Is Facebook bad for the soul?
By Nicole Kobie in Editorial
Posted in Uncategorized on
The Archbishop of Westminster has declared social networking and email and other electronic communication as bad for the soul, saying it hurts communities.
Speaking to the Sunday Telegraph, Vincent Nichols said:
“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.”
The Catholic leader added:
“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.”
He’s right… that would be bad. Exclusive use of what he calls “electronic information” would be problematic, no doubt. That would indeed destroy communities. We’d all go weird and be confused when someone smiles — why are they making that face??!
Except, he’s wrong, because no one conducts all their communication through gadgets or the web. We just don’t live like that. (Okay, some crazy dude living in a dark, dank but well-connected basement might, but he’s probably a nutter anyway.)
I might use texts, Facebook, Twitter (well, I still don’t get it, so not so much), email and other tools to communicate, but it’s almost entirely with people I actually see in person, and frequently too. Those teenagers sitting on IM or Facebook or whatever it is the kids use these days, many are probably talking to friends from school, people they see every day.
Yeah, there are some sad cases where kids can’t make friends, and end up depending on web-only communities. Or others where kids are bullied. But the problem isn’t the internet, it’s that the kid can’t make friends or are picked on — don’t blame the IT for that. Blame society, evil teenagers or whatever. There were troubled, lonely kids long before the web, and many probably find help and support in online communities, too.
Disturbingly, the Archbishop even blamed such communities for teen suicide:
“Among young people often a key factor in them committing suicide is the trauma of transient relationships… They throw themselves into a friendship or network of friendships, then it collapses and they’re desolate.”
Has teen suicide increased in the past ten years? Well, yes. Is it the internet’s fault? No — not according to the internet, anyway. Wikipedia tells me the American Journal of Psychiatry blames a decrease in treatment rates — I couldn’t tell you whether that’s true or not, as I’m no expert in the subject (not that that stops the Archbishop from speaking up, mind you.)
The simple fact is, how can the church be relevant to teenagers and useful to the (’real’, offline) community when its leaders clearly don’t understand how people live today?
Of course, maybe he should have squared his opinions with his boss first, as the Pope’s on Facebook. Does that make it okay to poke away, then?
Rated: 73.33% (3 votes)
Loading ...Comment by Fernando Sena - August 7, 2009 on 12:39 pm
Since I started using Facebook, I have chatted and communicated with family, old friends and acquaintances as far apart as UK, Italy, Spain, Portugal, The Azores Islands, Brazil, Chile,UAE and N.Zealand which I would otherwise not have any news from in first hand. Why do people talk such rubbish? I can see where he is coming from but it is not only very young people, not socializing locally,that use it.
Comment by - August 10, 2009 on 10:59 am
Much as I agree Rowan does talk some piffle I have to agree that “exclusively” would be bad and the amount that teenagers communicate this way is quite suprising. Also my experience of off & on line communities tells me it is much easier to disapear from an on line one. You won’t bump into people in the pub, they won’t drop round to see your OK and it’s easier accidentally forget people or deliberately to blank them so maybe the “collapse” bit has some truth in it.
http://www.itpro.co.uk/blogs/davef/2009/02/09/godcom-religion-on-the-internet/
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