In installment number two of “The Restless Hearts on…”, I wanted to put the realities of social media to the group. We are constantly connected to each other in so many more ways than before, taking the old limited norms of face-to-face meetings, phone calls, and letters/telegrams and cranking it up to include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, FaceTime/Skype, and so many more. As bloggers, we try to utilize social media in positive ways but are certainly still vulnerable to its pitfalls and shortcomings. So I asked the group:
What's the point of social media? What are its implications for our spirituality, relationships, and community?
Rob:
I don’t think social media is inherently bad. I think there are, however, two significant problems it presents. I’ma call these the “False Self Problem” and the “Echo Chamber Problem.”
The “False Self Problem” is the tendency, whether intentionally or unintentionally, to fabricate a false self by carefully curating an online persona that is, at best, a warped version of who I actually am. On one level, I think that this is kind of unavoidable—@rgoody33 isn’t actually Rob Goodale, because I only tweet my cleverest thoughts and my most beautiful or attractive photos, and @rgoody33 is therefore a much better, cooler, and smarter person than Rob Goodale, even though @rgoody33 is kind of a fictional character.
Though this is both real and a problem, I don’t think it’s a particularly damaging one—we do this with in-person interactions, too, after all. I try to only speak my cleverest thoughts, and try to wear clothes and have hygienic standards that make me seem beautiful and attractive. The problem, in my estimation (and this is one that is particularly significant for the teenagers and young adults we all work with) is when no attempt at authentic or honest representation is made, or when deception becomes a conscious and intentional decision. The most extreme examples of this would be cat fishing (RIP, Lennay Kekua) or identity fraud, but we don’t need to be that drastic or sensational to acknowledge that, as a rule, online profiles should accurately represent a real-life identity.
The “False Self Problem” undercuts the possibility of cultivating authentic relationships or creating intentional community, because it implicitly encourages a cognitive and emotional connection with something that’s not real as if it were real. Anecdotally, it also seems like the “False Self Problem” could have a negative impact on self-esteem and identity formation, especially for young people.
The “Echo Chamber Problem” is a bit different. No matter what social media platform I'm using, there’s a tendency to populate my own feed with people who are like me in their thoughts, their interests, their values, even their sense of humor. I’m not here for Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh on Twitter, nor am I here for high school classmates still posting their Farmville updates to Facebook.
The danger here is that I segment my community, systematically removing people who are going to make me angry, sad, or confused. Now, on one level, that doesn’t seem all that bad—this also happens in real life, after all, and building community in this way doesn’t seem sinister or dangerous. But on a deeper level, barring from my circle of people those who think differently sounds an awful lot like discrimination.
Moreover, the “Echo Chamber Problem” leads to ignorance and confirmation bias. If all of my people on social media say that Notre Dame is going to win 10 games this fall, or that Des Moines is one of the top five cities for young professionals, I’m going to believe that this is true, whether it is or not. I think we’re seeing this problem play out in the political sphere as we speak, with far-right news media outlets like Fox News, Breitbart, and InfoWars accusing mainstream media outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, and major television networks of circulating false narratives about President Trump, his campaign, and his administration. If all of my information about the world is coming from one side of this narrative, then anyone on the “other side” seems to be trading in absurdity and conspiracy. Social media can exacerbate this problem, too. The solution, I think, is to make a conscious effort to fight the “Echo Chamber Problem” by choosing to follow people who don’t always confirm my own notions about the world. This is very hard to do.
Sorry for the long diatribe. Thoughts?
Dan:
Ditto to the "False Self Problem." I think social media attracts heavy usage because we are the curators not only of the content we consume but also the content we produce. We don't have to share anything; instead, we choose to share those parts of ourselves that are most attractive, most witty, most cheeky, most informed. In short, we create an image of ourselves that we want others to see. Sometimes, this can be rather harmless, perhaps for users who mainly are just sharing some photos or periodic life updates; other times, this can facilitate the creation of a facade that may or may not reflect the authentic person behind it. A dangerous implication of this is the control we gain. I can see, both in myself and others, the desire to control the timing, manner, and subject of everything I consume, which is wholly impractical and has to be unhealthy. Teenagers, among other heavy users, struggle to adjust to a non-controlled, non-curated version of the world -- you know, the real one. Intensive, super-frequent use of such a medium skews perception so significantly.
