I have gone a long time without contributing on the discussion about social networks that I wanted to pursue. Unfortunately, life has kept me busy and this is the first time in over a week I’ve had a chance to sit and write. I’m sitting in a lodge in the mountains in Colorado, taking a little break before enjoying the outdoors.
I am viewing this post as a springboard to a long discusion about social networks, spirituality and evangelism. I’m operating with a few different ideas floating in my head, so I hope to float some of those thoughts out there to give you an idea where I’m coming from.
The first is that I recently read Flickering Pixels: The Hidden Power of Technology to Shape Your Faith by Shane Hipps. He borrows deeply from McLuhan, especially around the quotes “The medium is the message,” and “you become that which you behold.” The basic idea of the book is that the technology we use shapes us in ways beyond how it communicates a message. The very form of the technology shapes how we process. My personal opinion is that a more accurate statement than “The medium is the message” would be “the medium greatly shapes the message.”
I’ve also been bookmarking and noting some different comments about how the facebook generation processes. I found this article helpful in that it lays out a few ways that the internet community driven sort processes. I’ll list a few here, but check out the article for the full list. Some of the statements I’m finding significantly helpful are:
- All ideas compete on equal footing
- Opinions compound and decisions are peer-reviewed
- Contribution counts more than credentials
Here’s a series of quotes from another article. ”People tend to come to social media loving the freedom and openness that it provides, along with the ability to empower everyone and to feel like you are giving them a voice. But sometimes eventually that freedom and openness is seen as a liability and threat, and eventually turns to control…When you invite social media to play a large role in your organization, you have to be willing to let go of some of the control as well. This is why I think many churches and leaders are skeptical…because they don’t want to give over control.”
I’ll be back in a day or so with some of my thoughts.
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