Phone box or mobile?

There was a very interesting observation made at a church leadership conference last week which I picked up via a re-tweet from Pete Phillips on Twitter:

We are standing at the phone kiosk in the age of the mobile phone.

This powerful image has been buzzing round my head for the last few days and triggering all sorts of thoughts. I realise that the image relates to the church’s relationship with modernity and post modernity, however, one thing in particular occurs to me and it is linked in with the season of Lent. In the lead up to Ash Wednesday I noticed several people on both Twitter and Facebook saying they would be giving up using these social media networks for Lent. The question that this raises for me is:

Do we still regard social media networks as optional, a luxury and an indulgence even, or are they an essential aspect of communication and community in the culture we inhabit?

This is a serious question because my impression is that many in the church still regard forms of digital communication as an add on, something extra that can be engaged with or not as a matter of personal preference.  I am amazed at how many people regard me as an oddity as a blogging, tweeting member of the clergy. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve had to preface comments in a meeting with an explanation of the main forums for social networking because people have that blank expression of incomprehension on their faces.

I understand why some are still suspicious of social media networks and forms of digital communication. I appreciate the reasons why some have decided to disengage for a period of time. Blogging can become an obsession; more about the blogger and their status, influence and statistics, than about what is being communicated or discussed. Twitter can come across as another form of displacement activity. There is a danger that Facebook looks like any other forum for frittering time away, gossiping and, sadly, even cruel bullying. I recognise that some people can become so caught up in their online relationships that they are in danger of ignoring those they are in physical community with, including family and friends.

Yet, these criticisms are not about the medium, they are about the uses to which these networks are put by the user. Why have people not considered giving up speaking, listening, reading and writing for forty days? Are the only valid forms of enrichment and refreshment during Lent verbal face to face contact and pre internet forms of communication and cultural expression? The questions sound flippant but they are sincere.