I have had a running thread of posts on the topic of Facebook over the years and I critically referenced Facebook many more times. Negative articles and news stories about Facebook come up so often that we now appear immune from the warnings. I do bring the following post and preface back occasionally along with a particular news item that piques my interest. Britain's The Telegraph published an article today in their Technology section by Jane Fae titled Facebook is imposing prissy American censorship on the whole rest of the world. It's a detailed article that can be Googled if you are interested but one part of it hit home with me. The author wrote that Facebook is attempting to "edit our common history" and follows that with this..."Yet, incredibly for a nation that has so recently focused on 'taking back control' (Brexit), and frets about the loss of Christmas tradition, this issue scarcely registers on the national rageometer."
That sums up my feelings also. American conservatives and especially Christians should have recognized Facebook for what it is long ago but the opposite has happened as otherwise wonderful national ministries gleefully remind us to follow them on Facebook! This is an issue that should be front and center with conservatives but it would require 'sacrifice' to take a stand. Folks...if we can't say no to something like Facebook now, how are we going to....all of a sudden....protest when the issues begin to dictate our very lives....which is inevitable!
June, 2015
It may not be the greatest tool ever used against America but it's close.....Facebook.....and social media in general. It has become a monster given life by our necessity to view ourselves as something special and our persistence in trivializing life itself: It feeds on our egos. Calling it a Trojan Horse does not do justice. We dragged it in and in return it attacks our discernment therefore it idles us and now it is going to......well, I'll let the following post from last month explain what is next:
Facebook Brings The News
"This nation is running, not to the sound of the trumpet that calls us, but to the roar of the mouse. Whereas it was once said that 'the pen is mightier than the sword,' it may soon be replaced with 'the logarithm is mightier than the pen'."
This was the last paragraph of a post written back in 2011. It was a book review and 'mouse' referred to the hold that social media has upon the American mind. There has been numerous studies done in many countries on the negative affects that Facebook has on its users, from living in a virtual world, to bullying, to a faux concept of what friendship is, to an epidemic of narcissism, to privacy issues, to urban violence. We are repeatedly warned yet continue to follow the Pied Piper.
Most everyone should be aware by now, particularly from the publicity around the 2010 film The Social Network, of how Facebook got its start and then grew into a Leviathan. We should also know about the various charges and lawsuits of one sort or another thrown at Facebook, often followed by apologies and promises, but this hasn't fazed us either. Facebook and the whole concept of social media in its many adaptations has been a curse, but a curse packaged in the glitter and metallic glow of silicon. Probably every Christian ministry that I have recommended in these posts, and also the many conservative organizations that I try to support, have their own Facebook page and end their.emails with "share on Facebook and Twitter.". My guess is that they believe that they can take something that is not good and use it for good but God doesn't need help, and we have gone down that 'this can be used for good' road before, more often than not with disastrous results.
Here's a test that I think many Christians would fail. Estimate the number of hours that you put into reading Facebook pages and updating your own and then compare that to the reading that you do in God's Word, church history, biographies of Christians throughout history and and really anything edifying to our Christian pilgrimage in this world.....and that's just one test.
I cut articles out of the paper on a weekly basis referring to Facebook or social media. The Drudge Report carried two just today. The first was titled "Belgian Watchdog Raps Facebook for Treating Personal Data 'with Contempt'," and the second was "Zuckerberg: OCULUS headset will be size of glasses." I published a post last May that was primarily on the topic of OCULUS. The following are a few paragraphs from that post
Prominent psychiatrist and Fox News contributor Dr. Keith Ablow wrote an opinion piece that Fox News titled "Facebook Twists Reality Again And Risks Ruining Your Children." Those are pretty strong words. According to the article, Facebook recently acquired, for $2 billion, a company called Oculus VR (virtual reality). This company is working on and taking pre-orders for a head mounted display, a headset, designed for immersive virtual reality.
Dr. Ablow writes that "millions of people---lots of them teenagers---will be able to put on an Oculus Rift headset" and (he) quotes Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in that they will "enter a completely immersive computer-generated environment" and feel like they are "actually present in another place" and say it's "different from anything they've ever experienced in their lives."
The problem according to Dr. Ablow is that since this is just a "gaming headset" it will not have be approved by the FDA, where if it were a "pharmaceutical or a medical device" it would "demand rigorous clinical trials in volunteers" before being approved. Are there unexpected side effects "like depression or attention deficit disorder or anxiety or delusional thinking?" Dr. Ablow writes that if there is we won't have that warning because after all....it's just a game!
Today's post is on another article from yesterday's paper. The title in our local newspaper was Facebook to post full news articles. The latest innovation is called Instant Articles. Rather than merely giving links (that take time to load) to news stories, Facebook partnered with a few major news outlets to let them put whole articles on Facebook (that load instantly.) As a result of this, paragons of honest and informative news such as the New York Times, NBC News and the BBC have been chosen to provide the 'news' for tens upon tens of millions of Americans? It appears to be a 'win-win' for Facebook and these nine media outlets. The only losers are the American people, our nation as a whole and freedoms and liberty everywhere.
I bring the up problems with Facebook and social media fairly often to friends and I haven't had many empathic responses but I'll end this post with another warning that will probably be ignored........social media dumbs down, tranquilizes and nourishes our already rampant narcissism and is in no small way responsible for the lack of discernment on the part of Christians as to how far America has rebelled against God and how He has been calling us back for decades now with dire warnings of judgement to come......but hey, there's a positive side to social media too.....we can see all the latest pictures of the grandchildren!
