With a deep awareness that I am writing this on a "social media platform," albeit a somewhat outdated and outmoded one, I can't help but ponder how much of the tumult is a result of the the digital devolution. It's beyond my competency to quantify it with any precision. So, I will just assert that it's played a very large role.
The so-called "information super highway," far from being an equalizer has been a road to nowhere, tipping the balance of power in ways that were unimaginable to most of us twenty-five years ago. We are truly fascinated by nothingness virtually all day and every day. It isn't just information overload. It's overload of meaningless, pointless "content" designed to distract and divide us.
Much of this, of course, has to do with the algorithmic way most social media works. The result of this is living each day somewhere between outrage and despair as we make desperate appeals to other people who largely think like us. There is no substitute for person-to-person engagement and involvement in activities that enable us to engage with others.
Diversity is not a threat. It's lack of diversity we should be worried about. By "diversity," I don't mean some kind of forced social experiment. Yet, most people seem to want less diversity, especially diversity of opinion, and prefer their interactions to be mediated, filtered through the rage machine. This arises from and reinforces our passive-aggressive nature.
I think there needs to be a collective realization of all of the above and more. Then there needs to be a collective determination, a peaceful and determined social revolution, to take our personal and collective humanity back. In addition to grasping the deadly game of the algorithim, we need to understand the biology behind it, which is weaponized. Clifford Stoll's 1995 book Silicon Snake Oil: Second Thoughts on the Information Highway was quite prescient.
In light of recent events, I'm struck, once again, by how everyone feels compelled to put out a statement on everything and anything. We need to reclaim our right to remain silent!
These days, I limit myself to a two days a week of social media exposure. I take it as a healthy sign that when I dip my digital toe back into the stream I don't find the temperature of the water conducive to jumping in. The question is, to what end? Back to the biology, it isn't for any good end and seems to me more and more to be self-indulgent.
The closest experience I've had to jumping back onto a streaming social media platform is that of when I quit drinking a number of years ago. Now, when I am somewhere people are drinking, after a while you really start to notice a shift in behavior, one that seems invisible to those imbibing.
I am happy for this blog to be my primary medium. One of the main reasons is that, while I will certainly post a link on the other platforms for which I have accounts, only people who want to will read what I've written.
I am tempted to go into a lot more detail, giving examples of the assertions I am making. However, I'm not going to do that. My spiritual reading right now is a book that takes aim at the results of what I am trying to describe: "You are a disciple of the system that tutors you, where you turn on a daily basis for guidance on living." Hence, the author concludes, most of us are Disciples of the Internet.
One result of internet disciplehsip is the demand for quick, easy answers. It programs you for instant replies. As a result, any "notion of lingering before God doesn’t fit with the pace we’ve come to expect" (Experience Jesus, by John Eldredge pgs 1-2).
Our traditio for this Friday of the twenty-fifth week in Ordinary Time is "Most Merciful God" by Greg La Follette off his Songs of Common Prayer album. Being an Anglo-Catholic at heart, I love this album. Since Fridays are days of penance, this strikes me as quite appropriate. Penance is meant to bring back around, as it were. As Saint Augustine noted, returning to God is also a return to yourself.
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