Conference Info
Next month, I’ll be doing a session at the ECHO Church Media Conference (July 29-31, 2009, Dallas) called “Using Technology without Technology Using You.” (Q&A at the ECHO blog)
I have loved playing with technology since I was a kid. My parents tell me that I fixed the church projector when I was 4 and that I was comfortable with the Apple IIe command prompt at 5.
But over the last few years, I’ve begun to feel like the tools that I play with are playing with me too. Have you ever felt like you check your email, twitter, or RSS feeds just a little more often than necessary? Do you consider yourself an awesome multi-tasker, but find it hard to concentrate while reading? Have you ever considered quitting blogging, facebook, twitter, etc?
If so, this talk might be helpful. We’ll give a brief overview of the history of technology and how it influences individuals, society, and the church, and then suggest some ways we approach technology without letting it take over our lives.
We need your help!
To make the session really great, I want to get your tips for handling the constant stream of information, alerts, and new gadgets, and all the craziness in our super connected world. There have been a few posts out there on with tips for things like staying above water, intimacy online, and information overload. Some high profile writers have gone further and told why they were saying goodbye to facebook, taking a blogatical, or quitting social media altogether. But, I’d really like to hear from all of you.
I’ll be sure to share what you’ve learned with those at the conference and put together a slide of all the contributors. So please, comment away!
Please note: this is not a productivity seminar. We’re not discussing GTD, project or management, or software to combat software. This is about understanding what technology is, how it influences us, and how we can approach it holistically.
What Is Information?
My (awesome) brother recently took me to a Coldplay concert, and we had a blast together. But before we get to Coldplay (and Snow Patrol), let’s introduce some ideas that can help us understand the nature of information and its relationship to reality. In his book
Holding on to Reality: The Nature of Information at the Turn of the Millennium, technology philosopher Albert Borgmann examines this relationship, and he indentifies three major categories of information:
- Information about reality – The first and simplest kind of information is that which describes the real world. Borgman includes in this category when Abraham builds an stone altar to memorialize where Yahweh had acted (Gen. 21:33). Abraham used physical objects to organize and inform him about the significance of a phsyical space. Other things included in this category would be things like a map or the periodic table of the elements which describe the physical world.
- Information for reality – There is also a class of information that advises on what to do with reality. For example, a recipe that records how to make the famous Thai dish Pad Kee Mow or a proverb of Solomon that tells us how to handle money would be information that helps us best live in reality. Humans have used these first two categories for as long as their has been language.
- Information as reality – Borgman argues that a third category is unique to the digital era. In the case of the Coldplay concert, information about reality would be details like the place of the concert and the list of songs played. Information for reality would be the sheet music and lyrics that describe how to replay the music. But information as reality is a digital recording of the music stored in bits of information which a device can turn back into a replication of reality.
So what does all this have to do with a Coldplay concert? Read the rest of this entry »
This post is the first in a series of “Media Ecology Experiments” which is about using media and technology in a different way to help understand how it affects us and our faith.
The Flower Fades and so Does the Word of God
A few months ago, I found myself in church without a Bible. In the rush to get the family out the door, I didn’t want to make us any later by hunting for my Bible – plus our church gave us handouts with the sermon passage anyway.
This backfired when our church decided to save money and stop printing the handouts. Thankfully, they still put the Bible text on screen whenever the pastor referred to it.
Sadly, I noticed that when the words were on screen my eyes just bounced from word to word acknowledging that the words the pastor spoke matched the words on screen. When the words faded from the screen, they faded from my mind as well. I would try to remember, but my mind was so used to having the text available, it just refused to memorize it. I tried bringing my Bible again, but the same thing happened. My eyes would flit about the page, but the words would not penetrate my mind, much less my heart. Read the rest of this entry »
Dostoevsky’s 1984 Saved Him from Our Brave New World
In: Bible and Theology| Books and Texts| Our Technological World| Spiritual Formation
2 Jun 20091984 vs. Brave New World
In the introduction to Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman contrasts the worries about future technology by Aldous Huxley in Brave New World (1932) and George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). Though much has been made about the totalitarian government depicted in Nineteen Eighty-Four, Postman highlights how Orwell and Huxley’s contrasting worries play out in information and importance. While Orwell worried that good information would be hidden by a scary government, Huxley worried good information would be hidden in a pile of insignificance.
