How connected is too connected?
11/12/12 05:46
It has been almost a year since I migrated to my new web addresses. I began preparation in December of 2011 and left my previous host for the current one on January 1. Along with the change came new web addresses. I registered RevTedH.com as my official home on the Internet. A year later, I’m still trying to evaluate how much time and energy to invest in an online presence.
The primary reason to go to the effort of establishing and maintaining a web site is to publish this blog. I have committed to the discipline of writing an essay every day, and like many other writers, I aspire to publish what I have written. The blog gives me a way to put the things I have written in front of readers. Although there are a few successful writers who have published books of their essays, there isn’t a huge market for traditional publication of personal essays. Chances of finding a publisher interested in producing a traditional book of what I have written are pretty slim.
Of course, I wouldn’t have to have my own web site to have a blog. These days there are plenty of options for getting a blog up on the Internet. There are free sites that allow writers to post their blogs. The main advantage to a personal web site is that you have some control over the URL. Having an internet address that is easy to remember instead of a long series of seemingly random letters and slashes is worth a little effort even though much migration across the web these days is done with links instead of addresses that are memorized. If you plant a button to point and click, it doesn’t matter what the URL is, connection is automatic. Few people pay attention to what is displayed in their browser’s address line.
It is interesting to me that I have found time to set up and maintain this web site while I keep falling far behind with social media such as Twitter and Facebook. I opened accounts in both locations and I try to check those sites out from time to time, but I guess I’m really not that much into social media.
We spend so much time with our computers these days that it is nearly impossible to imagine life without them.
The truth, however, is that computer-mediated relationships are not the same as face-to-face contact. This is not to say that computers aren’t wonderful tools for keeping in touch. They are. We live 1175 miles from our grandson in Olympia, WA. Our regular Skype conversations are essential to maintaining our relationship with him. Were we only to have letters and occasional visits, he would not know us as well as he does. I joined Facebook in the first place to view my nephew’s photographs from his travels around the world. I have several people whom I know and in whom I am interested whose lives and activities I can monitor through Facebook. We might not ever get around to writing letters to one another. For many of my relationships, e-mail has nearly replaced postal mail as the primary method for keeping in touch.
But I am amazed at how much time some people invest in social media. There are several different studies that have discovered that average teens spend upwards of 30 hours online each week. That’s right. There are teens that spend more time online than they do in class. Some of that online time is clearly educational: doing research for papers, checking facts, etc. Some of that time is recreational: Watching YouTube Videos, streaming television shows, etc. But a lot of that time is social: instant-messaging friends, checking out Facebook, tweeting, posting pictures and the like.
At Mountain School in Vermont, 45 students come each term to spend a semester in a residential farm school with no cell phone service and limited access to the Internet. The students are encouraged to go “cold turkey” from all of their electronic devices for a school term. There is a waiting list of students who have applied for the experience. Those who have had the opportunity have recognized that they do not miss the technology and that they discover deep and meaningful relationships with their peers. What they discover is something that is actually already available to them. They could choose to have actual conversations with friends without turning to the phone to text at the same time as they are speaking. They could choose to simply walk away from their computers. They could forego computer games for actual games with real people. But in the fast-paced, technology enhanced world of today’s teens, the thought of putting down a cell phone, even for a few minutes, seems threatening.
I’ve watched teens at church spread their jackets across their laps so that they can continue to text their friends in a way that is less obvious than having their phones out where they can be seen. It seems perfectly obvious to me what they are doing, though I have no knowledge of the subject of their messages. One would hope that they’re telling all their friends about the cool things we do at church, but I suspect that they are not. Teens get visibly panicked when asked to turn off cell phones. The thought of spending an hour disconnected from their devices is threatening. I’ve been told of teens who set their cell phone alarms to wake them in the middle of the night to check out messages and posts from their friends.
So I don’t expect to return to an unplugged world and I don’t expect today’s teens to have to live in my generation. They will need to discover their way as I have to discover my own. But I am intrigued by the concept of a semester’s sabbatical from all of the technology. Like traditional pastoral retreats where one withdrew to the country from the city to experience a slower pace and reconnect with the natural world, there may be times to experience retreats away from the constant pace of technological interconnection.
