From: Florida Posts: 531  Re: Experimental Theology: How Facebook Killed the Church People are looking for a habitable place--Facebook, a book, The Book. Bookmarks have that meaning when they read "Books like friends should be well-chosen." All authors don't create that, all teachers and preachers don't; rather often, the writer can be abrasive at the very beginning--not giving attention to the demeanor, language, authority(of subject), conversation, and rapport that make the space created a home for however short or long a time. On Facebook, a person can work at making personal presence felt. It is a place of resort and of great possibilities for Christian hospitality. But in those tensions, as Dr. Ellen Davis has asked about TV, are we sitting in the seat of the scornful? (Ps. 1:1) Are we giving God's time to other interests. If so, surely we want to find our way back to His presence.

QUICK TAKES

- Housing Crash Hitting Cities Once Thought to Be Stable...   - e.g. Seattle "Few believed the housing market here would ever collapse. Now they wonder if it will ever stop slumping."

- Chuck Colson - Time for a Tech Fast: Reject Infobesity

- Chuck Colson - "Skins" and Teen Exploitation

- Michael Horton provides some notes from a recent conference call with evangelical leaders in Egypt.

- Justin Taylor at "Between Two Worlds" posts:

- Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way”

Denny Burk on Lady Gaga’s new song which has already been played over 9 million times, in its first four days, on her YouTube page:

“Born This Way” is making a theological point. It contends that sexual orientation is an innate and immutable quality of the human condition—a trait that we are “born” with. Whether you are gay, straight, or whatever, God made you this way, and for that reason you should embrace it. Or as Gaga herself puts it, “I’m beautiful in my way ’cause God makes no mistakes. I’m on the right track baby. I was born this way.”

The message of the song drinks deeply of the “is-ought” fallacy—the idea that we can determine what ought to be by observing what is. The song’s message also flies in the face of the Bible’s depiction of a fallen creation. It is true that God created human beings in His own image and that as a result every single human has intrinsic value and worth (Genesis 1:26-27). It is not true, however, that God endorses every thought and intention of the human heart. We live in a Genesis 3 world in which humanity and the cosmos are fallen and compromised by sin. That means that some of our desires are misdirected—even some of the ones that we are born with. That we desire sin from birth is not a cause for celebratory anthems but an indication of just how desperate the human condition really is (Psalm 51:5; 58:3; Jeremiah 17:9).

TECHNOLOGY AND THE FAMILY

"When the whole family is staring at screens, time to try a tech detox," so concludes a timely Wall Street Journal article.

Update 1/23/11 - The U.K. Guardian posted an interesting article: "Social Networking Under Fresh Attack..." (HT: Drudge)  Paul Harris writes:

The way in which people frantically communicate online via Twitter, Facebook and instant messaging can be seen as a form of modern madness, according to a leading American sociologist.

"A behaviour that has become typical may still express the problems that once caused us to see it as pathological," MIT professor Sherry Turkle writes in her new book, Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other, which is leading an attack on the information age.  [more . . .]

QUICK TAKES

-- World's 5 biggest airlines now from Asia, Latin America...

      

       -- Chuck Colson - Digital World Rewires Kids' Brains

-- Incredible… Washington Post Fails to Publish Their Own Poll That Shows Obamacare Sinking in Popularity

-- UK stores stocking almost no Christmas cards that mention Jesus

 

FACEBOOK FACILITATING EXTRA-MARITAL AFFAIRS?

You've probably heard that Pastor Cedric A. Miller is requiring anyone who is married, in a leadership position at his church, and who is on Facebook, to either get off Facebook or resign their church position.  The reason?  Because of all the marital counseling triggered by Facebook.  Sound far-fetched?  Actually no.   I discovered that Nancy Kalish, Ph.D. published an article two months ago that detailed the problems Facebook was creating:  "Extra-marital affairs in the New Millennium."  She wrote:

I have been working with reunited couples for 16 years. . .   According to my research participants in several phases of my study, there are more extramarital affairs in this population now than in the 1990's, before the Web, search engines, classmates sites, and now social networking were invented. . .