Postman’s words were recently amazingly illustrated by Stuart McMillen. Here is one of the panels
- Comments
- Tags: books, censorship, government, Postman, reading
Should Sunday Morning Be ‘Hot’ or ‘Cool’?
20 May 2009
Who’s Watching the Watchmen?
This spring, the movie version of Alan Moore’s critically acclaimed 1986 graphic novel Watchmen was released. In the world of comic nerdom, there were outcries that the change of medium from comic to film was an unholy and sacreligious travesty.
The reason for the uproar was that the one of the most compelling parts of the Watchmen comic was its extremely complicated presenation and plot. It takes several reads to figure out what’s happening and to decipher how the comic’s structure relates to its message. In contrast, the recently released cinematic version is filled with 162 minutes of gory action and special effects, perfect for passively watching with a $10 tub of popcorn.
Comics Are Cool; Movies Are Hot
Though Watchmen junkies might be little extreme in their complaints, the difference between movies and comics is a classic illustration of what Marshall McLuhan called “hot”and “cool” mediums, a distinction which classifies how much participation is required from a person to engage the medium. A comic is “cool” because it requires a reader fill in the sounds, smells, and details of what happens between the panes. In contrast, a film is “hot” because it completely envelopes a moviegoer’s senses and requires almost no participation or thought to grasp what’s happening. Read the rest of this entry »
The Right/Wrong Dichotomy
One of Christianity’s greatest strengths is that it is deeply concerned with morality. However, when it comes to thinking about technology, this strength often turns into a major weakness.
It’s great for us to be thinking about how to please our Savior, redeem the world, and earn more crownage (2 Tim 4:8), but sometimes this leads us to putting everything we encounter into either a “right” bucket or “wrong” bucket. Then, when something comes along that’s neither clearly moral or immoral, the only “bucket” we have left is the amoral “how we use it” bucket.
If this is as far as we can go, then our moral thinking has put a major limitation on us.
All Hail McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan wrote,
Our conventional response to all media, namely that it is how they are used that counts, is the numb stance of the technological idiot. (Understanding Media, 17-18)
Read the rest of this entry »
About this blog
I'm John Dyer a web developer working on sites like Best Commentaries and Dallas Seminary. I'm also a seminary graduate and teacher at Irving Bible Church.
This blog is about the influence of technology on humanity. I think technology is an amazing testament to human creativity and the imago dei, but instead of assuming technology is always a neutral tool, I believe it profoundly influences us.
Upcoming Posts
- Aristotle’s Ethics and the Goal of Online Relationships
- Click-Through Activism vs. Active Love
- Learning from Buber: I-Thou and I-It
- Two Weeks with an Old Friend: The Newspaper
- Speed and Suffering
- Technology Metaphors in Literature
- Memory, forgiveness, and backed up hard drives
- I marginalize my father through technology
- Pornography and Knowing
- Loving the lord with all your mind in a digital age
Categories
- Bible and Theology (7)
- Books and Texts (10)
- Code Commentary (2)
- Media Ecology Experiments (1)
- Our Technological World (18)
- Quotes (3)
- Spiritual Formation (4)
- Tools for Tech Thinking (11)
- Uncategorized (7)
- Matt Huggins: Practically speaking, prioritizing modes of personal interaction serves as a decent starting point. [...]
- johndyer: Jonathan, could you elaborate more on how and why you make decisions about "category and import [...]
- johndyer: Thanks for sharing the quote from Bounds. Historical perspective is always helpful. [...]
- Jonathan Louie: I try to filter who is more important on my lists. For twitter I know who I just glance at and th [...]
- Matt Huggins: Perhaps a bit afield from the personal coping discussion, here is a quote from Power through Prayer, [...]
- Using Technology without Technology Using You: Got Any Tips?
- Learning about Reality and Information from a Coldplay Concert
- Stop Bringing Your Bible to Church! (and don’t look at the screen either)
- Internet Fatigue
- Dostoevsky’s 1984 Saved Him from Our Brave New World
- Articles and Tools on Texting
- Should Sunday Morning Be ‘Hot’ or ‘Cool’?
- How to Become a “Technological Idiot” in One Easy Step: Think Like a Christian
- Happy Birthday Napster, Gameboy, and Walkman! Thanks for Changing Music Forever.
- Course Syllabus: Writing for Nonreaders in the Postprint Era
