B
ut not just any kind of reading—the kind of reading reserved only for an endangered species: a lengthy monologue of unbroken paragraphs. There are no pithy sayings, no bullet points, no status updates, no hyperlinks, no place for you to comment. Fortunately, there will be an online version that will be far more humane. I suspect comments will be allowed, providing the feeling of dialogue, and editors will likely embed hyperlinks as release valves so you can be freed from this relentless linear reasoning. A kind of thinking increasingly antiquated.
Out with lines. In with webs. Out with hard, slow, laborious rationality. In with flexible, fast intuition. It is perhaps entirely too obvious to say our culture is changing. What may not be obvious is exactly how and why it’s changing. While the reasons for such shifts are legion, there is one cause most often overlooked. The fact that fewer and fewer people are able to finish this article is due to a major shift in the technologies we use to communicate. In the simplest terms, to quote Marshall McLuhan, we become what we behold. Our thinking patterns begin to mirror the things we use to think with. Technology is the hidden shaper of people and cultures. Its transformative effects hover just beneath conscious awareness. Consider the shift in our reading capacities. Although image culture has led to a decline in literacy rates over the last 40 years, we are not headed for illiteracy—we are witnessing the rise of a different kind of literacy. Our new text-based media cause people to prefer short, simple messages rather than lengthy, uninterrupted essays like this one. These hidden technologies are rewiring our mental processing without our permission. Not only this, technology is dramatically transforming our understanding of ourselves, our definition of community and our experience of God. As with nearly everything new in life, it brings both gains and losses. For some reason, we seem quite unaware of the bargain we make when we adopt a new technology into our lives.
The iGeneration For a person who writes about how technology shapes us, I’m embarrassed to admit I ended up on Facebook by accident. I received an email from an acquaintance requesting we become “friends.” To be polite, I said yes.
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I clicked a few buttons and agreed to a few things without paying much attention. For the next three days, my inbox was flooded with email notifications from a large number of my real-life friends who were also apparently now my virtual friends. They were thrilled. They congratulated me on joining Facebook— an achievement I didn’t consider worthy of accolade. I was also a bit mortified. Not just at how invasive Facebook was, but how excited these people were. What was wrong with them? I’ll admit I found some appeal. There is a certain thrill in looking at pictures of high school friends from long ago without them knowing. It’s like being a fly on the wall at your high school reunion. I was instantly connected to long-lost friends. People I would never go searching for, but would love to know what they are doing. And all at once I was not only updated on their life, I was also introduced to their moment-by-moment mental fidgets in the form of status updates. This was simply a remarkable technological connector. And all this without the hassle of long phone conversations complete with requisite, time-consuming social pleasantries. What a simple joy.
me to see everything I’m seeing. They want me to know what they’re eating, wearing, feeling and thinking in each moment. They are actually exhibitionists. An exhibitionist is someone who wants you to see them. So while there is a little voyeurism, there is a lot of exhibitionism on Facebook. Such exhibitionism has an unusual effect on us. We not only want others to see us, we like to see us. We are able to inspect and tweak what others are seeing about us. We become fascinated by the image we project. It’s like having a mirror on your desk or in your pocket. And every so often, you pull it out to gaze upon your own image. Perhaps you want to adjust your hair or find postures of the head to smooth out the double chin. This kind of regular self-inspection eventually gives rise
M a n y of t he s e t ec hnol ogie s c re at e a c ondi t ion of a b s enc e in a w orl d de s p er at e f or our p re s enc e . There are times when I felt a bit like a voyeur must feel. However, this is not voyeurism. Voyeurism assumes the people you are watching don’t want you to see them. Voyeurism is what happens when you steal glimpses into people’s lives they don’t intend for you to see. The people I’m looking at want
to a subtle narcissism. A feature especially pronounced among young people. Young people are generally full of themselves, but a new study suggests today’s kids are far more self-centered than preceding generations. The Narcissistic Personality Inventory is a 40-question survey that was