The Spirituality of the Cellphone

This is a wild message called The Spirituality of the Cellphone (you can download the mp3 here). I've heard a lot of messages talk about how the culture and the messages around us impact our spiritual life, but this looks at the spirituality of the medium itself (the communication medium, not the fortune teller kind of medium). The premise of the message is that regardless of the message, the medium is shaping us: The medium is the message.

The speaker is a guest teacher at Mars Hill church by the name of Shane Hips. He used to be in advertising (working the Porshe account) and then went to seminary became a pastor (Mennoite, even, I think) and wrote a book around this stuff. The message goes through the spirituality around the mediums of spoken mediums (oral culture), written mediums (literate culture) and technological mediums (digital culture). Bear with me, this is good stuff.

The big ah-ha moment occured for me as he talked about the impact of connectedness in the technological world. He looks at the mediums of cellphones, texting, IMing, blogging, social networking like facebook and e-mail. At first pass, you would think it makes you more connected, right? I can call someone at any time, text them. I know what's going on in everyone's worlds via facebooks and blogs. The problem is that it gives me the illusion of connectedness. There's this idea of presence that is lost in the technolological connectedness. The reality is that there is still distance is there even though I am virtually connected.

There is a great aspect of our digital media in that it connects us to people outside of my home and geopgrahy. I have a blog that people can read and see a high level view of my life - but it's just that - a high level view that people can see in from a distance. The challange is that people can get this view, get this closeness that previously they could only get by hanging out with us or at the very least talking on the phone. With my blog, I have friends and family who believe they are connected to my family - but that connectedness is missing something. Real presence.

I think this gets at the heart of it:

Our media have an ability to innoculate our need to be together. If I've read about what's going on in your world, why would I need to walk over to your house and catch up on what's going on? It connects us to far off places and separates us from those who are nearest to us. The electronicage then becomes a hybrid or paradox of the previous two eras (oral and literate). If oral culture is tribal, connected and in touch and the literate culture is distant and removed, then what you get in the electronic age in the tribe of individuals isolated electronic nomads glancing around the globe, barely knowing each other. If oral culture is empathic and emotioanlly connected and the literate culture has a distance, an ability to think/judge/react to it, then the electronic age is creating a spirituality of empathy at a distance.

For me, I think this all comes back to the idea of presence. A few weeks ago I was rambling about why the incarnation is such a big deal. The Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us! This is what real presence is all about. I'm not sure what to do with my technological world as a result of all of this. Do I stop my blog because it prevents me and my family from having deep connectedness with some people who we want to have that connectedness with? I'm not sure that will fix it. I guess the first thing is awareness. This whole idea may be obvious to everyone else, but it's something that's really struck me as I'm looking around at my circle of friends. I guess it's about starting by finding the balance with myself and how I'm connected to others and going from there. Shane sums it up with this:

I'm not against technology any more than I'm against the wind or the tide. It is a medium. Your technological diet is not unlike your food diet. If your diet consists of cotton candy, you'll be malnourished and flabby. If your relationships are comprised of a disproportionate amount of mediated communication, you will be relationally, spiritually and emotionally malnourished.