I put a post up about the tension I feel regarding facebook and in the comments, Lee put a link. It was really good. The author has given it far more thought than I have so I thought I’d post the link so you can get a more comprehensive discussion of the opportunities and perils of facebook.
Enjoy: http://www.buzzardblog.com/buzzard_blog/2008/11/thinking-biblic.html
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Being between 50 and 80 years of age, I don't get this Facebook thing at all. It's not like I think it's wrong, but it doesn't seem to have the element of personal intimacy that I think I want in most of my communication with other people who I consider important. There is an inherent distance between me and the other person(s), plus tons of people can read what I write and comment, whether they have any community/fellowship with me at all. At least that's how I think it works.
E-mail is an expedient means of communication because everyone has a computer, almost, and you can be reasonably sure that the recipient will get your message promptly. Of course, some people have e-mail accounts and hardly every use them, so it's also crazy-making.
I have a Cuban friend who told me that almost every evening many people in his community met at a public park about 200 yards from his family home. Typically men would sit with men and women with women, while kids played. There were benches and some would sit on the grass. There might be upwards of a dozen families out under the dusky sky, maybe 40 people, including the children, processing their lives in community.
The thing about it is that you could hear the sounds of the birds and the kids and the wind thru the trees, smell the cigar smoke and the perfume, the sweat and the residue of cooking on the night air.
Can't get much of that from Facebook.
Thanks Christopher. I agree there's no substitute for the kind of community that your friend was talking about. I think that's the ideal, but I am enjoying getting re-connected with friends I haven't seen in years. One primary tension I feel with Facebook is the fear that my time (or at least attention) might/does shift away from those people I would meet at the park and process life with to those who are far away and the relationships are necessarily limited. Thanks for chiming in.
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