Twitter Mind

I have always been interested in how technology affects us – our thinking, our feelings, our habits, our selves. I have never lived without television, and I wonder if my thinking would have been differnt if I had been born earlier; before I had the option to slum it in front of the TV. The automobile has changed us considerably. We grow differently when we travel by train than by car. In the train we are surrounded by others, we feel thier presence and often overhear their conversations, learning a little about their lives; and we do not have control over where we go and when we will arrive. The automobile subliminally encourages independence and isolation. Every new technology affects us in some way, sometimes as it was intended, other times in ways we did not expect. The microwave was supposed to provide us with more time but actually as we came to depend upon it and scheduoled around it, we became more hurried. So, what about the Internet?

Some time ago I read an article in The Atlantic magazine by Nicholas Carr entitled, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” I was inspired to read more about how the Internet might be affecting our thinking. First, we must acknowledge the benefits of the Internet: It has provided easy access to information that used to take days of effort to track down. It has also opened up information more democratically; anyone can access what is on the Net and not just specialists in a field. We can get informatin much faster with the Internet, so it saves us a great deal of time. Finally, the Internet has provided for greater collaboration – that is, people from all over the globe can share and discuss topics from the comfort of thier homes. The gereral sharing of information and ideas is faster and more general, and all of this is good.

But not all is well with the Internet – and it is with the ‘not so good’ thiungs that we have to pay particular attention. Because information can be saved we don’t have to remember anymore. This is really an extension of the printing press – an acceleration. I don’t think I remember well but I sense that I remember better than my children. If they want to know something they go to the Net; I am still old enough to first scan my brain to see what is there. Essentially, our memory is being externalized and as a result we introspect less. The Internet is faster, so why waste time thinking about things.

In addition to the decrease in introspection, and related to it, the Internet promotes shallowness. It is a invitation to distraction. There are so many options for our attention and interruptions are constant. We get an email, or we obsessively check our email; the temptation to check out You Tube for a small break. Our thoughts are swifter but the brevity of messages increases; can we think beyond 140 characters? We feel more edgy, less able to concerntrate. Our minds and our lives become more fragmented, relationsheips less durable. There is so much information to distract us, most of it worthless, so we have to filter through a lot of junk to get to what we need to know – we are so busy filtering we have little time to concentrate and to think more deeply.

This filtering process is a sort of vetting that used to be done by someone else – a publisher or an expert, for instance. Somone who spends time determining that something is bogus, but now we have to do it. How do we know what is true and what is junk? Well, we depend on our ability to think which is dependent on being educated is already compromiesd by spending so much time on the Internet! And unfortunately, education understood as a thinking process is in decline. Anyone can put up anything on the Net, and anyone can believe it. Doonsbury recently cartooned people calling in to”Myfacts.com” where they could purchase the facts they needed to bolster their opinion, no matter how false and wacko it is. The Internet encourages this, and it runs on repetition. The first thing to come up on a Google search is not there because it is the most true but because it has received the most hits. In our world today, if one says something often enough it becomes true; the Internet has fashioned our minds to accept this.

The result of this is an increase in extremism. No one is filtering the facts from the filth, and one can say whatever one wants and repeat it, drilling it into already scattered minds. On top of that, since we all choose the sites we go to, we go to sites that present an idea we are already in agreement with. A newspaper has to reach a wider audience to get circulation, and therefore must be more balanced; on the Internet we can choose to listen only to those who support our views. Tea Partiers spend all day reading extremist conservative rhetoric and then take a break to watch FOX News! It is not only money that is corrupting our politics it is also the Twitter Mind. Nineteen debates in the Republican primaries and most of it has been sound bites.

I am particularly worried about “sound bite theology.” Meaning coming from bits rather than the body politic – from advertising slogans rather than the wealth of tradition. Facebook doesn’t care about the past – a long conversation cannot be sustained. We all post in the present tense and then forget about it. The Bible becomes a collection of sound bites rather than the multivalent, complex and profound story of the relationship of God and God’s people. My greater fear is that since people now find meaning in the bit they will go to “bit churches” with quick witted but shallow theology. Are these the churches that are growing? And if so, do we want to emulate them?

If you have read this far, congratulations. Studies say that this is too long for a blog post – if you skimmed to get here, shame on you! We are advised as preachers not to speak over 15 minutes becasue we will lose people. What is the gospel in 140 characters or less? I am aware of the irony of posting this via the Internet. Alas, the Internet is here to stay, for God’s sake and our own let us be aware of how it affects us, taking responsibility for whom we are, whose we are, and who we want to become. Pastor Jim