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5-Minute Book Review: Flickering Pixels by Shane Hipps
By Rosie Perera | December 8, 2010 at 11:45 pm
Shane Hipps, Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith (Zondervan, 2009; 184pp.)
Taking a cue from my friend Sørina (Iambic Admonit), who does five minute book reviews, since she doesn’t have time for anything longer and simply won’t do them if she doesn’t set herself a managable time limit, I’m going to give it a try:
Flickering Pixels is a light read, quite engaging but not very deep for anyone who has thought about these issues before. Hipps draws on the work of Neil Postman and Marshall McLuhan, particularly the latter’s best known quote “the medium is the message.” He uses stories, images, dialogues, and references to popular culture to communicate his message. His main purpose is to make us more aware of how technology shapes us: our relationships, the way we think and communicate, and so on. He uses the analogy of pixels on the computer screen, which usually we don’t even notice. If we train our eyes to focus on the pixels themselves, not just the message they convey, we are more aware of how they affect us. So too with all technology. As long as we are aware of the technology, its affect on us is not inevitable.
Although the subtitle would lead us to expect otherwise, only in a few places does Hipps talk specifically about how technology shapes our faith. The last chapter on community doesn’t mention technology at all, though perhaps it is meant as an antidote to the individualizing effect of technology.
Hipps is not a naysayer about technology; he merely wants us to look beneath the surface of things and not be passively affected by technology without being aware of it.
This book could be a good conversation starter for a church group just beginning to explore the subtle ways technology affects us.
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