In case you haven't been apprised of the situation, your addiction to texting and email is ruining your relationship... with god. According to Vincent Nichols, head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, modern friendships built around (or involving) heavy SMS volley, electronic mail correspondences, and social networking sites create "transient relationships" which put users at the risk of suicide. Yes,
suicide. According to the British man of the cloth, using electronic communication to build friendships is causing humanity to lose "the ability to build interpersonal communication that's necessary for living together." Sure, it may sound like heavy FUD talk, but there is sense in some of his points. For instance, the Archbishop of Westminster believes that social networking sites encourage people to concentrate on their number of friends rather than build actual relationships, and they tend to view that number as a commodity. Anyone who's seen the growth of Facebook and MySpace shouldn't have trouble making that connection, but when it comes to SMS and email, your friendship has likely moved on, and lumping that kind of one-to-one communication in with the broad relationships of social networking sites seems like an unfair characterization. We put the question to our typically calm and even-keeled commenter community -- are we doomed, or what?
posted Aug 2nd 2009 11:58AM
if having lots of myspace friends will lead you to commit suicide, why is tom still alive?
Tom is in the WIRED...
Once again, the Vatican reminds me why Martin Luther was such a great man.
The only problem with your statement is the Vatican didn't make this statement.... Individual Catholics, including priests, etc, are allowed their own opinions.
His points are valid in that we as people are loosing to be interpersonal because there is always a screen between us and the other person. Emotionally it is easier to detach from a person via email, sms , etc etc so although he did not convey the message 100% accurately his point is valid.
The beginning statement of "In case you haven't been apprised of the situation, your addiction to texting and email is ruining your relationship... with god." didn't seem to fit with the rest of the story. In fact I just read the yahoo tech article and i didn't see the head of the English catholic church as saying that electronic communication was coming between people and their worship of god. Just that it makes a unstable support network of peers.
As a former catholic, and now a protestant christian I tend to lean in the mindset that the catholic church goes about worshiping god wrong. But what the head of this church is saying it totally valid being he's talking about social networking and not god. Online friends are barely real friends, they are situational and once things aren't lined up super easy anymore they falter. I have 6 friends that I've been in contact with almost daily since middle school. which was about 15 years ago now. I like to believe I know what real friendship takes, and online friends just aren't them. At the same time I've seen plenty of people in everyday(real) life that seem to spread themselves too thin and make too many acquaintances without making any real good friends, they are often the people who are left with no one to turn to when they are really hitting bad times. So, with that said, I see what hes saying and in general agree with the statements. But I don't understand where Joshua came up with the coming between you and god thing.
I could see if this head of the church said that peoples idolatry of the iphone, apple and steve jobs were coming between yourself and god. :)
I thought this article would have more comments...damn you iPhone! Anyways, I can kind-of see where they are comming from; I spend way too much time on facebook imo. (I don't have 500+ friends though, I think 80 something) On a semi-unrelated note, fuck off church! Yes, yes, I'm quite aware i'm damned to Hell, no need to remind me. [P.s. I'll Get You A Satanic Mechanic! (+1 achievment if you get the reference)] Back to the B-52's! (Also admiring Volkswagen buses....no, they are not electric and don't have GPS)
"...I tend to lean in the mindset that the catholic church goes about worshiping god wrong." Yeah, really. I totally agree. The best way to go about it, is not to, imo. : P Blasphemy aside, I mostly agree with the other things you said, although I have made one really good friend over MSN. I have made almost all of my good friends in real life. I don't completely understand peoples' obsession with social networking, (and adding 500+ people, thet you don't even know) but from what I observe, it's pretty similar to what goes on in a regular school. Then again, what do I know, I hardly even know anyone in my own grade. All my friends are in 11 or 12, and that /might/ be because most of the damn niners are convinced i'm a satanist >_> Or, maybe it's my obsession with the B-52's. I can also partially blame it on my shy nature. (and maaaaybe my love for R.H.P.S.) So I guess i'm not really "down" with this social networking "yo".
Does the GSM Associate (gsmworld.com) agree? Everything they stand for with cell phones basically says all cell phones do is improve our lifes (wireless broadband, SMS, mms, im, email, etc.).
Um, whatever happened to capitalizing "God," people??
In any case, definitely reading the article directly instead of reading this slanted article will shed better light on what Archbishop Nichols is trying to say. Coincidentally, my best friend and I just had a discussion on the phone yesterday about how constant texting is disrupting the ability of teenagers to socialize in person. Instead of focusing completely on the person, they're gabbing away at texting as well.
Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely guilty of this, but we have to be aware of this problem and then address ourselves.
And P.S. - Yes, you all are entitled to your own opinions, but please be respectful of an institution that billions follow and has lasted for two millenia (I'm referring to the Roman Catholic Church if you're still clueless). There is no call to be degrading it needlessly with your "F*ck the Church" comments and such. Why is it so vogue and fashionable to ridicule the Church and yet absolute bigotry to give the slightest opposition to Buddhists or Muslims?
Bah, I've decided that word doesn't deserve to be capitalized. "Why is it so vogue and fashionable to ridicule the Church" Are you kidding? Like you said, there are billions of followers, and they obviously don't consider it to be "fashionable". Something like 90% of the U.S.A. still believes in "God" , and they don't consider ridiculing the church "vouge". Just bringing up the topic of religion offends most people. There is so much pro-"God" propaganda in the media, it's ridiculous. Also, I most definatly don't keep up with what is "fashionable". ...Unless you consider listening to the B-52's to be vouge or fashionable.
Would have been awesome if, when he made this announcement, it was via a Tweet or FB status update or something... lol
Never before in the history of mankind has it been easier to reach out to people all over the world. Online communitieslike MySpace, make meeting new friends with similar interests incredibly easy. MySpace is a great place to share tips, ideas and stories about the things you find most interesting. If you have a question about your hobby, you can easily find the answer through your network of members with similar interests.
James
http://EmailCharger.com
@Doax - right. Didn't fit with rest of story, somebody here just wanted to be a bit sensationalistic - Joshua ;P
The Bishop didn't get it all right, but he got a lot right. He just didn't really factor in the BFF side of it. Typical humans need close personal friendships / relationships. In-person relationships are usually stronger and last longer than virtual ones. People don't meet on the internet and never want to meet each other because the internet is better!
So point 1 - if you're a person who doesn't have in-person relationships and spend all their time virtually, develop your BFFs virtually, you're more at risk for depression and suicide because by their nature, they're less close and break up more frequently. I know.
Point 2 - the more virtual you are, the less in-person you are, just due to time. Virtual friendships take time to keep alive, just like real ones. So with the virtual ones switching in and out more frequently than in-person, your in-person ones become way more important than before to provide some stability. And if they break down, its devastating. I know this too.
If we all just had in-person relationships, there would be more of them than we have today because we'd have more time for them, they'd be stronger and last longer. Maybe this was the point he was trying to get at anyway. Hmm.
I have to wonder about pontifical theorizing with little emphasis on research and facts. This is troubling to many Catholics who are thoughtful and educated. In other words, stop spewing nonsense without some form of empiracism.