Judas H Microblogging Priest OSB, if I can take the plunge anyone can!

Swore I would never use it, it’s just a kid’s fad, etc etc, despite prodding from PTM and Father Run DMJ (aka David Juhl).

Then I thought it might be an adjunct for my blog, only, so I cautiously set one up. Well it brought me in contact with people all over everywhere that the blog alone would never have and in communicative ways comboxes simply do not do.

PTM is 100% right on this. Matter of fact, I enjoyed having the Past Elder Facebook so much I opened another one under my own name for people I know IRL. So now I have two of the bleeders when I said I would never have any!

(Hey, we ain’t Friends — what’s up with that?)

I appreciate your letting your readers know about the great articles that are out there. I am not sure I agree with your practice of reposting full text though. I think would be helpful in these instances to cite what you found good about the article and then link to the site where the content came from and allow people read the rest of there. Many bloggers are writing for their livelihood and depend on people visiting their site in order to read their content to continue writing for a living. It would also allow people to find other writers that they might find interesting. Also posting full articles confuses people that don’t read the line about where it came from and they assume that you wrote the article.

Yeah, well. On the other hand, maybe I like my friends so much that I prefer face-to-face conversations with them instead of the meaningless and self-serving chatter which occurs on Facebook. OK, I’m going to sounds like an egg-head type, but people such as Sherry Turkle, an MIT type, have written some fascinating material recently on what Facebook and social media have been doing to meaningful relationships. Neal Postman used to say about new pieces of technology: “What problem was this technology supposed to solve?” I’m at a loss to answer when it comes to things like Facebook.

However, Facebook is not for the naive. As with anything that big, scams and security problems are rampant. You have to practice safe computing on Facebook just like everywhere else. Just yesterday the story came out in The Register that millions of account had their information inadvertently exposed. If you haven’t changed your password, do so immediately!

I disagree with the article. I am not grouchy … etc. … yet I do not have, do not think I will sign up and hope will never have another Facebook account.

My account got closed by the Facebook police a 2nd time in 2009, due to exceeding their threshold of friend invites. After spending a lot of hours building a Christian outreach group and effort into using the tool as best I could to bring more awareness to the ministry the Lord has called me to … and, of course, yeah too much time addictively spent on reading meaningless or trivial stuff on walls …

When recently asking FB for investigation on the circumstances on my Nov. 2009 account lock/disabled, Facebook admins will not give me a 3rd chance. Account “closed” for good they tell me (where is my IP … intelectual property and all the hard work put into organizing content?)

Here in DK, studies show that people who spend a lot of time on Facebook come from a low social background, and also another Facebook behavior/trait sociologists are learning is that people suffering from loneliness may be the ones who post the most pictures and seem to have it all together socially … ON (via the virtual world of) FACEBOOK.

Seriously … ask yourself … how many of your FB “friends” do you really know? How many of those friends would look you up, send you I miss you/whatzup email if you closed your FB account tomorrow ??

FB to me smells to … viral-tual. Just my 2 cents.

Pastor McCain,

Interesting viewpoint. I’ve never seen anything about Facebook that is so strident and quite, frankly, simplistic. Now I know that many of my family and friends likely find me to be an even more unloving person than I already knew I was. : )

I’m still not on it, but think its great that those who are are – I still communicate with friends via email all the time. Just got an emergency cell phone the other day : can finally afford it. Still no internet connection (are violin lessons and good schooling more important than this – what do you think?)

Best regards,
Nathan Rinne

From the late, great Neal Postman:
http://www.mat.upm.es/~jcm/postman-informing.html

“Through the computer, the heralds say, we will make education better, religion better, politics better, our minds better — best of all, ourselves better. This is, of course, nonsense, and only the young or the ignorant or the foolish could believe it. I said a moment ago that computers are not to blame for this. And that is true, at least in the sense that we do not blame an elephant for its huge appetite or a stone for being hard or a cloud for hiding the sun. That is their nature, and we expect nothing different from them. But the computer has a nature, as well. True, it is only a machine but a machine designed to manipulate and generate information. That is what computers do, and therefore they have an agenda and an unmistakable message.

The message is that through more and more information, more conveniently packaged, more swiftly delivered, we will find solutions to our problems. And so all the brilliant young men and women, believing this, create ingenious things for the computer to do, hoping that in this way, we will become wiser and more decent and more noble. And who can blame them? By becoming masters of this wondrous technology, they will acquire prestige and power and some will even become famous. In a world populated by people who believe that through more and more information, paradise is attainable, the computer scientist is king. But I maintain that all of this is a monumental and dangerous waste of human talent and energy. Imagine what might be accomplished if this talent and energy were turned to philosophy, to theology, to the arts, to imaginative literature or to education? Who knows what we could learn from such people — perhaps why there are wars, and hunger, and homelessness and mental illness and anger.”

