[Originally posted on my Rabbisaul blog March 7 2006]
Someone recently mentioned the MySpace + Xanga phenomenon that has overtaken teenagers, and how they are often handling it. Namely, they are speaking things, and in ways, that they would not do otherwise. They write, on the one hand, as if they are speaking in privacy – and yet, the persona constructed could never be constructed in a “live” private setting. (Of course, teens are not the only ones of which this is true.)
In this connection, Neil Postman’s idea of pretty much equating medium and message comes up. Whatever Postman’s faults (and I think he tends to err in the direction of technology providing us with a setting that is inherently wicked), there is an inextricable connection between medium and message.
Or perhaps it would simply be better to say that each medium presents us with different challenges of sanctification. I’ve been blogging for several years, and I’m still learning how to communicate in this medium in a godly fashion. I still have a long way to go. Handling technology is not a wicked thing, but every technology presents its own challenges and temptations.
These temptations do not stand alone, of course. They are but particularized forms of the temptations we already face. But a given technology can exacerbate things.
To be more concrete, let’s reflect upon two sins which we can look at both generally and specifically: anger and dishonesty.
All of us as fallen creatures have some sort of tendency to engage in sins of anger, although this is to greater and lesser degrees, and takes different forms. In the real world, there are certain factors which tend to limit or at least shape how our anger expresses itself. These factors affect each of us differently. But in general, most of us have a certain shame mechanism that keeps us from blowing up in public; and even in more private settings it can kick in. But the technological atmosphere of the blog – and this can vary even between one sort of blogging venue and another, I think – can pull these factors in odd ways, because of the sort of “spill your guts” personal-diary form that it takes. But for all that, it is still a public setting that – depending of course on your access settings, should you have them – the whole world can read.
But is the problem the technology? No, not really. Because the things that should not be said are mostly things that should not be thought either. We’ve just been given a medium where our sinful hearts can expose themselves more publicly than otherwise. But the medium is not the problem, and the medium did not introduce the sin. The medium simply gave occasion for us to make our sin embarrassingly public.
Something similar can be said with regard to the issue of honesty, and here I am referring to how we project ourselves to others. To be sure, this is tricky territory. I’m well aware that I come across very differently in person than I do on the printed page or on the computer monitor. No doubt, a sort of projection is part of that. But part of it is simply the nature of the medium, and it’s not entirely accurate to simply suppose that reading what someone says has nothing to do with knowing them. Rather, you are knowing them according to how they communicate via the written word, rather than according to “in-the-flesh” interaction.
Furthermore, even in person we “project.” The people you meet daily see a person that is only partial, and perhaps in many respects, quite false. The people who live with you day after day in a variety of circumstances almost certainly see a rather different person – for better or worse. So personality projection is not unique to the written word.
Nonetheless, the written word presents a particular sort of framework, a different kind of opportunity to (as it were) “create” ourselves for an audience that cannot see us. The extreme illustration, of course, would be the online predators and “hobbyists” who hang around chat rooms pretending to be 16-year-old girls, when in reality they range from 11-year-old boys to 70-year-old dirty old men. But there are more subtle ways in which we can “create” ourselves online, present ourselves to be people other than we are. I’m not “cool” either online or in person, but I suspect that I can fake it better online than otherwise. Online it’s easier to hide my nervousness, my awkwardness, and my awful fashion sense, if nothing else.
The point where I’m going with all of this is simply that the Internet has not manufactured new sins. But it has given us new contexts within which to express the old ones. Whether we are teenagers, teenagers’ parents, or web-savvy adults, we all need to deal with the technology as a challenging context for sanctification. Having a blog doesn’t give us a king’s X to say whatever crosses our minds; the Christian calling is one of love toward others and self-control (Gal 5.22, 23). Having a MySpace account doesn’t give us license to pretend we are someone else; the Christian calling is to be humble and truthful.
As always is the case with sanctification, all of this is easier said than done. Recognizing the challenge is not the same as meeting it in the power of the Spirit. But recognizing the challenge is nonetheless part of “knowing the time” and preparing ourselves to fight the battle.