By Father Lawrence Farley
We live in a Facebook world—that is, in a world characterized by the presence of what has come to be called “social media.” Much ink has been spilled describing this revolutionary new phenomenon, some people lauding it, and some lamenting it. But whether it is laudable or lamentable or some combination of both, it seems to be here to stay. For good or ill, much of our communication is now done through Facebook, Twitter, texting, e-mail, and other forms of social media.
My purpose in discussing this is not to denounce it. I am not suggesting that the baptismal renunciations should be amended so that the candidate is asked to “renounce Satan, and all his works, and all his angels, and all his service, and all his pride, and Facebook.” Social media has its advantages and uses. It allows us to exchange words with people far distant, and to do so with greater frequency than we would probably do if writing and posting letters were our only medium of communication with them. I have a Facebook account, and enjoy reading what others far distant have to say and share. But there are losses in a Facebook world as well as gains.
One of the losses has to do with how we have effectively redefined what we mean by “communication.” Does anyone remember the old “Reach out and touch someone” ads? In 1979, Bell Systems aired a television ad, showing people greeting and hugging one another, with the concluding slogan, “Reach out and touch someone—give ‘em a call.” There was unconscious irony in the exhortation, since the one thing one cannot do through a phone call is to physically reach out and touch someone. The expressions of physical contact, love, and intimacy portrayed in the ad could not be had through a telephone call. That was okay, since telephones in those pre-Skype days were the closest thing one could get to actual live contact. But loss of the physical connection was still a loss.
This loss continues—and is furthered—in the Facebook world. At least on the phone we can hear different tones of voice, even if we are blind to body language. In our Facebook, Twitter, e-mails, and text messages, we lose even this. Sometimes (in the absence of emoticons) it is hard to determine if someone is being ironic or serious. If, as some have suggested, body language makes up a large part of human communication, then having only the bare words written on a screen involves the loss of most of our communication—and yet this form of communication is increasingly perceived as “normal.”
There are other losses and challenges in a Facebook world too. Surely I cannot be the only one to have observed that people often feel free to say things on Facebook or through e-mail that they would never dream of saying to anyone to their face. Usually the presence of others acts as a restraint on our personal exchanges. But when one is not in another’s presence, but rather is seated comfortably and privately far away, looking not at the other’s face but at the computer screen or keypad, one can sometimes take the liberty to speak with appalling rudeness.
It is almost as if every bit of new technology has a dark side which we find soon enough—we invent nuclear power and then use it to make bombs; we invent ways of sharing words at a distance and then “flame” each other, SHOUTING BY USING CAPITALS LIKE THIS. We discard courtesy (or to give its Biblical term, love) along with restraint when we are safely distant. Even when one shares words with civility, we still retain a certain degree of anonymity. Indeed, some people on Facebook do not use a photo of themselves for their “profile picture” but substitute another image.
When using any such long-range medium of communication, we project not so much our real selves, but a persona, a mask. It is the safety we feel when hiding behind the mask that gives us the courage to sometimes speak rudely. (Sometimes, as police will attest, people use that anonymity for darker purposes.) Yet as our culture increasingly relies on such media for communication, we subtly redefine what constitutes “normal communication.” We become used to the masks we wear at the keyboard, and the skill of authentic interpersonal self-disclosure atrophies.
~Website of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA), http://oca.org/reflections/fr.-lawrence-farley/keeping-our-faces-in-a-facebook-world.
