Andrew Jones has a very interesting response to Chuck Colson’s “Soothing Ourselves to Death.” Stemming from that article most people on the web are debating a song that we should, or should not, sing; whether hymns are better than more current song structures etc. I was tempted to wade into those waters, but found the whole discussion a bit frustrating and narrow.
Jones is not getting into the music issue, nor is he debating the emerging church criticism in Colson’s article. Instead, he picks up on the idea that, as Neil Postman wrote 20 years ago, we have been Amusing Ourselves to Death via the television. While Postman argued, rightly, that a culture of television was destroying a culture of literacy, Jones argues that 20 years later things are changing via developments in culture and communication.
Kids are smarter today. IQ rates have increased and multi-tasking abilities, pattern recognition, synoptic thinking and other POSITIVE traits have appeared. Communication is far more demanding and learning processes are more complex.
He has a lot to say, and it is certainly worth consideration and discussion. Check out Andrew Jones’ post here.
I am the Lead Pastor of Redeemer Fellowship; husband to Jen; Dad to Katherine, Elias, Madeline, and Kilian. If you're in town you can probably find me in the local coffee house or running through the neighborhoods.
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I literally work on the Internet… get e-mails and IMs all the time as part of my job. Well, I’m unemployed right now, but when I was working, that’s what I did.
I have to say that for me, personally, e-mails destroyed my ability to write letters and then IM destroyed my ability to send e-mails. It’s true that I think faster and my mind is more flexible, but I’m not sure that I have the time to think as deeply. I used to love to read books. Now I have to discipline myself to do it. I still love to read books once my nose is in one, but I have to break myself away from the computer monitor.
Once a month or so, I forbid myself to use a computer for two or three days. When I do, I notice in me a profound change for the better.
I think everyone would agree that email has destroyed letter writing, and I believe letter writing is something to hold on to and cultivate.
I do not think these guys are suugesting that there are not negative implications for these things along with a more positive influence over what we were seeing in the 80′s. I also wonder if there is a difference bewteen those growing up with these forms of communication and those of us who inherited them in adulthood. I really don’t know, but am very interested in reading more on the subject.
“Long time listener, first time caller…”
I’m actually exchanging handwritten letters with a girl I’m courting/dating right now since we’re separated by a couple of states, and those letters are much deeper, more meaningful, and more revealing of who the person is than our emails/phone conversations ever are. Imagine, having to write several pages that are deep enough not to be irrelevant 3 days later when the other person receives it!
Of course, then I read a letter written by pretty much ANYONE that lived more than 100 years ago and I just sit back in awe! I wish I could write like they did!
True Ben. Thanks for sharing. When Jen (my wife) and I were dating in college we wrote letters back and forth during the summers when she left Chicago to return to Germany. Man, if anyone should hold onto the tradition of letter writing it should be the church. Our long history of letter wrighting, of course, goes back to the Scriptures themselves.
I’ll play Captain Obvious here:
What we must do is find a way to hold on to the great things of the past while adopting new technology.
There’s no doubt that the Internet has had many positive benefits. The amount of information available from a Google search is tremendous, and there’s no way we can turn back from it now.
As far as the effect on the Internet generation… I grew up with two TV channels and had to climb on the roof and move the antennae to change the channel. But I had Internet access in 1992, a little less than half my life. The Internet didn’t really become common until 1995, so those who have grown up with the Internet are no more than ten years old. We won’t begin to know for another decade what the impact of the Internet has been. Scary.
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