Social Networking Sites - 13th November 2008
For those who regard themselves as PC literate and up to speed with ‘stuff’, the rise and rise of social networking sites has been inescapable. To name a few – Facebook, Myspace, Bebo and then the sites that hang off the back of these, such as Youtube and no doubt others I have yet to find.
If you had searched for any of these names back in 2004, you wouldn’t have found them. Developed by geeks from their back bedrooms, all the founders have sold out to the big names such as Google and Microsoft. It seems that the trend is a generational thing, with early adoption being the students/mid 20’s and then spreading both downwards and upwards in age range.
Now, I am all for having a Facebook account and hooking up with friends, but one of things that these networking sites seems to do is create another pressure within an already pressured environment. Let me explain. All things seem to be driven by having as many ‘friends’ as you can, although dare I say it ‘acquaintances’ may be more appropriate.
Through what we put online in terms of our personal life and statuses, we give our friends some idea of what’s happening. Nothing wrong with that either, until it gets to the point where negative stuff starts taking place and people start airing their dirty laundry in public – not clever, because all your friends can see how the slanging match is going and it creates division.
So, a question. Would Jesus have a Facebook account? I think he would because that is where people are at right now and that is very typical of what Jesus did – he went where the people were at, be it unpopular with the ‘authorities’ or not.
And what would Jesus do? I believe he would seek to harness the power of something like Facebook in his own unique way – positively. There certainly wouldn’t be any gossiping, malicious talk and the suchlike going on. But, and it’s a big but, Jesus would still want to do the face to face stuff. This is where the real action took place. One of my big concerns about society is that the more mediums of communication we have, the less we actually communicate in a way that is meaningful – because we lose the skills of personal interaction (and writing proper sentences!)
We had a day at work without email a couple of weeks ago, and I had to go and talk to people, but by doing that, I learnt things that I would never have learnt by email. Relationships were strengthened, a new relationship formed. I admit it took slightly longer but I felt all the better for it. Back in Jesus’ time, this is pretty much all they had, and it created much stronger relationships.
Today, try and switch off the email/text message, if only for an hour and take the trouble to communicate – it also gives you more of a chance to spread your faith. You never know, you might just enjoy it!
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