Note: A number of articles have appeared on the Drudge Report, all negative, since the post was first published on ten days ago and the latest, today, was titled Facebook addiction linked to depression.
That sums up my feelings also. American conservatives and especially Christians should have recognized Facebook for what it is long ago but the opposite has happened as otherwise wonderful national ministries gleefully remind us to follow them on Facebook! This is an issue that should be front and center with conservatives but it would require 'sacrifice' to take a stand. Folks...if we can't say no to something like Facebook now, how are we going to....all of a sudden....protest when the issues begin to dictate our very lives....which is inevitable!
June, 2015
It may not be the greatest tool ever used against America but it's close.....Facebook.....and social media in general. It has become a monster given life by our necessity to view ourselves as something special and our persistence in trivializing life itself: It feeds on our egos. Calling it a Trojan Horse does not do justice. We dragged it in and in return it attacks our discernment therefore it idles us and now it is going to......well, I'll let the following post from last month explain what is next:
Facebook Brings The News
"This nation is running, not to the sound of the trumpet that calls us, but to the roar of the mouse. Whereas it was once said that 'the pen is mightier than the sword,' it may soon be replaced with 'the logarithm is mightier than the pen'."
This was the last paragraph of a post written back in 2011. It was a book review and 'mouse' referred to the hold that social media has upon the American mind. There has been numerous studies done in many countries on the negative affects that Facebook has on its users, from living in a virtual world, to bullying, to a faux concept of what friendship is, to an epidemic of narcissism, to privacy issues, to urban violence. We are repeatedly warned yet continue to follow the Pied Piper.
Most everyone should be aware by now, particularly from the publicity around the 2010 film The Social Network, of how Facebook got its start and then grew into a Leviathan. We should also know about the various charges and lawsuits of one sort or another thrown at Facebook, often followed by apologies and promises, but this hasn't fazed us either. Facebook and the whole concept of social media in its many adaptations has been a curse, but a curse packaged in the glitter and metallic glow of silicon. Probably every Christian ministry that I have recommended in these posts, and also the many conservative organizations that I try to support, have their own Facebook page and end their.emails with "share on Facebook and Twitter.". My guess is that they believe that they can take something that is not good and use it for good but God doesn't need help, and we have gone down that 'this can be used for good' road before, more often than not with disastrous results.
Here's a test that I think many Christians would fail. Estimate the number of hours that you put into reading Facebook pages and updating your own and then compare that to the reading that you do in God's Word, church history, biographies of Christians throughout history and and really anything edifying to our Christian pilgrimage in this world.....and that's just one test.
I cut articles out of the paper on a weekly basis referring to Facebook or social media. The Drudge Report carried two just today. The first was titled "Belgian Watchdog Raps Facebook for Treating Personal Data 'with Contempt'," and the second was "Zuckerberg: OCULUS headset will be size of glasses." I published a post last May that was primarily on the topic of OCULUS. The following are a few paragraphs from that post
Prominent psychiatrist and Fox News contributor Dr. Keith Ablow wrote an opinion piece that Fox News titled "Facebook Twists Reality Again And Risks Ruining Your Children." Those are pretty strong words. According to the article, Facebook recently acquired, for $2 billion, a company called Oculus VR (virtual reality). This company is working on and taking pre-orders for a head mounted display, a headset, designed for immersive virtual reality.
Dr. Ablow writes that "millions of people---lots of them teenagers---will be able to put on an Oculus Rift headset" and (he) quotes Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in that they will "enter a completely immersive computer-generated environment" and feel like they are "actually present in another place" and say it's "different from anything they've ever experienced in their lives."
The problem according to Dr. Ablow is that since this is just a "gaming headset" it will not have be approved by the FDA, where if it were a "pharmaceutical or a medical device" it would "demand rigorous clinical trials in volunteers" before being approved. Are there unexpected side effects "like depression or attention deficit disorder or anxiety or delusional thinking?" Dr. Ablow writes that if there is we won't have that warning because after all....it's just a game!
Today's post is on another article from yesterday's paper. The title in our local newspaper was Facebook to post full news articles. The latest innovation is called Instant Articles. Rather than merely giving links (that take time to load) to news stories, Facebook partnered with a few major news outlets to let them put whole articles on Facebook (that load instantly.) As a result of this, paragons of honest and informative news such as the New York Times, NBC News and the BBC have been chosen to provide the 'news' for tens upon tens of millions of Americans? It appears to be a 'win-win' for Facebook and these nine media outlets. The only losers are the American people, our nation as a whole and freedoms and liberty everywhere.
I bring the up problems with Facebook and social media fairly often to friends and I haven't had many empathic responses but I'll end this post with another warning that will probably be ignored........social media dumbs down, tranquilizes and nourishes our already rampant narcissism and is in no small way responsible for the lack of discernment on the part of Christians as to how far America has rebelled against God and how He has been calling us back for decades now with dire warnings of judgement to come......but hey, there's a positive side to social media too.....we can see all the latest pictures of the grandchildren!
Note: A number of articles have appeared on the Drudge Report, all negative, since the post was first published on ten days ago and the latest, today, was titled Facebook addiction linked to depression.