@ptmccain
Pastor McCain,

Touche! And as an attorney, I can tell you I can’t survive in my business without one. So, I’m not a Luddite. I think we need to be aware of the dangers/pitfalls of the technology, though; and there seem to be more who are blowing the whistle on some problems–see Nicholas Carr’s book, “The Shallows,” or Sherry Turkle’s work, “Alone Together.” And my problems with the computer certainly won’t stop me from reading and learning from “Cyberbrethren,” so there is a double “touche” on me.

Pastor McCain,

This was Henry David Thoreau’s response to the first transatlantic cable. “We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks closer to the New,” Thoreau wrote in Walden. “But perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.”
Sounds a lot like what I read on Facebook!

The burning question in my mind after reading the article is, why does he care so much? He seems to have such strong feelings about this and I don’t quite understand why he is so upset about whether or not people are joining facebook. If people want to join facebook, great. If they don’t, great. Neither one is right or wrong. I don’t understand why he’s so worked up about it?

“Basically, if you don’t like Facebook, it sounds to me like you don’t like your friends. And what kind of terrible person doesn’t like friends? Even Hitler had friends.”

This to me sounds like illogical hyperbole. I certainly don’t understand how not liking Facebook equates to not liking my friends. There are so many other ways of communicating and spending time with my friends that Facebook seems superfluous. None of my friends have given me the impression that I had to have a Facebook account in order to be friends with them.

Kurt

Guys, please… though I am on Facebook, I choose to meet my friends in the more intimate circles of having lunch, Winkels, staff meetings, vacation travel, etc. where the more complete communication between God’s very human people can relate, touch, look, discern looks, and hear the real tone of love or admonition in the voice. Tone is something terribly lacking in all the text-only based computer communication — consider all the misunderstandings for which email is one culprit. You’ll recall Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock warning (1970!) that the coming “high tech” era would require “high touch” as a balance, and that happens when people are near arms’ length. Anything but a Luddite, I got into computers beginning in 1963. Our little congregation was one of the first in our to adopt computers to church administration. FB, Twitter, etc. are tremendously powerful resources, and I do pray many will come to faith in Christ, in part due to those communication channels (used to “go and teach” people and “invite them in”). But look how God decided that the Sacraments would always and ever require that we be there in our entire person.

He says “anti-social luddite”. I respond “1984ish sheeple screaming for validation”. Let’s be honest, Facebook is the pleebian version of a public relations firm. That’s why everything on it looks more like a press release than real “friendship”.

Everything Facebook does, I can do without it with technologies far more efficient and secure… and since my methods are not centralized, I have more control and freedom of expression. Only the truly anti-social need a piece of software to carry out all their social interactions for them. I don’t need a piece of software to remind me who me friends and force me to regularly check on them.

1. If the article was written for me, why does it call me names and spread lies about me by constructing a strawman that does not have anything to do with my actual opinions about Facebook? That seems like a poor way to change my mind.

2. I never thought I’d live to see the day when a huge Macintosh fan would use what is essentially an “ignore your personal preferences and individual technology needs and just get on the majority bandwagon for the sake of compatibility and networking because the majority of people are obviously right and know where the future will trend” arguement.

3. Is the guy who hates a particular mode or style of technology but prefers similar technologies that do the EXACT SAME tasks instead really an “anti-social luddite”? There is nothing Facebook offers that I am not already doing via other means. I don’t get why I must be in this online community simply because it is the biggest or why I must subscribe when other technologies do the job of communicating more securely, intimately, reliably and efficiently than Facebook ever could.

An invention like a cell phone is silly to resist as it is the only viable handheld medium for that kind of communication. Facebook is not like a cell phone. Instead, Facebook is a wheel reinvented and repackaged in a world full of perfectly viable alternatives in a market place that is simultaniously open to change and prone to leaps in unforseen directions. The debate is more akin to cable TV vs. sat TV than any of the other examples mentioned, but Facebook-o-philes are too haughty to admit that. They want you to see that their choice is the only right answer for everyone. There is a kind of close-minded tyranny in that. It has nothing to do with what the technology does at that point… it’s just that you don’t like it and prefer alternatives that they don’t like or know how to use effectively.

Facebook zealots don’t want to just accept that people disagree with their social networking choices. They can’t see how someone could be socially connected and technologically plugged in without Facebook. While the program is great for their needs and fun for them and their friends, there are other people in the world (perhaps a minority, but a significant group none the less) who obviously have different expectations, patterns, habits and needs. Unlike the rest of the internet, Facebook zealots refuse to allow the autonomous individual determine his own needs in the free market and call people names when they excercise any freedom of choice.

For extreme Facebook users, “agree to disagree” is not enough. Freedom to shape technology to suit your needs and tastes offends them. As avid communalists they want conformity and they take it too far. If you don’t use Facebook, you are backward and possibly a near-sighted fool. I’m no fool. I am also not ignorant of Facebook’s uses and capabilities. I can use the program and actually teach new users little shortcuts and secrets. I’m actually pretty good at some of the games. I just don’t like Facebook at all.

