I think there's a worry that an excessive use or an almost exclusive use
of text and emails means that as a society we're losing some of the ability
to build interpersonal communication that's necessary for living together
and building a community.
I think I must be getting old; when I read Archbishop Nichols' comments on the use of social networks by young people, I didn't recognise any of the practices he describes. In the article he claims:
We're losing social skills, the human interaction skills, how to read a person's mood, to read their body language, how to be patient until the moment is right to make or press a point.
Too much exclusive use of electronic information dehumanises what is a very, very important part of community life and living together.
His description suggests that the young are living in an almost distopic world where they cannot communicate without the aid of the internet. Don't kids go to school any more? Do they only communicate via text when in each others company rather than the mumbled grunts we got by with?!
Personally, I don't believe this for a second. Facebook, Bebo, Myspace, e-mail, SMS, MSN etc are, in my experiences, a way of extending our reach of communication. When we're not in physical proximity with friends and family then why not use social networking sites as a way of staying in touch? It was exactly the same when I was younger, only the telephone (and later SMS) was a great way of keeping in touch with friends who didn't live in the same village as me. I can't see what's changed apart from the medium in which we engage with each other.
I do, however, agree that it's very easy to collect "friends" on these sites, but these are never real friendships and I don't see how this reflects on how we make real friendships. Take my facebook and twitter accounts for example. On the whole I try to keep the two very separate: twitter is for people I will never know where facebook is for those I know or have known. But, even then my facebook "friends" list is populated with people I vaguely remember from school and those I've met only a handful of times. None of those I consider friends in the traditional sense and many I'll never speak to again.
The issue of bullying on social networks should be a serious concern. Any medium where people can inflict emotional abuse without having to physically be in that persons presence makes it far too easy. People quite often say things on the internet they wouldn't necessarily have the courage to say in real life. I think it's an issue that needs to be addressed but we shouldn't discount the value of social networks simply on this basis.
I would ask Archbishop Nicols to spend some time using the communication tools he's dismissing and maybe talking to some young people about how they use them before dismissing them.
Comments [0]