Twitter and Digital Discipleship
By Rosie Perera | May 19, 2011 at 5:11 am
OK, so I finally caved and got on Twitter (@Rosie_Perera). My excuse was that I had been asked to help monitor tweets during the live streaming broadcast of Krish Kandiah’s talk at Regent College yesterday evening, “Digital Discipleship: The Opportunities & Challenges of Social Media for the Church” (video of Part 1 [missing a bit of the beginning] and Part 2; lecture notes). But I’ve been flirting with Twitter for some time now, reading people’s tweets, searching for hashtags, keeping TrendsMap up in a browser tab for most of the busiest week of the Egyptian Facebook revolution. I’ve had moments where there was something I felt like tweeting and it seemed not the right thing to put on my Facebook status update, so I had to let the moment go by. As a person who writes and thinks about technology and its effect on interpersonal relationships and spiritual life, it kind of was inevitable that I would eventually get on Twitter to see what it was all about.
I’m not ready to make observations about it yet. It’s only been a few hours. But I’m already starting to see things a bit differently from the inside than I had as an outside observer. I’m trying to maintain my objectivity, but I’m sure it will be hard, as it was after I joined Facebook for pretty much the same reason. I ended up getting sucked in to wasting lots of time on it.
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Is Google making us know too much too soon?
By Rosie Perera | April 27, 2011 at 4:14 am
This is funny, but it’s also so true.
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Laity Lodge Consultation on Technology (March 10-13, 2011)
By Rosie Perera | April 16, 2011 at 5:02 am
I got a chance to hang out with a bunch of really interesting people engaged with the intersection between faith and technology, at an event last month, the Laity Lodge Consultation on Technology, in the Texas Hill Country. The keynote speakers were Eugene Peterson, whom I studied under at Regent College, and Albert Borgmann, who was one of the authors I wrote my master’s comprehensive paper on.
Many other old friends were there, too. David Gill and Al Erisman, from whom I had taken a summer class at Regent, “Business, Technology and Christian Values,” back in 1996. Wan-Phek How, the Information Systems Director at Regent, with whom I have collaborated. Dave Stearns, an old friend from Microsoft who is now a historian and sociologist of technology and blogs at tech.soul.culture. Steven Purcell, a fellow Regent alum, now director of Laity Lodge, who pulled this whole event together (with the able assistance of Andy Crouch, Arthur Boers, and David Wood). Gisela Kreglinger, assistant professor of theology and spiritual formation at Beeson Divinity School, another Regent alum friend from years ago. Kevin Schut, professor of media studies at TWU, who spoke at the Identity & Technology conference in Edmonton with me a couple of years ago. Loren & Mary Ruth Wilkinson, good friends from Regent and Galiano Island who co-teach a class on Wilderness, Technology & Creation. Eric Jacobsen, pastor and author of Sidewalks in the Kingdom, a friend through his parents-in-law, my former pastor and his wife.
And then there were people I’d heard of and/or known online whom I was looking forward to meeting in person. John Dyer, web developer for Dallas Theological Seminary, and a very thoughtful blogger on faith and technology: Don’t Eat the Fruit. Alissa Wilkinson, a woman of many talents (both techie and literary) who edited some of my columns at Comment Magazine. Peter Harris, co-founder of A Rocha, whom I’d met once before but didn’t really get to know (but he has an amazing memory and recalled our conversation!). Andy Crouch, author of Culture Making and special assistant to the president at Christianity Today, whom I had heard speak at the Transforming Culture symposium in Austin in 2008. Rodney Clapp, author and editorial director at Brazos Press. Lance Mansfield, brainchild behind and webmaster for By/For. Eric Brende, rickshaw driver and author of Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology, who with his family lives as much off the grid as possible.
And there were a number of other folks whose presence enriched the weekend, some of whom also had written books (two of which I couldn’t resist buying): Jack Swearengen (Beyond Paradise: Technology and the Kingdom of God), Arthur Boers (The Way Is Made by Walking), Timothy Dalrymple (associate director of content for Patheos), Marcus Goodyear (senior editor of The High Calling), Jason Byassee (research fellow in theology and leadership at Duke Divinity School), husband-and-wife duo Brian Walsh and Sylvia Keesmaat (I’d known of Brian before from his books The Transforming Vision and Truth Is Stranger than It Used to Be, both co-authored with J. Richard Middleton), David Wood (senior minister of Glencoe Union Church), Kenny Benge (rector of St. John’s Anglican Church in Franklin, TN), Mark Purcell (Director of Client Services for online marketing firm Mercent and creator of the website Bird Folio), and many more.
