concerning our electronic culture shane hipps writes:
These virtual relationships have a strange effect. They provide just enough of a connection to paralyze our best efforts at unmediated community. In this kind of “community,” our contacts involve very little real risk and demand even less of us personally. In this sense we experience another paradox: intimate anonymity.
awesome turn of a phrase! "intimate anonymity" - he explains…
We have the illusion of being intimate with people while remaining totally anonymous if we desire — this is the draw and danger of so-called virtual community. There is no need to offer real vulnerability.
so in virtual community we can blast away with our harshest opinion or criticism - leave off our name - no vulnerability - no repercussion - there is no true together in virtual community
In this way, virtual community functions a bit like cotton candy: it goes down easy and satiates our immediate hunger, but it doesn’t provide much in the way of sustainable nutrition. It spoils our appetites for the kind of authentic community that is essential to spiritual vitality.
awesome! may I repeat? “essential to spiritual vitality” - nothing wrong with cotton candy - every once in a while - but if it is the only thing in our diet... - he gives an example:
I have two friends who live three blocks from one another. They talk several times a day on their cell phones. They consider themselves the closest of friends and were each other’s best man. When I last spoke with one of them, he said he hadn’t seen his friend in eight weeks. Both have lamented to me on separate occasions that they know very little about each other’s deepest struggles and desires; it remains a somewhat superficial relationship. They are quite unaware of the cell phone’s power to inoculate our need to connect in person, which is where true intimacy and depth are born.
amen - let’s pull down the fences
p.s. click here to listen to the sermon from yesterday on pulling down fences - the "r" word part 4
These virtual relationships have a strange effect. They provide just enough of a connection to paralyze our best efforts at unmediated community. In this kind of “community,” our contacts involve very little real risk and demand even less of us personally. In this sense we experience another paradox: intimate anonymity.
awesome turn of a phrase! "intimate anonymity" - he explains…
We have the illusion of being intimate with people while remaining totally anonymous if we desire — this is the draw and danger of so-called virtual community. There is no need to offer real vulnerability.
so in virtual community we can blast away with our harshest opinion or criticism - leave off our name - no vulnerability - no repercussion - there is no true together in virtual community
In this way, virtual community functions a bit like cotton candy: it goes down easy and satiates our immediate hunger, but it doesn’t provide much in the way of sustainable nutrition. It spoils our appetites for the kind of authentic community that is essential to spiritual vitality.
awesome! may I repeat? “essential to spiritual vitality” - nothing wrong with cotton candy - every once in a while - but if it is the only thing in our diet... - he gives an example:
I have two friends who live three blocks from one another. They talk several times a day on their cell phones. They consider themselves the closest of friends and were each other’s best man. When I last spoke with one of them, he said he hadn’t seen his friend in eight weeks. Both have lamented to me on separate occasions that they know very little about each other’s deepest struggles and desires; it remains a somewhat superficial relationship. They are quite unaware of the cell phone’s power to inoculate our need to connect in person, which is where true intimacy and depth are born.
amen - let’s pull down the fences
p.s. click here to listen to the sermon from yesterday on pulling down fences - the "r" word part 4
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