Disembodied Individuals
I believe one of many ways in which trendy expertise is altering the best way we view different individuals has to do with the disembodied nature of a lot of recent expertise. We work together with individuals throughout nice distances by means of screens and thru avatars. The those who we’re speaking to, oftentimes we don’t even know what they appear to be as a result of all we see is their social media avatar, or we’re speaking by means of FaceTime or another medium the place their bodily presence shouldn’t be current to us.
And so the cumulative impact of that, once you’re interacting with most individuals within the digital age in a disembodied means, is important as a result of it begins to have us view humanity in a much less human means, the place individuals are not holistic or embodied. They’re simply the concepts that they share on social media, or they’re the projection of a persona that they put on the market on social media.
That’s how we begin to view individuals, and it’s how we begin to view ourselves. Trendy expertise has modified our view of ourselves, having us begin to consider ourselves by way of what individuals on the market—the disembodied lots who comply with us on social media—consider us. And then you definately begin making decisions and selections based mostly on How is that this going to play with that viewers? How is that this going to look publicly?
Drawing from Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Loss of life (1985) and making use of his insights to at present’s scrolling age, this e-book helps believers consider carefully about digital expertise and conjures up the church to show troublesome cultural challenges into life-giving alternatives.
And in order that’s bizarre. That adjustments the way you view your individual humanity. You grow to be a performing commodity greater than a human who’s inhabiting an actual neighborhood of precise life. And in order that’s a method that I believe trendy expertise is altering the best way we view people.
The best way that trendy expertise adjustments how we view God is important. One factor that involves thoughts there may be we view God as much less current as a result of we merely have much less time to be current with God.
We fill the entire gaps in our days with scrolling and doing issues on our units. And if a technology in the past, possibly we had extra free area in our lives the place we might take into consideration God, search him out in prayer, learn his phrase, we’re sort of eradicating all of these hole moments in our lives and filling them with scrolling life.
And what occurs once you do that’s that God turns into distant. He turns into extra summary. Perhaps he turns into much less essential. That’s one other means I believe trendy expertise is altering how we view God. Trendy expertise is nothing if not making an attempt to offer us a heightened sense of our personal management over issues. The smartphone is nearly like a god-like mechanism the place you get to sort of play god with the ability that you just appear to have over all issues. You’ll be able to management this, you may order this, and it arrives with next-day supply. You’ll be able to handle your healthcare and go to a physician and handle your schedule and your appointments, and you may simply do all the pieces proper by means of this smartphone.
Trendy expertise is nothing if not making an attempt to offer us a heightened sense of our personal management over issues.
And it begins to make you’ve this inflated sense of energy. You don’t want, and also you aren’t depending on individuals anymore, and also you’re not as depending on God, maybe. You don’t assume, I must ask God for this factor. I want to wish to him. I’m reliant on him.
Expertise dovetails with secularism in lots of methods. And should you have a look at historical past, this seems to be true in numerous moments of technological growth. It dovetails with an increase in secularism. And that’s not coincidental, as a result of expertise typically is related with the Babel intuition of humanity wanting to consider itself as larger than it must assume and nearly change the ability of God and provides it to ourselves. And after we do this, we naturally begin to have a decrease, much less vital view of God in our lives.
Brett McCracken is coauthor with Ivan Mesa of Scrolling Ourselves to Loss of life: Reclaiming Life in a Digital Age.
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