I participated in the Technology Panel on the Friday night. I went bird watching Friday morning with Peter Harris, Kenny Benge, Mark Purcell, and others.
The setting of Laity Lodge is amazing, and it was lovely to be back there again. We ended the weekend with a communion service, followed by brunch (the food there is awesome).
There are some ongoing collaborative endeavors that arose out of this consultation. But the best part was meeting all these men and women who have been thinking about these things for some time. The breadth and depth that we were able to cover in just three days or so was remarkable.
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Tech companies and political activism
By Rosie Perera | February 12, 2011 at 6:35 pm
What does it mean for a company to “do no evil” (Google’s motto)? Here’s an interesting article on the challenges companies face when their employees get involved in political activism:
Wael Ghonim: A “One-Off” for Silicon Valley?
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You say you want a Revolution 2.0
By Rosie Perera | February 12, 2011 at 2:07 am
The streets of Cairo and Alexandria and news media around the world are abuzz with stories of what has been unfolding in Egypt over the past 18 days. History is being written. Something unprecedented has happened. A strong dictator who has been in power for 30 years has been ousted. Things are still very uncertain as to the future there, but a new era has surely begun, and there is much elation in the air. I was moved by this celebratory song, “The Sound of Freedom” (Arabic with English subtitles):
Much credit is being given to the leadership of a 30-year-old Egyptian Google executive named Wael Ghonim. He has emerged as a spokesman for a group of people who used social media (Facebook and Twitter, until they were blocked by the government) to help organize the peaceful protests in Tahrir Square (”Freedom Square”).
Hear Ghonim dub this “Revolution 2.0″ and tell how “We are getting back our country” in this CNN interview with Ivan Watson:
Here’s another moving interview with Wael Ghonim on Dream TV (three parts; Arabic with English subtitles; if you can’t see the English subtitles, click the “CC” button in the video player to turn them on):Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
I wrote last June about Twitter as a tool for freedom of speech in the midst of the attempted revolution in Iran. It was similarly exciting at the time, but ended up fizzling out when Ahmadinejad’s government clamped down. What is different this time around that allowed it to succeed where the Iranian one failed? This new revolution in Egypt is being called an Internet Revolution, a Twitter Revolution, a Social Media Revolution. But that can’t be the entire story, because the Iranian people had the Internet too (though it was shut down by the government), and the Egyptians blocked Facebook and Twitter and the whole Internet for a while, too. No, surely there are other factors at play. But one cannot deny the role that social media have played.
Here are some of @Ghonim’s tweets:
Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, wrote an article in The New Yorker in October titled “Small Change: Why the revolution will not be tweeted.”
Wael Ghonim’s response to that, on January 26, was:
Hey @Gladwell, #Jan25 proved you wrong. Revolution can be a #Facebook event that is liked, shared & tweeted. http://nyr.kr/bYKeLq
Some critics have asked how we in the West can think we know what’s going on over there by following English tweets, as surely the real communication is going on in Arabic. True enough. But I imagine that most of the young Internet-savvy people of Egypt are pretty facile with English. No doubt Ghonim’s English tweets are designed for the rest of the world to be able to know what’s going on. But he is not a Western outsider. He tweets plenty in Arabic. And if one is really determined, one can read the Arabic tweets too, using Google Translate (I was pleasantly surprised to see how good a job it does). They’re not much different from what he’s saying in English.
@ElBaradei (a Verified Account, so it’s really him) tweeted just a few minutes ago:
Google Translate tells me that means “Egypt today is free. God bless the people of Egypt.”
Some are skeptical that this revolution really was brought about by social media. Here is a selection of editorials and blog posts:
The ‘Twitter Revolution’ Debate: The Egyptian Test Case
Malcolm Gladwell and the Twitter backlash
Is the role of social media in Egypt being overstated?
Those who are pooh-poohing the role of social media say revolutions happened before the Internet. They point to the American Revolution and the French Revolution, for example. I maintain that while Twitter and Facebook didn’t bring about the Egyptian revolution, they surely were tools that facilitated it happening so quickly and relatively bloodlessly. I say relatively because I know that some people were killed and beaten by Mubarak’s defenders in this struggle. But it was a largely peaceful revolt, and the people did not fight back. They did not need to. They got their wishes in two and a half weeks.
