It's Time to Quit Blaming Smartphones

To be human is to be social -- Aristotle

Hardly a day goes by when I do not encounter at least one article bemoaning the "tragedy" brought upon us by smart phones and social media. If you believe the hype, today's youth are going to hell in a hand basket, lured by the incessant clicking and swiping of their ever-evolving digital devices. We are losing our very ability to interact with the people around us, these doomsday prophets warn.

And I get it--we are subjecting ourselves (especially our youth) to a profound social experiment. It's hard to say definitively what impact growing up immersed in digital device use is going to have, but preliminary studies seem to indicate that they do affect our socialization and even our very brain chemistry. Social media contributes to a polarized society where it's all too easy to interact only with those with whom we already agree.

But we can also be led to the implied conclusion that somehow everything was just fine before the digital age. We can be led to the faulty conclusion that kids were living in a robust, vibrant social utopia where they played outside with other kids and where everyone sat on front porches singing, playing games and listening to grandma's tales of yesteryear--and then along came smartphones and social media and all that was gone.

Except... that's not how I experienced history at all.

I grew up Gen X. I grew up in a world of shocking, mind-numbing social isolation. You can't blame digital devices, because they only existed in science fiction movies at the time. The World War II generation and baby boomers may have grown up in small country towns and tight-knit city neighborhoods, but virtually none of that made it to my generation. I grew up longing for it, and so did many of my peers. Many people of my generation have labored intensely to discover and rediscover community through travel, intentional living situations and all sorts of other social experiments. The need is huge. In fact, community was one of the reasons I initially got involved in Christian ministry--it seemed to promise stronger community connections than anything else in the secular world.

The World War II folks and baby boomers gave us the radio and television. They gave us air conditioning and climate control, which afforded us the ability to live locked in our own homes and automobiles, sealed off from the rest of the world. They gave us suburban sprawl, where kids could only interact with other kids if their parents drove them in a car to meet them at pre-appointed times. They gave us neighborhoods that entirely depended on cars and where kids rarely played together outside on pesticide-laden lawns. Older folks ran to the suburbs, away from the nosy drama of those tight-knit families and neighborhoods, thankful for the closeness they had growing up but anxious for some privacy. But my generation did not benefit from the closeness they ran from.

THIS is the world that existed when smartphones and social media arrived. It was a world hungry--dare I say, desperate--for community. Most kids from most countries around the world would be absolutely shocked to realize the level of social isolation that most American children experience. To compound matters, if a kid has any kind of shyness or social awkwardness, you have a recipe for a walking solitary confinement. Many American kids live in a quiet misery of profound isolation.

It is hard for most Americans to realize how socially isolated we are. Most Americans have gotten used to it, and many have found ways to cope, but there is nothing even remotely normal or healthy about it. In another country, a walk to the town market might involve lots of conversations and interactions along the way. In America, we are locked in the isolation chambers known as automobiles with the windows rolled up. After work and school, Americans lock themselves in their homes, often without even cracking a window, glued to their televisions but divorced from human contact. It's bad enough to live like this as an adult, but it's horrific to grow up this way.

Suddenly, the digital age happens. Into a world starving for social interaction, digital devices opened a door. Suddenly, that kid locked in his suburban bedroom all alone could now chat it up with his schools friends or anyone else in the world. You can play games, share information, find a date, have long conversations and discover the world. Family members displaced around the country and globe due to a heavily globalized job market can now stay in touch and be part of each other's daily lives. Instead of just passively watching a TV, smart phones and social media allow us a chance to at least interact with others. These devices may not be perfect, but they are better than the radio and television by the sheer fact that they are interactive rather than passive.

Smartphones and social media did not create the problem. They are a response to a problem that existed long before them. If you don't like it that your kid has his nose buried in his smart phone, instead of taking away the phone, you might want to make sure there are other options in his life for social interaction.

The irony is bitter:  Older generations glued to their television sets complaining about the younger generations interacting with others on their smartphones. If I had to pick, I'd say the younger folks are improving upon what was handed down to them. Let's cut them some slack!

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This is art of an ongoing series on the use of social media in ministry and it's impact on culture.

Other installments can be found by clicking the tag of "Social Media"

To Tweet or Not To Tweet?

Opensource.com/Flickr, CC BY-SA

You may be wondering why a blog dedicated to exploring spiritual and religious issues would be spending time talking about social media. This is my second installment on the topic, so far.

The 2016 US Presidential election was fought on a new battlefield:  Social media. A lot of folks are asking ourselves if this was really such a good idea. Should we "get back" to news sources we all share in common with more in-person dialogue in between?

We have more open, more vigorous debates than ever before on social media. But people do a fine job of creating the perfect little echo chambers for themselves. People will cancel, un-friend or un-like pages and posts they disagree with. They are quickly left hearing only what they already believe. If you have a contrary idea, you can spread it all around the world, but you can't get it in front the people on the "other side" of the issue--even if those people literally live next door or work in an adjacent cubicle.

Did social media change the outcome of the election? There's reason to believe that we are simply playing out the hand we were dealt a long time ago. By that perspective, social media didn't radically change the outcome. However, political parties know we are isolated in our personal echo chambers, and they use this to manipulate people. This could be having an impact.

Many of us are feeling the need for a collective pause. Maybe we need to reconsider how we use social media and not lose sight of in-person, local interactions. We might benefit from checks and balances to prevent echo chambers.

I am glad we are asking ourselves these questions.

Invention of Writing

Imagine the controversy that must have erupted when writing itself was invented!

