There was a long article in the New York Times this week titled “What Was Twitter, Anyway?” the main point of which is that Twitter wasn’t what people thought it was. Twitter entered a television world and transformed it into a gaming world. In a television world, a singular voice is amplified above all others making information somewhat linear (of course the simplicity of television was slowly breaking down with the advent of cable networks). Twitter is not linear at all; it is the hive mind. It is constantly buzzing in the background, it moves at lighting speed, and it is powered by swarms. While Twitter has positives and negatives as a form of media, it did not fit into our collective understanding of how communication works. We have had to learn something new.
This is exactly the same impact that the printing press had on society back in the day. The printing press was a mechanical plate that imprinted words on paper or cloth on a comparatively massive scale. Prior to its invention, documents were reproduced by hand, a painstaking process that could only be performed by literate people, often monks living in religious orders. Suddenly, a document could be reproduced and distributed among hundreds or thousands of people within weeks rather than years. Also, the documents that were now able to be distributed didn’t have to pass through the church (aka, monasteries). When Martin Luther produced his infamous critique of the church, he had no idea that this new technology would enable it to spread like wildfire across Europe, igniting a revolution. As beneficial as the printing press has been for society over all, it had to destabilize it first. We are living in a similar time of destabilization.
The good news is that we are adjusting to this new form of communication and we are getting better at it day by day. Here at St. Andrew’s, we have a new social media team made up of Lila Woodard and Samsun Keithley, our two Gen Z friends. They have spent all of their lives in this environment. They know how to speak the language, they understand how it works. I am amazed at how skilled they are at conveying what is special about our church, to hint at what is going on here and give a feel for who we are. As nervous as I am to see clips of my sermon exposed to the hive mind, open to a swarm of critique, I trust them. I am ready to move into this new world and to discover all the good that it has to offer.
Blessings,
Pastor Jen