The nay-sayers also point out that such a small percentage (less than 7%) of Egyptians use Facebook that it couldn’t have played a big role. But as Margaret Mead said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” They also say that the government shut down Facebook and the revolution continued. Yes, but once you start a fire, it’s hard to put it out.
Just as the invention of the printing press didn’t cause the Protestant Reformation (there had to be many other factors at play that made the timing ripe), so social media did not cause the Egyptian revolution. But to use Malcolm Gladwell’s own terminology, perhaps it was the tipping point. The Internet has enabled a generation of Egyptians to get beyond the brainwashing their own government was using to try to keep them in line. And it facilitated the communications necessary for a popular uprising. Wael Ghonim said: “If you want to liberate a society, just give them the Internet.” The converse is also true: If you want to keep a society in bondage, severely restrict their access to the Internet. Can you say “North Korea”?
Here’s a clever snippet seen on CNN:
While all of this is fascinating from a political, historical, sociological, and technological perspective, and I am rooting for the people of Egypt, as a Christian I do not believe that “people power” is the ultimate solution for all evil, nor is technology our savior. When Jesus came, many mistakenly thought he had come to overthrow the Roman oppressors of the Jews. But that isn’t what his kingdom is about. Jesus came to set captives free in a spiritual sense, to release those who are in bondage to sin and evil. But part of God’s kingdom coming “on earth as it is in heaven” involves healing (both physical and spiritual, of both individuals and peoples), reconciliation and justice. One of the most hopeful images to come out of the past couple of weeks is this one of Christians forming a ring of protection around Muslims as they prayed:
I’m going to be fascinated to watch how things turn out over the coming days and weeks. I pray that “it’s gonna be all right…”
EDIT: This post got a visitor from Iran within its first few hours of being birthed. Intriguing. I wonder whether it’s the government trying to look for stuff to block their people from seeing or whether it’s a freedom seeker looking for information and inspiration. (Click to enlarge.)
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Is Facebook making us sad?
By Rosie Perera | February 3, 2011 at 6:15 pm
Slate recently published an article by Libby Copeland entitled “Anti-Social Network: By helping other people look happy, Facebook is making us sad.”
I am not so sure. In my experience, there is a lot of variability among people as to how honest they will be on Facebook about how their life is really going. Plenty of my friends post status updates when they are unhappy about something or just generally having a crummy day. It is possibly a self-selecting phenomenon. I’m more likely to be friends in real life with people who are honest about their emotions, and those types of people tend to be more honest online as well. The study reported in that article did not look at Facebook explicitly, and it dealt exclusively with college students, who might be at a stage in life where it’s more important to impress your online friends with how much fun you’re having than to be real with them. So I’d take the sweeping conclusions the author draws with a grain of salt. Nonetheless I was glad for her recommendation of Sherry Turkle’s new book Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. I have great respect for her work and have added this to my list of books I want to read.
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Be careful what you ‘like’ on Facebook
By Rosie Perera | January 27, 2011 at 8:42 pm
CNN did a story today about a new development on Facebook. They are now beginning to use comments you make about companies in your Facebook chatter with friends as fodder for advertisements, referencing you (with your photo) as the one who recommended the company. It’s yet another way of monetizing friendship.
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Trinity Forum Academy: Conference on Technology and the Human Person
By Rosie Perera | January 5, 2011 at 8:16 pm
Thanks to ImageUpdate for the heads up:
Join the Fellows of Trinity Forum Academy at Osprey Point [90 min from Baltimore and Washington, DC] February 11-13, 2011, to explore how technology is changing our understanding of what it means to be human. President of the Center for Policy on Emerging Technologies and UN bioethicist, Dr. Nigel Cameron, and Professor of Cultural Apologetics at Westminster Seminary and jazz pianist, Dr. William Edgar, will lay out a framework for how Christian leaders can engage innovation that is challenging social, judicial, and moral boundaries. Guest speakers include Bryan Campen, Director of Social Media with Manifest Digital and New Media Advisor with The Long Now Foundation, and Jamin Brophy-Warren, former Wall Street Journal reporter and co-founder and President of Kill Screen magazine. Conference scholarships are available to Academy Fellowship applicants. Learn more about the conference and the Academy graduate program here.
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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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Digital detox
By Rosie Perera | December 8, 2010 at 3:21 pm
Students at Earl Haig Secondary School in Ontario are choosing to take a week of digital detox. Good for them! Sounds like it was their own initiative. I am heartened to see that even the younger generation can sense the benefit of taking some time away from being constantly in front of a screen.
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