In 1985, that same call to turn away from the gods of media could be heard from Neil Postman (to be fair, I've only read "Amusing ourselves to Death")

Today, twenty years later, we can hear that same voice.

For me, the voice practically shouts from the pages of Shane Hipps' "The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture: How Media Shapes Faith, the Gospel, and Church."

It's almost like there's nothing new under the sun. ;)

Ecc 12:13 Having heard everything, I have reached this conclusion:
Fear God and keep his commandments, because this is the whole duty of man. 12:14 For God will evaluate every deed, including every secret thing, whether good or evil. (NET)

For twitter I know who I just glance at and those I might have to consider as a good thought. I use TweetDeck and sort the groups by category and importance. I know who I probably might be helped by paying attention to. Others are just for fun and read in a glance, I might just not read them but once or twice a day.

Facebook can send notices. I turned almost all of them off, but it can also work in reverse. If you really are only interested in certain people because they are more important in your life you can subscribe with SMS or through email. You could just "remove" most people and only follow a few.

I think setting daily goals also helps me stay focused. I started using TaDaList.com and it's helped me stay focused. I actually set a goal for reading news and blogs and once I've read through them, I'm done for the day.

I may keep facebook and twitter open, but I'll only check them during a break. I try to let facebook and twitter be more about being productive than just social, so that also helps. When I think about using those tools for adding value to people's lives it makes it harder to just consume through them.

I don't think running away from tech will solve anything. Stepping away helps us learn that the world doesn't end when we aren't on, but it doesn't address the issue about what to do when we are on.

Setting priorities helps focus. And praying about our focus and proper usage of these tools is always a good thing.

An excerpt :

"We are constantly on a stretch, if not on a strain, to devise new methods, new plans, new organizations to advance the Church and secure enlargement and efficiency for the gospel. This trend of the day has a tendency to lose sight of the man or sink the man in the plan or organization. God’s plan is to make much of the man, far more of him than of anything else. Men are God’s method. The Church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men. “There was a man sent from God whose name was John.” The dispensation that heralded and prepared the way for Christ was bound up in that man John. “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.” The world’s salvation comes out of that cradled Son. When Paul appeals to the personal character of the men who rooted the gospel in the world, he solves the mystery of their success. The glory and efficiency of the gospel is staked on the men who proclaim it. When God declares that “the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him,” he declares the necessity of men and his dependence on them as a channel through which to exert his power upon the world. This vital, urgent truth is one that this age of machinery is apt to forget. The forgetting of it is as baneful on the work of God as would be the striking of the sun from his sphere. Darkness, confusion, and death would ensue.

What the Church needs to-day is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use — men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men — men of prayer."

It is far too easy to reshape our aims around the values subtly embedded in a medium, such as convenience or power, which are in many ways antithetical to our calling as disciples of Jesus Christ. It is also easier to neglect God-given tools like prayer while fiddling with our own gleaming contraptions.

A firmer grounding in the Scriptures and a commitment to placing Biblical wisdom ahead of the latest earthly "intelligence" is critical. A better grasp of the ways God has dealt (and promises to deal) with men is needed.

Those who have gained some perspective on the often invisible ways in which media impact the media consumer need relentlessly to question those (the many, it seems) who assert, with no justification whatsoever, that media are value neutral. It is embarrassing to witness so many within the Church who are entirely unacquainted with the world's established understanding, including the works of Marshall Mcluhan, regarding the potentially negative effects of media. It is also alarming to here pitches for new media use in the Church that sound like decades-old advocacy for televangelism.