The Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols recently spoke of the risks posed by people’s obsessive commitment to social networking sites, instead of building tangible friendships. Very reasonable advice and yet, the resultant cacophony from the internet community was more than alarming.
First up, we have the arrogant response of the committed atheists, happily pigeon-holing Archbishop Nichols into the ‘deluded religious’ category. Anything he says must be nonsense, because he believes in a ‘sky-fairy’. I suppose such a response from the Dawkinsian acolytes is to be expected, depressing though it is to hear. That can be pretty much tossed aside, as they didn’t even read the full interview.
In a similar vein, there are those who use this as an opportunity to attack the Catholic Church in general, armed with a series of stereotypes and prejudices. They condemn Archbishop Nichols of being a harbinger of doom, before springboarding onto their disagreements with other Church doctrine.
Finally there are the technophile responses (such as from the CEO of Twitter), that Archbishop Nichols is speaking for a technophobic Church and a dying generation, unable to grasp the benefits of the e-revolution. What they have failed to see is that nowhere did the Archbishop condemn social networking outright, nor its benign motive of trying to keep people in touch with one another. He simply warned of the dangers of people becoming too reliant on it. Put simply, a facebook friend is no substitute for a real friend.
It’s what I mentioned in my first blog – people are sat in front of their computers, shrouded in anonymity. Tact, subtlety and respect for others go out the window. We speak our minds, totally uninhibited by manners. We stop listening to each other, including any new or different opinions. That doesn’t exactly bode well for our modern era of ‘tolerance’.
Although it (usually) means well, the internet is a much better catalyst for negativity and antagonism than it is for genuine goodwill and friendship. No, it may not cause the differences of opinion in the first place, but it certainly drives people apart more than it brings them together in mutual understanding.
And the attempts for pixellated sympathy? You can join the facebook group ‘Against Cancer’, “if you think cancer is one of the worst sicknesses ever”. And that is pretty much the internet substitute for active charity and compassion. Personally, I think there is only so much genuine compassion a person can give, when they’re sat on their backside.
There is a presumption with the internet that (to quote A Scanner Darkly) “You’re either on it, or you haven’t tried it”. Of course the sinister thing is that Philip K. Dick was referring to a highly addictive drug. The internet is a medium, there to complement living. It is not a way of life.
So what was this doom-laden message that Archbishop Nichols was trying to impart? Should we flambée our computers and modems in one gigantic, ceremonial pyre? No. He only wants to make sure we don’t lose sight of our humanity and our superiority over technology. How terribly backward.
Confessions of an anxious martial artist 