So what has changed with the Internet is how casual, even accidental, it can be nowadays to see a photo of lost love, or even a name, and have all the memories come flooding back. The old flame is right there, ready for contact, and what could be the harm? People who are happily married, especially, do not realize the risk they are taking, the Pandora's box they are opening, just to say hello. . . .  [more]

Moral:  If you are married, the past is best left in the past.

TEXTING TO THE NEGLECT OF PRESENT COMPANY

Apropos my earlier post on texting, the Fred Basset strip below adds significant commentary.  A mom I conversed with yesterday said she doesn't allow texting in gathered company at her home.  If a teen starts texting she says, "If the person you are texting is more important than those you are with now, you need to go and be physically present with that person."    Makes perfect sense to me. 

THE TEXTING REVOLUTION IS HERE

And you can count me out, at least for now.  Talk about frazzling the nerves!  Things I didn't know before: 

The average 13- to 17-year-old sends and receives 3,339 texts a month—more than 100 per day, according to the Nielsen Co., the media research firm. Adults are catching up. People from ages 45 to 54 sent and received 323 texts a month in the second quarter of 2010, up 75% from a year ago, Nielsen says.

I find the texting revolution truly amazing.  From the same informative Wall Street Journal article I also learned that "talking" on a cell phone is becoming more and more rare. 

Anne McAndrews, a 21-year-old marketing major at Emerson College in Boston, says she and her friends almost never talk on the phone. "If I were to call someone, it would have to be urgent," she says. "Otherwise, it's sort of rude and invasive."

 

Voice mail is also becoming less used.

Mr. Siminoff says his research indicates a five-hour lag between the time a voice mail is left and listened to. Retrieving and listening to a 30-second voice mail takes a minute, he says, but "scanning" the text of a 30-second message takes about five seconds. "Voice mail is an old way of thinking in a digital lifestyle," he says.

  Finally, as far as my comments are concerned, I would note:

Texting saves us time, but it steals from quiet reflection. "When people have a mobile device and have even the smallest increment of extra time, they will communicate with someone in their life

Sounds to me like a classic case of addiction. I read a travel essay recently lauding a vacation to the ocean as a way to "slow down."  If a person takes along a cell phone, slowing down would seem a hard thing to do.  And I doubt that those already addicted could live a day without their phones.  According to the article, two-thirds of adults sleep with their cellphones next to their bed.

There's no doubt about it, we are in the midst of a revolution.  At some point I expect the strain of constant communication and stimulation to frazzle the nerves and lead to new psychological pathologies.  As for damage to the English language (and an inability to write in full sentences), one can only imagine.

VIEWING TECHNOLOGY

Alan Jacobs posts:

I tend to get frustrated by Kevin Kelly’s technophilia, but this account of his experiences teaching his son at home (a) resonates with my own homeschooling adventures and (b) makes a ton of sense. I especially like this set of principles about technology that he and his wife tried to impart to their eighth-grader:

Every new technology will bite back. The more powerful its gifts, the more powerfully it can be abused. Look for its costs.

Technologies improve so fast you should postpone getting anything you need until the last second. Get comfortable with the fact that anything you buy is already obsolete.

Before you can master a device, program or invention, it will be superseded; you will always be a beginner. Get good at it.

Be suspicious of any technology that requires walls. If you can fix it, modify it or hack it yourself, that is a good sign.

The proper response to a stupid technology is to make a better one, just as the proper response to a stupid idea is not to outlaw it but to replace it with a better idea.

Every technology is biased by its embedded defaults: what does it assume?

Nobody has any idea of what a new invention will really be good for. The crucial question is, what happens when everyone has one?

The older the technology, the more likely it will continue to be useful.

Find the minimum amount of technology that will maximize your options.

Me:  I am comforted by the 2nd to the last! 

JOHN EDMISTON - TEN WAYS THE INTERNET IS CHANGING EVANGELISM AND MISSIONS

Edministon writes:    (HT: VirtueOnline)

There are currently 1.7 billion active Internet users; another three billion are expected to be added in the next five years. The developing world will soon go online as cell phones become smartphones and as cheap digital devices such as netbooks and e-readers proliferate.