Finding a place without cell service, however, can be a daunting task. Those towers are reaching more and more remote locations. It is a good thing that these devices are still equipped with a switch to turn them off.
The primary reason to go to the effort of establishing and maintaining a web site is to publish this blog. I have committed to the discipline of writing an essay every day, and like many other writers, I aspire to publish what I have written. The blog gives me a way to put the things I have written in front of readers. Although there are a few successful writers who have published books of their essays, there isn’t a huge market for traditional publication of personal essays. Chances of finding a publisher interested in producing a traditional book of what I have written are pretty slim.
Of course, I wouldn’t have to have my own web site to have a blog. These days there are plenty of options for getting a blog up on the Internet. There are free sites that allow writers to post their blogs. The main advantage to a personal web site is that you have some control over the URL. Having an internet address that is easy to remember instead of a long series of seemingly random letters and slashes is worth a little effort even though much migration across the web these days is done with links instead of addresses that are memorized. If you plant a button to point and click, it doesn’t matter what the URL is, connection is automatic. Few people pay attention to what is displayed in their browser’s address line.
It is interesting to me that I have found time to set up and maintain this web site while I keep falling far behind with social media such as Twitter and Facebook. I opened accounts in both locations and I try to check those sites out from time to time, but I guess I’m really not that much into social media.
We spend so much time with our computers these days that it is nearly impossible to imagine life without them.
The truth, however, is that computer-mediated relationships are not the same as face-to-face contact. This is not to say that computers aren’t wonderful tools for keeping in touch. They are. We live 1175 miles from our grandson in Olympia, WA. Our regular Skype conversations are essential to maintaining our relationship with him. Were we only to have letters and occasional visits, he would not know us as well as he does. I joined Facebook in the first place to view my nephew’s photographs from his travels around the world. I have several people whom I know and in whom I am interested whose lives and activities I can monitor through Facebook. We might not ever get around to writing letters to one another. For many of my relationships, e-mail has nearly replaced postal mail as the primary method for keeping in touch.
But I am amazed at how much time some people invest in social media. There are several different studies that have discovered that average teens spend upwards of 30 hours online each week. That’s right. There are teens that spend more time online than they do in class. Some of that online time is clearly educational: doing research for papers, checking facts, etc. Some of that time is recreational: Watching YouTube Videos, streaming television shows, etc. But a lot of that time is social: instant-messaging friends, checking out Facebook, tweeting, posting pictures and the like.
At Mountain School in Vermont, 45 students come each term to spend a semester in a residential farm school with no cell phone service and limited access to the Internet. The students are encouraged to go “cold turkey” from all of their electronic devices for a school term. There is a waiting list of students who have applied for the experience. Those who have had the opportunity have recognized that they do not miss the technology and that they discover deep and meaningful relationships with their peers. What they discover is something that is actually already available to them. They could choose to have actual conversations with friends without turning to the phone to text at the same time as they are speaking. They could choose to simply walk away from their computers. They could forego computer games for actual games with real people. But in the fast-paced, technology enhanced world of today’s teens, the thought of putting down a cell phone, even for a few minutes, seems threatening.
I’ve watched teens at church spread their jackets across their laps so that they can continue to text their friends in a way that is less obvious than having their phones out where they can be seen. It seems perfectly obvious to me what they are doing, though I have no knowledge of the subject of their messages. One would hope that they’re telling all their friends about the cool things we do at church, but I suspect that they are not. Teens get visibly panicked when asked to turn off cell phones. The thought of spending an hour disconnected from their devices is threatening. I’ve been told of teens who set their cell phone alarms to wake them in the middle of the night to check out messages and posts from their friends.
So I don’t expect to return to an unplugged world and I don’t expect today’s teens to have to live in my generation. They will need to discover their way as I have to discover my own. But I am intrigued by the concept of a semester’s sabbatical from all of the technology. Like traditional pastoral retreats where one withdrew to the country from the city to experience a slower pace and reconnect with the natural world, there may be times to experience retreats away from the constant pace of technological interconnection.
Finding a place without cell service, however, can be a daunting task. Those towers are reaching more and more remote locations. It is a good thing that these devices are still equipped with a switch to turn them off.