The archbishop's take on social media
August 6th 2009 23:28
Internet social networking sites which promote themselves as communities are in fact undermining community life. So are texting and emails.
So says Archbishop Vincent Nichols, leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales.
Archbishop Nichols singled out MySpace and Facebook, and said they had led young people to seek "transient" friendships, with quantity becoming more important than quality. These sites, he said, leave young people unable to cope when their social networks collapse. The internet and mobile phones, he said, were "dehumanising" community life. Social networking sites, he said, were a "key factor" in suicide among young people.
"Friendship is not a commodity," Archbishop Nichols said. Society was losing some of its ability to build communities through inter-personal communication, as the result of excessive use of texts and emails rather than face-to-face meetings or telephone conversations.
Is he right?
If he is right, there is a fundamental difference in relationships built with and without face-to-face or, at least, live voice interaction. Archbishop Nichols is claiming this fundamental difference exists, that relationships built without seeing the body language or hearing voice inflections of the other party are relationships somehow built on less firm foundations.
Obviously these immediate signals are valuable aids in the process of getting to know people. If someone claims they are tall, it helps to test the claim if you are looking at them at the time. If someone claims they are calm, and yet their voice reveals a tension within, we have immediate evidence of something insecure.
Real relationships, however, are not built in a day, and they should not be determined by a person's height or equanimity. Firm relationships are built on an attraction of personality and on an appreciation of values. They take time and your best guide is and always has been instinct. You can be fooled by a person 10 inches away as much as by a person 10 time zones away.
The claim that the failure of a teenage friendship formed on a social networking site is more likely to trigger suicidal tendencies is particularly debatable. This sad possibility is about the state of mind of a person unable to cope with the breakdown of a friendship, a support structure, a statement of social acceptability. Archbishop Nichols in effect claims that the ensuing feelings of isolation and desolation are more potent when the relationship was formed on a social newtorking site than, say, in a coffee shop or a school playground. Yet he gives no evidence for this claim.
Perhaps no evidence exists.
Bullying can occur through Facebook and MySpace networks, and someone even now is probably working out how to do it through Twitter. Bullying, however, was and remains a problem in any space where people gather, either physically or internetly.
Archbishop Nichols offers no suggestions and no solutions. Does he want social networking sites banned? Are we to forbid our children from mobile phones and texting? No way — the kids will just permanently take over the house phone again.
Social networking sites are not a microcosm of real life; they are not a poor cousin of real life; they are not even a reflection of real life. They are real life, and the friendships formed through them are no less a commodity then friendships formed elsewhere.
The rules may vary slightly, but that is nothing new. We assume Archbishop Nicholl was once a boy with a passing interest in girls. We assume he was sometimes introduced to girls by his parents. We also assume he sometimes met them in a quiet corner of the school playground, or perhaps even behind the bicycle shed — a different scenario with a slightly different set of rules, but with the same potential to form an enduring relationship.
In the event of an ensuing close friendship breaking down, which one would have evoked the stronger tendency to suicide?
www.telegraph.co.uk
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Comment by Norm
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Comment by Chris Champion
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Thanks for your question.
My suggestion is to learn morse code, get a broom, and send messages by tapping on the ceiling. This has an advantage because over time the relationship and the ceiling will wear thin at about the same rate. Eventually the relationship and the ceiling will disintegrate and the man upstairs will fall down and land on your head and kill you. This saves you the trouble of committing suicide.
Hope that helps.
Comment by Chris Champion
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In statistically savvy America it is known that 3.47 people die every 9.41 hours from gun shots, except on Sundays when the rate falls to 3.09 people. (Those figures are from memory so don't quote me.)
The point is that very few of these people who are fatally shot are at the time of the onset of death inter-reacting with someone on Facebook.
Just a thought.
Comment by Norm
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Say your prayers, Chris. I have to dash. It's not as easy as it looks with a broom.
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Comment by Morgan Bell
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people can communicate with other people like themselves regardless of distance, they can form bonds without church approval and investigate the truth of things online
it could be a revolution
quick, someone start up the anti-internet propaganda machine . . .
honestly, Catholic Church dudes, look at the suicide rates amongst gays and transgendered folk, people which you go out of your way to demonise and exclude, and tell me again how you are concerned about suicide
talk is cheap
Comment by Chris Champion
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Comment by Morgan Bell
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these statements about the internet causing suicide just come off as punching at the sky, its just as stupid as saying condoms cause aids, or The Pill causes male infertility, or the biggest threat to world peace is abortion
its sheer desperation
and it only takes a fleeting moment of independent thought and 10 seconds on the net to confirm these people are lying and manipulating
Comment by Samantha Elley
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Have any of you spoken with a teenager recently? I tend to agree with the good Archbishop. Whether it be face to face or over the phone, there is a whole generation of young people who don't seem to be able to cope with communication that doesn't involve a keyboard, mobile phone or webcam!
And I've also gotta add that belonging to a church is a very real way of being part of community. It's often the local churches who organise social events (ours holds marriage courses, carols by candlelight, mothers groups, youth groups and craft days for the elderly). Churches are often the ones reaching out to the excluded, the lonely and those who just need face to face contact with others. Perhaps not to the satisfaction of all minority groups, but I get the feeling most of those minority groups wouldn't want to be part of a church anyway.
Just my thoughts,
take care,
Sam
Comment by Janet Collins
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However, despite what the Archbishop says, bullying (as you point out Chris) happens in real life too - in our schools and in our work places. It is not only on social networking sites that aggression and victimisation occurs.
Everything is about competition and this competition has not only pitted people against one another but drawn out some of the worst traits of human behaviour. It certainly isn't unique to social networking sites.
Comment by Chris Champion
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Teenagers have never been the most eloquent of communicators, and I can't agree with your implication that social media has made this worse.
At some point in history, the telephone replaced handwritten notes and letters (and, probably, Thursday afternoon "at homes") as society's principal communications tool, and I suppose the same fears were expressed at the time about detriment to written and spoken skills.
Social media is just a social advancement, and it is today's young person's communication tool of choice. Archbishop Nichols has nothing to fear except change.
Of course in 20 years, when today's teenagers are watching their own teenage children communicate via 3D hologram - for an extra $20 a month get the premium service with built-in emotions - they will worry that the kids will forget important skills such as constructing a real email.
Community is where you find people who share your values and interests, be it a church hall or a Facebook network.
Regards,
Chris
Comment by Chris Champion
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I don't think it's a question of not learning "basic socialising". I think it's a question of learning via slightly different socialising systems.
Socialising teaches people of all ages how to deal with the shifting patterns of human personality - the worth of tolerance, the wrongness of intolerance, how expectations can hurt you, the capriciousness of human nature etc.
These things are learned through human discourse. I don't see why talking over a cup of tea or on a telephone makes for faster learning than social media interaction.
Comment by Samantha Elley
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yes fair call on social advancement. And laughed at the teenagers of the future not being able to construct an email properly.
I totally agree with community groups and common interests. My comment there came about in response to Morgan's previous one. But I do think that face-to-face community, be it a church, sporting or interest group, can't be beaten.
True, I've made good friends on my internet groups, but I feel that I miss a whole dimension of those people by not knowing them in real life. And if time is spent getting to know them and not so much the people you can have a face to face chat with, I wonder if it's a good thing.
Having said all that, I do enjoy getting to know people on the internet...LOL...so go figure.
Take care,
Sam
Comment by Morgan Bell
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of course its impossible to generalise about either group, but in general i find young people friendlier and more compassionate and thoughtful
communication is, however, a two way street