I think a wider implication beyond the apps and feeds themselves is the impact social media can have on relationships. I think the strength of this technology comes when it gives us complementary ways to interact and complementary ways to create and sustain relationships, a way to bridge the gap between face-to-face meetings or between lengthy phone catch-up's; I think its downfall is when it becomes the way that we interact and relate. As I see the number of media proliferate -- and as I scratch my head at people who Snapchat when they could simply text or people who FaceTime when a standard phone call is certainly sufficient -- I feel that even as we gain more ways to connect to each other, we simultaneously gain more ways to ignore each other. This is so evident when you see someone's home screen is full of red notification numbers or their lock screen is full of notifications or they’re blitzing through Snapchat stories at an alarming rate; it becomes white noise that fades into the background or a box to check to ensure an interaction has been "made," to get a read receipt or checkmark back to the sender but to do nothing to actually receive the message and respond specifically to the person. I come real close to verbal confrontation when I see people rifle through Snapchat messages and stories with such speed that it's impossible that they've actually gained anything in interaction or relationship via this absolute compulsion.
I'll get more positive as we work through this, I promise.
Dave:
My issue with social media is that it becomes idolatrous in the worst possible ways; while it is a mere thing, it seems potentially a bit more dangerous than most things in how readily it replaces the stuff that actually matters. There are a number of ways we can approach this, but I'll do so through the lens of meaningfulness, along the lines of Viktor Frankl, the Holocaust survivor and therapist who wrote Man's Search for Meaning.
After his experience in concentration camps, and throughout his career as a therapist (he developed a form of therapy centered around meaning-making, called "logotherapy"), Frankl came to believe that there are three primary sources of meaning in a human life: labor, relationships, and suffering. Human beings can dedicate themselves to completing their labor to the best of their ability, can come to view it as a source of meaning; this is universally true of all human work, regardless of income. Second, we find meaning in our community and relationships (and one does not need to be married in order to develop meaning-making friendships, as evidenced by those priests and consecrated religious who live their vows most healthfully). Lastly, even though we might not understand why we suffer, any suffering can be redeemed and beauty can emerge from tragedy.
Where's this going?
Well, social media potentially messes up all three of these realms of our existence. First, it distorts our understanding of work's intrinsic value by inculcating within our collective consciousness the notion that work is only good for money. We become consumers extraordinaires. Second, it damages our relationships by superficializing human connections, as y'all have already discussed. We abandon real human heat for the glow of the OLED screen. Third, we project false images of ourselves, pretending that life is perfect and that we are not wounded creatures; or, at the very least, our tendency is to avoid advertising the difficult bits of our existences.
In short, not only does social media become an idol, but the tool with which we forge other idols. As Rob pointed out, we can certainly use social media to complement our lives, and in our pursuit of meaningful existence. However, as a high school teacher, I really only see the negatives. Teenagers raised on overly abundant screen time develop inordinate attachments, literal addictions to things that don't matter. I've had kids flip out on me when I've taken their phones away for a class period. They bully one another; they become less capable of focusing for prolonged periods of time; they lose a great degree of discipline. My best students are undoubtedly those who use their phones the least.
I've decided that I don't want my (future, God-willing) kids to have tablets or smartphones until they're well into their late teenage years. I've seen too many deficient minds to encourage their broad, limitless usage.
Jenny:
I'm inclined to agree with what's been said already. To add, I would suggest that social media changes the way in which we view the world around us and disposes us to view it through a lens of consumption. Social media is very much about passive consumption. We find things that we deem palatable and consume them, without necessarily thinking about them or really even enjoying them. A major problem with this is that, in terms of social media, we don't just consume things; we begin to consume people as well.
In one of my grad school classes, the professor challenged us to go 24 hours without social media. He included himself in the challenge. One of the collective discoveries after this short experiment was our inclination to commodify our experiences. When withdrawn from our usual outlets, we realized a tendency to reduce our experience into something digestible -- a pithy tweet, a perfectly composed Instagram photo, a funny Snap. Rather than enjoying a moment for its own sake, we perfectly frame, capture, and caption it and wait for likes, loves, and retweets to roll in. This changes the way that we interact with our world and the people in it.
