I’ve been thinking lately about facebook, twitter, and texting. How do you think these innovations are going to affect the next generation? I’m not trying to be an old crotchedy and cranky guy here, I’m not even specifically thinking negativly here. But off the top of my head here are some things that I think of with regard to these new ideas:

• Community. Right now people talk about finding community on myspace, facebook, and even World of Warcraft (thanks for the insight Ezra). Not only do you get to know others through these online communities but you even, at times, find an odd type of intimacy through these virtual networks. I remember early on in the blogmunity that my last post spoke of while a friend was going through a tough time she was able to find community and support through other bloggers she had never seen. Oddly enough much of that translated into genuine lasting relationships. But I wonder if online relationships can really translate into healthy, mutually challenging community? Community is messy. You see people at their best and at their very worst. You see sides of people that they’d prefer you didn’t see. Do you get that in an online community? Is it potentially even cheapening what we mean when we talk about authentic community? How far can this take us?
• Narcisism. I love Twitter and status updates on facebook. I think they’re funny, easy, and mildly intruiging. But in essence am I just focusing on myself in an oddly narcisitic way? The purpose of Twitter is to give you an avenue to answer this question: what am I doing? Maybe it’s a bit of a stretch, but on some level it seems as though it creates a culture of talking about yourself a lot in lots of meaningless ways. It could be that I’m alone in this, but I tend to care more about what I right about myself than what everyone else writes. Maybe I’m just a jerk. Anyway I’m not sure if tweeting is any different than small talk at an uncomfortable party where you’re spending time just trying to make yourself sound good, but it’s an observation that could be valid. What do you think?
• Texting. I’ll be honest, I’d prefer to text you rather than talk to you over the phone. I guess that’s fairly normal these days, though I’m still not proud of it. Theres something nice and easy about texting over talking on the phone. I don’t have to do uncomfortable small talk, but can instead get right to the point. I love it. I used to think that texting left out too much of the personal aspect of talking on the phone, of voice to voice conversation. But my view of that is beginning to change beceause of all the deep conversations that I’ve been able to engage in via texting. I’ve been able to have conversations that wouldn’t have happened over the phone and that have led to even better face to face conversations that would have never been an option before. I’ve also found that texting is a very noninvasive way to invite people to a small group or Sunday Renovatus gathering.

Finally, here is my desire. I love asking questions. I think that I’ve learned it from my wife and I’m quite indebbeted to her because of it. Often times Jess and I will reflect on a conversation we’ve had with people and wonder if it was awkward because we just kept asking them questions. I’m generally intruiged by people, their interests, and their choices in life. Ezra, who I refered to before, was grilled by Jess and I concerning World of Warcraft and other nerd-centered games. I’m not sure how he felt about that, but we were so intruiged by this “world” that we knew nothing about. SO, I would love to better figure out how to use all this social networking, texting, micro blogging stuff to all translate into more dialogue that wouldn’t happen had this technology not existed. I would love to use it to better engage people in a discussion and to get deeper than “Bob is heading to the store”, “brb, lol…”, “Nancy likes to eat apples”, etc. 

I’m done typing.

Peace.