I had a phone conversation yesterday with Jesse Rice, author of The Church of Facebook: How the Hyperconnected Are Redefining Community.
We talked about several aspects of the rise of social media, and he shared that part of the inspiration behind his title is that Facebook behavior can follow a pattern similar to church life: "It’s a gathering of people from all kinds of backgrounds and experiences, their own ideas of faith and spirituality, and they’re all coming together in this one environment to sort of figure themselves out, to figure out what is meaningful and what is true, and to be entertained and all these things."
Having thumbed through the review copy of the book before I talked with Jesse, I've now taken it home for a closer read. He's a worship leader with a degree in counseling psychology, so he's attentive to both the psychological and spiritual needs that people may be seeking to have met through social media.
We touched on that a bit in the phone chat, including the thought that in our desire to stay connected online, we might be losing other opportunities for connection right in front of us. I'm one of those people who has looked up and realized that I've been guilty of ignoring an entire room of in-person humanity because of the little communication gadget in my hand. I've also noticed how that mode is now standard operating procedure for many of us, and soon we'll have a big chunk of the adult population who grew up with it that way by default. I wonder what ramifications that will have in a few years.
Check out Jesse's blog if you're interested in more of his thoughts right now, and look for my Q&A with him in an upcoming issue of the Reporter.
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