So, if you read this, you likely managed to read my entire facebook post, which I appreciate. Once again, kudos to you 🙂
As you may know, I love technology. And I’m grateful for the ways that I can make relatively substantial contributions to it in my career. However, I’m starting to turn a critical eye to technology—not necessarily to make any value judgments, but to be intentional about understanding its usage, its effects, its cost.
This can be traced back to an article I read about a year-and-a-half ago on qideas.org written by Shane Hipps, who talks about the impact that various media have on building and maintaining community. It’s an article I’ve been chewing on frequently, so much so that I bought his book “The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture” last fall and read it. And then, from that, I bought “Understanding Media” by Marshall McLuhan, which I’m currently reading.
Hipps’ writings are based on the writings and thoughts of Marshall McLuhan, who asserts that the medium is the message. McLuhan defines a medium as anything that extends some function of the human body/experience. Basically, the medium used to communicate a message is also communicating a message alongside (or, even, instead of) the content of the message itself. For example, my message could be “Hey Ashley, how’s it going?” Saying it verbally, writing a handwritten note, sending a text, posting a comment, or sending an email all communicate a message more than the content. He describes dozens of other examples, examining even something as basic as the alphabet, or the wheel, or electricity, or light, as a technology. Hipps takes McLuhan’s premise to examine the ways that electronic technology, particularly the Internet, affects the way community is formed and maintained as well as how the Gospel is communicated. (This paragraph grossly simplifies Hipps and McLuhan; please check out the qideas article…)
So, why am I picking on Facebook? Well, I noticed this pattern over the last couple of months: At almost any computer I find, I will
- Launch IE
- Press ALT+D
- Type “fa” which already autocompletes to facebook.com from its history
- Press Enter
- Stare and scroll at Facebook.
This would be fine if I did it every once in a while. But, I will do it even after just being on Facebook less than 2 minutes ago. At home. At work. On my phone. Why am I compulsively checking for updates so frequesntly? What am I looking for? Is this ‘medium’ extending some existing part of me? If so, what?
I want to know and understand what Facebook, as a medium, is extending as well as understand how much of that is based on the media that it’s built upon: The Internet, Software, Computers, Electricity. In taking this time away from Facebook, the questions I want to ask are
- What does Facebook allow me to do that I can’t do otherwise?
- What does Facebook prohibit that I would do otherwise?
- What do I do in the times where I would have compulsively checked Facebook?
- How do I interact with local friends without vs with Facebook interaction?
- How do I interact with distant friends/family without vs with Facebook interaction?
- Can I stay in touch with friends without Facebook? If so, what friends have this dependency and why?
With these questions, I am embarking on a not-so-scientific experiment to take a break from Facebook for at least 30 days to make some of these observations based on these questions. With these observations, maybe I can know when to and when not to use it. Or, maybe I’ll end up staying off altogether. I dunno, we’ll see 🙂
While I will be making these observations for me, I am interested in hearing others’ thoughts. Would you be willing to participate in this not-so-scientific experiment with me? Do you have additional questions for observation? If so, email me or leave a comment, and I’ll followup.
hollatchaboi!