Earlier this year, during a TV interview (“The Harvest Show”) to promote my book You, Your Family and the Internet, I joked about parents texting their children that dinner was ready. We all had a laugh, though one presenter admitted this was something he had done: “It’s easier than going up the stairs!”
In the past few years, there have been huge technological changes. Ten years ago, there was no YouTube, Skype or smartphone. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+ were nowhere on the radar. Along with these technologies, or perhaps because of them, there have been changes to the way young people communicate and relate to each other. Today, young people in particular, post every detail of their lives online for everyone to see. A chilling example of this can be viewed by searching for “My Suicide Story (Hannah Novak)” on YouTube.
When in the Boston area the Friday after the Marathon bombing, having been told by law enforcement not to go outside, I also had the unsettling experience of looking at Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s Twitter account; he’s the younger of the two brothers who carried out the bombing. I felt as if I were peering into his life1.
Will You Be My Friend?
In this environment, it is hardly surprising to find that young people may have hundreds of friends on Facebook and followers on Twitter. They are highly connected; but at the same time, they are tragically disconnected from the physical interactions that are so crucial to growing up—connections with parents, family and friends, interaction within the church and in the world.
Chap Clark in his article “The Five New Realities Every Kid Wants You to Know”2 explained that “youth ministry is changing.” While young people may be regular in their attendance at church, “what lies beneath their regular attendance, their easy laughter and even their occasional moments of seeming to pay attention to what you say, [is that] they are experiencing a longing to be known, to be taken seriously, to be affirmed and acknowledged and to be loved.” Social media never can do this.
Parry Aftab, described by HLN as “a cyber bully prevention expert”3 affirms “kids since forever have looked for ways to show they are as good as others.” Now you are able to quantify it…Kids now function with numerical measures of how popular they are—how many people viewed your page, how many people friended you, how many people liked your page—it’s all quantifiable now, but this is not real either!
The Psychological Impact
Evidence is mounting that there are significant psychological impacts of mass Internet addiction. If you think the word addiction is too strong, try asking a young person to spend a week without the Internet. Better still, try it yourself!
Researchers are noting that because of our more connected society, “children now spend a very limited time with family and actual friends” and that “there is weakening of family bond and limited real life social interaction resulting in distorted social skills and social cues”4.
Space does not permit me to explore the myriad impacts the Internet is having on attention span (a recent study showed the average attention span had fallen to just five minutes, down from 12 minutes 10 years ago)5, or the way we read (people usually read only around 20 percent of the words on a webpage6), let alone the research on whether recent increases in the number of people with ADHD can be tied to the Internet (there is a 66 percent increase in American children diagnosed with ADHD since 2000)7.
The Spiritual Impact
“No wonder social media is so addicting—it’s all about you,” or so reads the headline from one recent study8. In a typical face-to-face conversation, people spend 30 to 40 percent of the time talking about themselves. On social media, that rises to 80 percent. Here lies the conundrum: While today’s young people have been called the Me Generation, they also crave to be noticed, cared about.
It is interesting to note the way young people receive and use information. Vast stores of knowledge is available at the touch of a button, but the way information is explored is by going from one hyperlink to another—click, click, click every few seconds! We are so easily distracted. We might be looking through information on a particular topic—but then something pops up, maybe another link, a video or an ad and captures our attention—then off we go along a completely different track! There may be more (online) reading, but it is not the systematic pursuing of logical analysis, rather a jumping around the Internet. As Professor Toping reported when commenting on the results of one study looking into teenager reading habits, “They’re not only not reading at a higher level; they’re not thinking at a higher level.”9
YouTube reinforces the visual (concrete versus abstract) development of the brain for a generation that has been brought up with videos available anytime, anywhere. Experience reigns supreme—as long as it last no more than two to three minutes!
What Should We Do?
Recognizing where young people are emotionally, intellectually and spiritually is the first step in reaching them. The Bible itself reinforces the need to understand where people are, not where we wish they might be. When the apostle Paul spoke in a Jewish setting, he presented Jesus as the fulfillment of prophecy (
Technology can be a vehicle for good, though we need to be aware of its danger—in particular its addictive nature—and emphasize the need to make and sustain real (physical) friendships. Young people are still in the process of maturing skills such as self-control, so technology-free zones might be a good idea, particularly at specific times during youth meetings such as Bible talks.
While much has been written about the negative effects of technology, it also offers new ways to reach and help young people. While the apostle Paul went into the marketplaces to meet people, in our day the marketplace is increasingly digital! If we want to reach young people, we probably will find them attached to their devices! There are amazing examples of innovative uses of video or other technologies to reach young people . Take a look at a video promoting a university mission11, a flash mob used to advertise a carol service or a montage based on asking students to write down what Jesus means to them12.
In New Testament times, the apostles used what was available to them to reach people—whether a common language (Greek) or the wide-ranging network of Roman roads. Today, the Internet offers tools we can use. This should energize our efforts and stretch our imaginations! Videos (typically no longer than two or three minutes) can be great tools, along with Twitter, Facebook and other social media. You might even consider linking via Skype with another youth group, perhaps one on another continent! Imagine interacting on a regular basis with young people in Australia, Europe or Africa. The possibilities are endless.
Nothing New Under the Sun…
At the end of the day, however, the Internet is just a tool. As the printed page, it can be hijacked by the devil or used to glorify God. We have explored concerns about the changes taking place in the way we communicate with young people and the way they communicate with each other, yet history teaches us there is “nothing new under the sun”13. Interactions between people changed fundamentally as recently as the Industrial Revolution with the effective breakdown of the extended family. For those who think young people spend too much time on the Internet and not enough time reading, consider that in the Roman Empire, literacy rates were probably lower than 10 percent14. Throughout history, Christianity always has been the biggest driver of positive change.
Technology may change, but the human heart does not; our challenge is to communicate in a way that can be clearly understood, using the tools at our disposal. The Roman highway may have been replaced by the Superhighway, but The Way has not changed!
The Greatest Is Love…
There is a better way. Much of what we see on social media stems from the need to be noticed, understood, appreciated and above all to be loved. This is at the very core of the Christian gospel (
1 The Twitter account has since been taken down.
2 YouthWorker, Oct 2, 2012
3 http://www.hlntv.com/article/2012/02/22/am-i-pretty-videos-shame-or-sham
4 From a study by Karishma S. Ramdhonee, a Child Psychologist with the Mauritius government. The study is found at http://www.gov.mu/portal/sites/cert/sid2012/Psychological%20Impact%20of%20Internet%20usage%20on%20Children.pdf
5 Quoted in an Associated Press posting at http://www.statisticbrain.com/attention-span-statistics/
6 See http://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-little-do-users-read/
7 From a study in American Pediatrics, quoted at http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2012/03/20/study_shows_that_adhd_diagnoses_rose_66_percent_in_ten_years_why_.html
8 “Stress of modern life cuts attention spans to five minutes”, the Telegraph newspaper, Nov 26, 2008.
9 BBC News, Education and Family—see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-21687156
10 A sketch of the life and labors of George Whitefield, J.C. Ryle.
11 My special thanks to my son Tim for these ideas! He has just spent a year working among students in the United Kingdom as Christian Union Relay worker—http://www.uccf.org.uk/relay/
12 http://vimeo.com/58774066
13 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICh1stcvuc0feature=youtu.be
14 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOCXYkH1UUY
15 Ecc. 1:9
16 http://www.tektonics.org/tsr/tilliteracy.html