I'm sure there were many young writers heckled, insulted and laughed at for this strange new invention. Why write something down when you can actually go and talk to someone in person? I can imagine the heated debates. Writing must have seemed so subversive, secretive and passive-aggressive when it first appeared. Tribal elders probably wanted people to sit together, look each other in the eye and say what they had to say. This new "writing" invention seemed to betray the very fundamental way that human society operated. 

Today, we all regard writing as a cornerstone of civilization. It's one of the greatest inventions of all time, perhaps second only to language itself. But I imagine there was a tumultuous period of adjustment as writing entered the human experience.

Everything we say about social media can be said about writing--it expands the reach of who we can communicate with, but it also creates enormous distances between people. It bridges distances and creates new ones. Yes, there are differences--major differences. But there are also similarities.

I grew up with my grandparents next door and my cousins at the next house down. Today, those cousins are scattered across several states. Social media allows me to stay in touch with them. Through Facebook life updates, memes, jokes, stories and news article shares, we can have an ongoing role in each other's lives. It is not the same as living next door. We can't just drop in on each other in the afternoon, pull out some lawn chairs, pop open some drinks and talk. On the flip side, we can share in-depth testimonies and views that we wouldn't share at a Sunday picnic. If we are going to live so far apart geographically, then social media helps bridge that gap.

In the final wash, internet communication is probably like any other form of communication--it has positives and downsides. It creates new opportunities and limits others. It's going to require a big shift in how we organize ourselves as a society.  But we also have to admit that it's not going away.  Because of that, it's well worth the time to take a pause and reconsider how we use it and see if there are any adjustments we can make so that it serves our lives better.

Community Died Long Before Smartphones



 

Baby boomers and older are quick to claim that smartphones and social media are killing off interpersonal interactions. They waste no opportunity to criticize.

Younger generations might say that smart phones and social media are giving us a community we never had.

Vibrant, local communities with lots of interpersonal interaction--always a mainstay in human culture--died in America long before smartphones and social media.

 

When my mom was growing up, kids played freely in the neighborhood and families sat on front porches and talked. It would take my grandmother all afternoon just to walk a couple blocks to the local store, because she would stop and talk with folks on their porches the whole way there and back.

My parents could "remember a time" when folks lived like that. Gen X and younger have never known that time. My generation has been starved for community and has been working overdrive to rediscover it. Folks are reclaiming walkable urban areas, experimenting with intentional living arrangements and building tiny houses. There are all manner of efforts afoot.

When my grandparents were young, it was customary to spend weekends going to dances with live bands. Today, many young people are locked in the loneliness of their homes watching Dancing with the Stars. This changed long before smart phones and social media.

Television, air conditioning and other technological "advances" have destroyed community. People willingly imprison themselves in their own homes, not talking to (or even knowing) their neighbors, each person engaged in her or his own private form of entertainment. People would rather buy their own books than use public libraries. They would rather build and maintain their own private swimming pool than use a community pool. A home owner will purchase his own lawnmower, even though he'll use it at most one hour each week in the summer. Having anything at all shared in common elicits a response of revulsion from most Americans.

 

My grandparents were farmers in Ohio. They lived near other farmers. No single family owned all the necessary farming equipment. A group of families shared with each other and had to (gasp!) communicate so that it could be properly scheduled and maintained. Each piece of equipment was needed for only a small window of time each year, so each item could be rotated between them as needed.

I drive a lot through the South. Almost every house is decked out with a ginormous, wide-open porch--some porches have almost as much square footage as the adjoining house itself. Yet, I have never seen a single person actually using any of them. At one time, people depended on porches to survive blisteringly hot summer days and for community interaction. Those porches were abandoned long before smartphones and social media.

I was at a Cracker Barrel restaurant with my family this past summer.  It was a scortchingly hot day.  It was almost unbearable directly under the sun in the parking lot. On the way out, we decided to occupy a row of rocking chairs on the spacious porch. With a gentle breeze, it was quite nice. We could have sat out there all day talking without being the least bit uncomfortable. It's not that A/C hassaved us, it's that we forgot how to survive without it.

You can complain that young kids are constantly attached to their smart phones. But you might be better served asking why their lives are so deprived of human interaction that they have been sucked into the internet so strongly. Drive through most US suburbs, cities and small towns, you won't see kids playing in the yards, families talking on porches or town folk gathering for public entertainment. This is completely antithetical to how humans have always lived. Children grow up desperately lonely and disconnected from others. Along comes the internet and suddenly they can be plugged in to people all over. Can we blame them? Then yes, over time, they lose (or never develop) the skills at interpersonal interaction.

 

If you never practice interpersonal socializing, then you don't develop the skill. My grandparents on both sides could strike up a conversation with anyone, anywhere. Yet, I rarely talk to strangers when I'm out in public. However, when spending significant time with my extended family, I find myself getting into this mode, and it feels good.  It is something that is natural to humans, but it has to be practiced to be maintained. I suspect that people today reach for smartphones and social media to fill a void, and then once there they lose the ability to interact with those around them. It then becomes a downward spiral and we move further and further away from what we most desperately need.

I remember when the power went out for several days after a storm. Folks emerged from their houses and began talking over backyard fences. They shared ideas and helped each other out. Their TVs were out cold and they were hungry for human interaction. The first fledgling attempts at neighborliness were budding, and we pledged to keep it going long into the future. However, when the power came back on, these efforts died out quickly and never returned. This was long before social media and smart phones.

 

If we are going to reclaim interpersonal community interactions, we have to go back a lot further than smart phones and social media. Instead do what people have long advocated for:  Throw out the TV and other technological "advances" that coax us into being so isolated.  Smartphones and social media addiction is perhaps not the cause of isolation, but perhaps a symptom in response to it.