Losers Talk about Winners and Losers in Technology

In: Uncategorized

Commitment:
  • Words: 226
  • Sentences: 14
  • Grade level: 8.6-12.5
  • Read time: ~1.1 min @ 200WPM

22 Nov 2008

At the beginning of this clip is a humorously botched illustration about trade-offs with technology. (Disclaimer: Jake and Amir is like a funnier, much more crass version of Jim and Dwight on the The Office. Watch at your own discretion).


It goes something like this:

Imagine aliens came and offered to give us a technology that could teleport you from point A to point B. The catch was that the aliens would kill 50,000 people at random each year. Would you take the technology?

The punchline is that this describes the statistics on automobiles pretty accurately (Amir confuses cars with gangs). Cars let us “teleport” around with ease and yet many people die because of them. When someone uses the illustration, usually someone else counters with something like the number the people saved by ambulances, but the point that cars bring a positive and a negative is pretty clear.

What about the Church?

When we talk about implementing technologies like social networking, mobile phones, video projectors, and so on in our churches, what if the questions were posed this way?

Imagine someone came and offered to give your church a technology that would allow you to reach out to millions of people. The only catch was that 50,000 people a year became less able to concentrate and another 50,000 became extremely lonely. Would you accept it?

Or this way:

1 Response to Losers Talk about Winners and Losers in Technology

  1. Avatar

    Robert Johnson

    November 22nd, 2008 at 6:57 pm

    Hmmm. The only thing I can think of is the cell phone. The major trade-off? My memory has gone bad.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Additional comments powered by BackType

About this blog

John DyerI'm John Dyer a web developer working on sites like Best Commentaries, Bible Web App, Dallas Seminary. I'm also a seminary graduate and teacher at Irving Bible Church.

This blog is about the the role of technology in the redemptive movement from the Garden to the City. I believe technology is an amazing testament to the creativity embedded in the imago dei, but instead of assuming technology is always a neutral tool, I believe it - like culture in general - profoundly influences us.

Upcoming Posts

  • Evangelical Exegetical Commentary: A Giant Experiement
  • What Are They Advertising?
  • Jesus, James, and McLuhan On the Heart, the Tongue, and the Internet
  • A Definition of Technology
  • The Cornwall Alliance: Technological Theory at Work
  • Reading and Publishing and Publishing and Reading
  • Learning from Buber: I-Thou and I-It
  • Prepackaged Communion and Albert Borgmann’s Device Paradigm
  • Technology is Kinda Like Money

Categories

Archives

  • John Dyer: Darn! I hoped no one would would catch that little anachronism. You're right that Chaplain's silent [...]
  • brianskaroff: 3D TV Means Color TV is New Black (and White) | Don’t Eat The Fruit [...]
  • John: "I heard Charlie Chaplain made powerful Anti-Nazi movies, but who wants to watch movies without soun [...]
  • johndyer: Dostoevsky and 3D TV: http://j.mp/dq6iMP [...]
  • live_thejourney: 3D TV Means Color TV is New Black (and White): This weekend, I took my kids to a nearby park and [...]

Asides

Our brains are designed to more easily be stimulated than satisfied
Fascinating look at the science of the brain’s response to seeking and rewards: http://www.slate.com/id/2224932/ (1)

Roman Catholic Church Expresses Concern Regarding Social Technologies
The head of the British Roman Catholic church says,

“I think there’s a worry that an excessive use, or an almost exclusive use of text and emails means that as a society we’re losing some of the ability to build interpersonal communication that’s necessary for living together and building a community.”
(0)

Internet Fatigue
CNN has a report on the phenomenon of internet fatigue. I wish they would have spent more time on giving suggestions for how to understand why this happens and how to avoid it. (0)

Articles and Tools on Texting
The NYTimes has a new article on the effects of texting on youth which include anxiety, sleep deprivation, and hand injuries. Interestingly, as Andy Crouch points out, the article also mentions that teens send many texts to their parents, meaning that teens are now connected to their parents more often during the day – a time when teenagers of the past were developing independence. LG has also created a new site to help parents decode text messages. (0)

Course Syllabus: Writing for Nonreaders in the Postprint Era
A humorous, but enlightening syllabus for a class on writing in the “postprint” era. Writing for nonreaders in the postprint era: “Students will examine why former generations carried around heavy clumps of bound paper and why they chose to read instead of watching TV or playing Guitar Hero.” (0)

Language Shapes Our Worldview
A psychology professor at Stanford University found that in languages with gender, the gender assigned to an objects tends to shape the way a speaker views that’s object. For example, in Spanish, “bridge” is masculine so Spanish speakers describe bridges as “strong” and “dangerous,” while German speakers for whom bridge is feminine tend to describe bridges as “fragile” and “beautiful.” Perhaps our own understanding of words like redemption, wrath, and adoption are also shaped by unseen factors. (0)

Survey Says Facebook Users Get Lower Grades
A study from educational researches at the Ohio State University found that students who regularly used facebook only study 1-5 hours per week and had GPAs in the 3.0-3.5 range, while non-facebook users study around 11-15 hours per week with GPAs in the 3.5-4.0 range. I wonder how church education compares? (0)

Risk-Reducing Technologies Increase Risk-Taking
The Pope and a Harvard scientist make an interesting argument that AIDS is increasing in Africa precisely because of condom distribution. More... (0)

Copyright © 2007 - Don't Eat The Fruit - is proudly powered by WordPress | Log in

Compositio Theme is created by: Design Disease brought to you by PremiumThemes.com