The rollout of fiber-optic cable in Africa and massive satellite communication projects will also mean that bandwidth availability and reach will increase. Within five years, at least half the globe should be online; within fifteen years, Internet reach should be almost universal. Global proclamation will soon be within the reach of any Christian with a computer.

The changes are not only quantitative, they are also qualitative. The very nature and dynamic of Christian ministry are being fundamentally altered due to the new possibilities for relationship, connectivity, and information delivery that

PORNOGRAPHY - THE DIFFERENCE BEING A PARENT MAKES

- Albert Mohler expands on Steve Jobs' refusal to allow porn applications for the IPhone, Ppod and Ipad.  Good decision. 

- On the other hand, Apple Removed iPhone App that Criticizes Islam, Mohammed, Koran.  A dhimmi move.  Bad decision.

IPAD LIMITATIONS

I had no intention of buying an Ipad in the first place, but if I had thought about it, these problems would have caused me to drop the idea.

TRAC FONE - - A COMPANY TO BE AVOIDED!!

I like the idea of  pay-as-you go cell phone service.  Unfortunately, I cannot recommend "Trac Fone."  In fact, I have had nothing but grief with the company.  On November 18th I was on the phone for one hour and 40 minutes, being moved from one person to another.  Today, I had another issue and talked at first with a person from Colombia (in South America).  I had to ask him to repeat, and repeat, and repeat and could barely understand him.  Because of the nature of my issue I was transferred more times.  I then asked to talk to a supervisor and then to a supervisor of the supervisor.   Eventually I wanted the name of the CEO or President in order to write him/her a letter.  That could not be provided me.  

If you like the idea of punching in strings of numbers multiple times then this is the company for you.  If you have questions or problems, be prepared to be frustrated.

DAVID FRENCH: WHY I AM QUITTING FACEBOOK

David French's post makes me feel better about my reluctance to join Facebook (still haven't done so).  French writes:

 . . . I just can't take it anymore.

I can't take the "discussion groups" that contain such insightful comments as "ROFL."  I can't take the idea that I'm somehow "maintaining relationships" by reading status updates like, "OMG, I love my kidz!" or "That Derby party was so great!" or "I'm shopping for shoes and just hate the prices!"  I also can't take the positively insufferable idea that Facebookers are somehow changing the world by talking about themselves at great, great length.

Now you could say that I'm just one of those grumpy old guys still cracking the whip on his "horseless carriage" while the rest of the world zooms past on their shiny Model T's, but not really. I’m actually just

ANOTHER REASON TO BE WARY OF FACEBOOK

European regulators express new privacy concerns.  Story here.

THE CONTEMPORARY STUDENT - FASTER! FASTER!

Mark Edmundson, Professor of English at the University of Virginia, has penned a brilliant article on the contemporary student's use of technology, hunger for life, and fast pace.  He titles his article, "Dwelling in Possibilties."  Dr. Os Guinness referred briefly to the article in his first lecture at UVa's "Veritas Forum."  Those of us from another generation will find this article genuinely enlightening.  It borders on "must reading."  Read the whole thing.

TIM CHALLIES INTERVIEWS DOUGLAS GROOTHUIS ON "THE SOUL IN CYBERSPACE"

In 1997, Douglas Groothuis (Professor of Philosophy at Denver Seminary) published The Soul in Cyberspace. Now, 12 years later, Challies interviewed Groothuis to get his current thoughts on technology and computer-mediated communication.  Groothuis says many interesting things.  One of his comments, sure to cheer book lovers, is the following:

... each communications medium shapes its content distinctively and shapes the perceiver necessarily. For one thing, we lose a sense of history when we move from books to screens. Books can be old friends, both the content (which stays in our minds) and the artifacts themselves, which we treasure. For example, I would not part with my 1976 edition of Francis Schaeffer’s The God Who is There, which I read shortly after my conversion. It was that book, those ideas, that

Top Blogs for January, 2009

Here are the top (i.e. widely referenced) political blogs listed by Wikio.  And here are the top business blogs, and here the top technology blogs.  Links to other "top blog" categories can be found on any of these pages.