I just reject it. It doesn’t suit my needs or expectations. I know what I’m “giving up” because I have tried it. I just hate the software with its laundry list of limitations and annoyances. I prefer decentralized technological communication which does not place my whole online life in a single basket. I am pro-social networking and I use technology to communicate more than most. I just don’t use Facebook to acheive that. Why is that not okay?

At first, I was content to just not care about it… but fans of the program just won’t let it go. Why? Why is it so important that they drag everyone kicking and screaming into their sphere? They act as if people outside of Facebook are missing something grand. I watch people on Facebook all the time. It isn’t THAT life changing or time saving.

4. ……I have come to suspect that Facebook people secretly want me to get an account because they want another person to help maintain their Farmville.

i like FB. i can post a status from my cell phone, read status updates from my cell phone, view other people’s page from my cell phone..and all without having to speak a word to anyone! since i can email and text from my cell phone i don’t usually even use the thing to make calls!

one of my favorite FB status’ goes something like this, “text me.”

i have hundreds of friends with whom i never have to actually speak! yeah!

I have nothing against FB and I can see the many values of it. I personaly don’t have an account, don’t plan on getting one, and I still like talking to my friends face to face or on a telephone. Nothing beats sitting on a back deck in the middle of summer or around a campfire FACE to FACE with good friends and somthing cold to drink, chewing the fat to the wee hours of the morning. Just call me out of step with the times.

@Mike Baker

Brilliant. I hope this puts to rest the Facebookoholicism from the otherwise insightful PTM.

You raised s good point@ 23 Rev McCain. My children grew up using FB and think it is all that. For me, I’m not a user. Too much going on for that sort of thing to invest time in. Most friends and family live nearby and in my parish community. Everyone else is a phone call away. So I never took the time. I enjoy reading Several Lutheran blogs like Weedon’s and yourself, who are learned teachers of Christ.

I resisted opening a Facebook account for a very long time, mainly for the reason that I have things I share with some friends that I wouldn’t want other friends having access to. But, I broke down recently and set up an account that I am trying to connect to my blog, which was started to provide information/support for those who knit and crochet for various charities (while still keeping it separate from my other endeavours). But I apparently need someone to direct me to a “Facebook for Dummies” site, because I can’t figure out how to use it.

You probably won’t post this, but let me say anyway that it is highly inappropriate for pastors to be using the word “sucks.” Do you know from where that expression comes from? So are you suggesting that if one is not on Facebook he or she is somehow deficient as a human being?

You say it’s “a good challenge to people who are not using Facebook,” but it’s more than that. It’s a snarky smack in the face to those who have chosen not to use it – intended to get us to conform to what everyone else is doing, whether we feel it is the best choice for us or not.

I’ve used Facebook in the past. I made a careful, prayerful decision to do so no longer. Facebook was bad for me. Notice I did not say that Facebook is very bad for everyone. I said it was bad for me. Instead of focusing my attention on the people God has put directly in front of me each day, my thoughts and attention were constantly being directed to the daily lives of people that I barely knew in high school 30 years ago – people who I knew only for one year (we moved a lot), and who I never knew well. Honestly, I don’t want to know that someone I barely knew from a high school English class 30 years ago is clipping her toenails today. I want my mental focus to be on the people God has places in my path today. I can keep up with my close friends from the past in other ways, without having to hear about the “Mousehunt” exploits of people I barely know.

As an American, I value the freedom we have been given to make our own choices. As my father’s daughter, I value the wisdom that he gave me when he told me that “Just because everyone else is doing something, doesn’t mean you have to.” As a Christian, I value the fact that in matters of adiaphora, we are free to make our own decisions. I am choosing not to use Facebook. And I don’t think that makes me a Luddite or a moron. It makes me a conscious, thinking, deciding person – just like those who make a deliberate choice to use it are conscious, thinking, deciding persons whom I respect. And I would appreciate the same kind of respect myself.

I heard an interesting story on the radio this morning. Some group had apparently done a study showing how attendance at class reunions has dropped off sharply, because of social networking. I think one school had gone from 250 in attendance, to only 43, with an equal number of alumni to draw from. When questioned, these alumni basically said that they already knew all they needed to know about their classmates. Whereas before they would have travelled to a reunion to learn what became of the star quarterback and the home-coming queen, or the class nerd, etc., now they just have to go to their computer without leaving home. I don’t know, I can see the pros and cons in such a thing.

I would not write off JL’s concerns. JL sounds to me like a female; (I could obviously be wrong.) Females tend to be more heavily involved emotionally in their relationships and FB is a completely different animal. People may or may not have the stamina for it. My own on-line involvement costs me more than most would imagine. While the benefits can be enormous, there definitely is a distraction element, which could easily be very detrimental. We have also recently read reports about “FB depression.” Those who chose not to be involved should have not labels or guilt put on them, though I would advocate at least a minimal involvement. Some may need to cut themselves off. It is not so simple. For Pastors, however, I think it is a good idea.

FAZEBOOK?!?! Is that thing STILL around? [rolleyes]