Over the past few years I've become fascinated with technology. Anyone who knows me, knows this truth. Many people may believe that I have a technology addiction [after all who else actually reads news about Google each day, or who else has bought and read The Google Story - a biography of the company?]
In reality, my fascination is less about being addicted to the consumption of technology [though there may be truth here, I won't deny it]. More to reality, my interest has to do with the impact of the mediums of technology on society... in other words, what is the affect of YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, mobile phones [see the Pew report on Teens and Mobile Phones], etc. on who we are and how we share life together? In his book, Flickering Pixels [an application of the teaching of Marshall McLuhan] to faith / church], Shane Hipps explains that the impact of the form of media / technology may actually [is most certainly] more than even its content. In other words, the content of the text message you just read [or the 100 before it] has changed your life less than the fact that you can actually send and receive them.
Enter into this fascination the concept of Socialnomics - the idea that our economy has changed as a result of social media. I just finished the book Socialnomics today. Essentially Erik Qualman's study in the book Socialnomics is a study of how the world has / is being reshaped by social media. This book [and the video] have added fuel to my fascination. Where does this take me? For now, I have a few questions for those of us who serve in children / youth ministry and I am thinking through some questions we should all be anticipating as our future in ministry.
Some questions for now:
- How does social media alter the effectiveness of our current strategies for communicating the content of the gospel?
- How has social media changed how people want to communicate with and be a part of the church community?
- Do those of us who serve as leaders [paid or volunteer] ever have time off in a social media world any longer?
Some questions for later:
- Today's generation of young adults can [for the most part] no longer remember life without the Internet. Given that the children growing up in our children's ministry will not be able to remember life before social media, how will that affect how we minister to them?
- Taking Marshal McLuhan's ideas to heart - knowing that the medium of media often [always?] communicates even more boldly than its content - what will be the future mediums of Gospel communication and how does that affect the message of the Gospel?
- Social media certainly creates a world where almost all aspects of life are lived in the public sphere. how will that affect the way that that Christian faith is lived out and passed from one generation to the next?
- What do the words of Deuteronomy 6 look like when their principles are transferred to a social media world?