UNIQUE PHOTO TECHNOLOGY

A friend sent the following e-mail to me:

Place your cursor at the top of the photo. You will notice it is 6:10 PM.  Bring the mouse down slowly over the photo without pressing the button on the mouse.  Do not right or left click. Night time appears, the lights come on, and at 7:40 PM, it's dark!   Photo Technology at its best!

Click  below.

   http://61226.com/share/hk.swf

100 INCREDIBLY USEFUL AND INTERESTING WEB SITES

  Looks terrific.   Click here.

INSIDE THE WORLD OF GOOGLE CENSORS

Michelle Malkin relates her experiences, and links to a major article by James Rosen in the New York Times titled "Google's Gatekeepers."   Remember, it is Google who owns YouTube.

Shock Study: 35% of BLACKBERRY users would choose device over spouse...

Amazing!   "Technology can be "Berry, Berry Addictive."   Click here.  (HT: Drudge) 

IS INFORMATION OVERLOAD AFFECTING OUR ABILITY TO THINK AND FOCUS?

Most definitely.  L. Gordon Crovitz published an article today in the Wall Street Journal and mentioned a new book called "Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age" by Maggie Jackson.   The book sounds fascinating.  Crovitz says author Jackson "warns that the cumulative effect of new technologies is that we may be losing our ability to maintain attention more generally.  Attention requires focus, awareness and what she calls executive attention."

Relying on multitasking as a way of life, we chop up our opportunities and abilities to make big-picture sense of the world and pursue our long-term goals," she writes.  "The way we live is eroding our capacity for deep, sustained, perceptive attention--the building block of intimacy, wisdom, and cultural progress.  Ms. Jackson concludes that "as we plunge into a new world of infinitely connectible and accessible information, we risk losing our means and ability to go beneath the surface, to think deeply."

Check out this Amazon review.

On the same subject, do read "Is Google Making Us Stupid?: What the Internet is doing to our brains" in the current (July/August, 2008) Atlantic Monthly.

NEW SITES MAKE IT EASIER TO SPY ON YOUR FRIENDS

That's not my title, that's the title of a Wall Street Journal article published last month which I found among various clippings on my desk.  The technological world we inhabit makes privacy something we kissed goodbye.  I'm not sure that's a good thing.

BLACKBERRY ADDICTION IN WASHINGTON, DC

Does our excessively "wired up world" allow sufficient time for Senators and Representatives to reflect and hone their judgment?  Maybe not.  In fact, on the basis of recent behavior, I am convinced not.  Read about the Congressional BlackBerry addiction here.  (HT: Drudge)

Comparing the Effects of the Internet with the Invention of the Telegraph (1844)

John J. Miller interviews Daniel Walker Howe, author of  What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848.       

MILLER: Was the invention of the telegraph in 1844 more significant than the spread of the Internet today?

HOWE: The electric telegraph probably lowered the costs of business transactions even more than did the Internet, and it certainly seemed to contemporaries an even more dramatic innovation. For thousands of years messages had been limited by the speed with which messengers could travel and the distance eyes could see signals like flags or smoke. Neither Alexander the Great nor Benjamin Franklin (America’s first postmaster-general) knew anything faster than a galloping horse. With the electric telegraph, instant long-distance communication became possible for

Autism and Cell Phones

This is a major article that not only discusses  the relationship of autism to cell phones but the safety of cell phones in general.   

Update 3/10/08 - Growing Concern Over Safety of Cell Phones for Children

Finding Sanity in a Digitally Obsessed (Addicted) Age

I like what Ken Yarmosh wrote:

The Internet seems like an infinite source of information and knowledge, yet we often allow it and other digital technology to be infinitely distracting. Cell phones, e-mail, and IM are tried and true digital distractions. Today, that's advanced to satellite television, social networks, and text messaging. These technologies create a sense of urgency due to their instantaneous or mobile natures. We've allowed the dings, buzzes, and chimes to interrupt everything from meals, meetings, and movies. We've yielded to urgency or perhaps better put, been fooled into