Additionally, more and more, social media outlets are designed to jettison those perfectly captured moments after a short amount of time (e.g. Snapchat, Instagram Stories, etc.). These platforms seem to me to be an apt example of our ephemeral throwaway culture that Pope Francis rightly criticizes.
As I wrote about before, I believe social media inhibits our ability to pay attention and consequently weakens our ability to pray. It gives the illusion of making us connected and informed, but in reality, if we're not careful, does the exact opposite.
I'm with David: my kids aren't getting phones or tablets until they are older teens.
Dan:
I think an interesting phenomenon that reflects some of the things touched on here is, what could we call it, the public private message? When a significant other posts a litany of gratitude and excitement over an anniversary, when someone wishes a happy birthday with great wordiness, when someone writes a thank-you post to another person, it's a message that could -- and I'd say should -- just be communicated from one person to another, perhaps by private message, text, call, letter, card, or in-person conversation. Yet, it's shared quite visibly and publicly for everyone who's friends with all people involved to see and consume. To me, it's been a weird way of turning private moments public, presumably because they're most interesting for others to interact with. Sure, there's some value to celebrating good things and affirming others’ goodness in public, especially in sparse and intentional language, but it often feels forced and contrived for attention. Why not just take stationery and printed pictures and send a private note? Personally, the private public message is something I consciously avoid. [Note: I will admit my Open Letter to Cardinal Cupich sort of violates this, but I did write it directly to him, send it directly to him, and receive a reply from him; I then shared the letter to bond and resonate with other parents, employees/employers, etc.]
Yet, on the other hand, there's a utility and joy -- as I try to go more positive now -- to sharing life updates with others. Facebook, especially, trail-blazed a new and interesting way of staying in touch, or at least up to date, that is especially helpful for those friends who you appreciated but who didn't stay a close part of your life due to graduation, job change, moving, etc. You can remain passively a part of their lives and have mild, occasional interactions once in a while; this I think is social media at its best, when it's a complementary way to communicate that isn't replacing true interpersonal contact or when it creates contact that wouldn't otherwise happen.
I try to moderate this by devising posts sparsely, both in length and frequency. When we got married, we posted one status when we landed in Puerto Rico for our honeymoon and took a fast from social media; when our baby was born, we shared one post with the usual details and assurance of healthy mom and baby and let it be; as our baby has grown, we share occasional photos via texts or show off our Groovebook mini-albums to people we see, but we don't want Lucy to become "content" beyond those bits and pieces that help give little updates to our friends. It's so tempting, especially with a baby, as I know her cute little smiles will get more engagement from others than anything I post on my own. To remind myself that life isn't about notifications, I actually have the push alerts, noises, and little red numbers disabled on all my phone apps. Checking my feeds is great for getting up to date on news, commentary, reflection, and friends' lives, but when it becomes blather and addiction to noise and notifications, it's time to close the tab or put my phone down.
Jenny:
I think an obvious positive feature of social media is that it can actually help people be connected. For example, my sisters and their families live in Indiana, Massachusetts, and California, respectively, and my parents, brother, and I live in Minnesota. Social media is a convenient way for us to see and share updates of each others' lives. So long as we don't fall into the temptation of becoming "consumers" of one another, or treating social media as a replacement for more genuine communication (phone calls, letters, visits), I think it serves a good purpose.
In addition, I have definitely experienced moments that the Holy Spirit was clearly at work by means of social media. Sometimes social media has directed me to an article that I really needed to see at a given moment in my life. Other times, I've had people tell me that something I posted was what they really needed to see at a given moment.
Social media is a tool, and like any tool can be used for good or for ill. The Church has affirmed the potential for social media to be a tool of evangelization. So long as we use it in moderation and are aware of the pitfalls, I think it is another means by which we can give glory to God and make Him known, loved, and served.
Rob:
I might be veering slightly off-topic, but I think there's a subtle but important distinction to be made between social media and, I dunno what to call 'em, technologically augmented communication apps (TACA, because acronyms are cool). I think most platforms and programs can be used for both purposes, but when Facebook or Snapchat or whatever is used well, its technology augments the communication that is happening.
I've been dating a girl for almost two years. In that time, we've spent at least 75% of our days living in different states and/or countries. Without Snapchat and Skype, I would have largely been in a relationship with words on a screen or piece of paper, or with my own imagination—neither of which sounds particularly good or healthy. Being able to, as we would say, "see your voice and hear your face," augments our experience of communication and leads us deeper into relationship.
Believe it or not, using these apps in this way is somewhat sacramental. (I'm stealing this entire analogy from Jenny and my former community member, Tom—shouts to you, Tom.) Sacraments exist because God desires to be in relationship with us human beans, only we have these cumbersome bodies, and since He was the one who gave them to us, he knows that we have to use these bodies to be in relationship—there's an inherent and indivisible connection between what we do with them and who we are in all of the non-physical ways. Sacraments utilize "stuff" like water, oil, bread, and wine so that we can experience Love with our bodies—we smell the chrism oil, we feel the water on our forehead, we taste the bread and wine that become the hidden presence of the Creator.
The more sense we engage in this experience of love, the stronger we feel it. So if I read a text from my mom or listen to a voicemail from my boss (because the poor chap still leaves voice mails even though he knows I'm never going to listen to them), it's fine, but the experience is strengthened if I can both see and hear the other person. And of course, simply hearing and seeing without being in the physical presence of the other is a purgatious sort of way of relationship that I am quite eager to leave behind.
Social media apps can facilitate relationship building that would otherwise be much more difficult, both logistically and emotionally. The ability to engage multiple senses at once is beautiful and important, even if this might not be the primary use of these apps for many users. Technology is at its best when it is used in the service of the relationship—and not other way around.
And let’s give the last word to… Dave:
So, continuing the train of thought regarding relationships...
I tried several dating sites over the years, and met and dated some wonderful women while living in California. However, after several years and one semi-stalker, I had sort of given up on online dating, but left a profile up on OKCupid for funsies.
A stupidly beautiful, intelligent, and all-around lovely blue-eyed and ginger-haired Oregonian set her search criteria for "anywhere" and stumbled upon my profile. We had each responded to around 300 of the site's questions, and according to their algorithm based on these responses, we were a 99% match. Sarah dropped me a line, we swapped some correspondence, and I peaced out, because trading messages with someone I would probably never meet proved somewhat depressing; unlike Sarah, I was never daring enough to investigate beyond a 50 mile radius. However, that summer I was teaching a course on the thought and theology of C.S. Lewis, and inspired by his breathtaking written correspondence, I asked if she might want to become pen pals.
Those letters eventually turned into a 14 hour first date at Disneyland, which in turn morphed into a long-distance relationship, which resulted in my moving up to Portland (much like Will Hunting, although the comparison stops there as I am no genius) to pursue a relationship, and as of yesterday, all this resulted in a proposal at a whiskey library.
Clearly, I cannot be entirely hostile toward social media. Various modes of communication via the interwebs enabled Sarah and I to feed our nascent relationship. Without OKCupid, I wouldn't be getting ready to spend the rest of my life with this amazing person.
I dunno if I have any theological commentary to add to this. However, I will say that as dangerous and bizarre and odd as online dating might seem to the uninitiated, it does have its upsides. Rather than meeting a total stranger at some epicenter of social mingling, OKCupid and other dating sites allow folks the opportunity to figure out if they'd even want to date someone, based on the priorities that one holds. I could maintain a degree of selectivity, and figure out if a potential first date held certain non-negotiable values and principles at the center of their lives. Then again, it does remove some of the charm and romanticism that came with courtship before the advent of the internet; online dating makes things a bit mechanical, and for someone who's old-fashioned, this is a potential psychological barrier to overcome. It's worth a shot, but patience and a certain suspension of preconceptions is required. It's just a venue to meet people. You gotta wade through some nonsense (especially for women), but that's true of anything.
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| Dave and his lovely finacee, Sarah, fresh of Dave's successful proposal. |
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