Networked Culture - (Tuesday, Jan 24 2012)

There will be at least two more posts on this topic during my time here at the Forums, since this relates to my week-long extended seminar during my time here.  So, let me start by unpacking a bunch of information to get you up to speed before I reflect and comment:

<Disclaimer: I’m at the Princeton Forums on Youth Ministry in Santa Barbara.  These numbers are obviously based on US research, but everything I’m posting here resonates as being comparable with what my assumptions and experience would indicate is  mirrored in Canadian teens!>

• 95% of US teens use the internet, compared to the 74% of adults who do

• There are 4.6 billion active cell phones in the world, and 75% of US teens have a cell phone
• 66% of teens text, averaging 50 received text messages and 40 sent text messages a day (or 2272 texts per month)
• 75% of those teens with cell phones have unlimited texting
• US teens are 7.5 times more likely to text (rather than call) someone
• The average text message in the US is 6.6 words long

• 80% of US teens use social networking sites like Facebook
• Facebook sits in second place behind only Google in the battle for internet dominance, but took over top spot in the world for weekly internet traffic in 2009
• Teens spend an average of 3 hours a day on Facebook

• 75% of teens watch YouTube
• Only 8% of teens use Twitter
• 97% of US teens play video games

• In 2009, Boston College ceased providing email accounts to its students due to a lack of use
• Today, US teens have the lowest email use of all age groups
• 37% of US teens say they “never, or can’t, send email.”

• Teens average 10.75 hours a day of “screen time,” and for much of that time they are engaged in social media

If you want to know more, watch this 4 minute video (fittingly provided by a social media site!):

Alright that’s probably enough with the information overload.  Let me start my musings with a quote from the seminar this morning:  “In networked culture, I create the network and the network creates me” (hence why this extended seminar is called Me Making We Making Me.)  Sitting in the seminar this morning, listening as we unpacked all of this information and data, James Earl Jones again showed up in my head (okay, he pretty much lurks in the shadows of my conscious mind, occasionally jumping out and hurling scripture at me).  This time, he was reading from 1Corinthians 12: 12-14:

“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body--Jews or Greeks, slaves or free--and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many.” (NRSV)

I rely a great deal on social media, both in my personal day-to-day life, and also in my ministry.  I’m a social media junkie in many ways – a truth made clear to me being stranded in a San Francisco airport with no internet connection – but truth be told, I’ve never really reflected much on networked culture prior to arriving here.  I’m pretty sure most of us don’t consider the theological implications of a move away from community; a move toward a culture of networks.  So, understanding I’m still plugging through this myself, let me see if I can collect my thoughts into a coherent explanation of where I’m at…

In networked culture, I am the center, unlike in a culture of tight-knit communities.  I own the network, and I am at the heart of it all.  Think about it for a second; in my Facebook network, everybody is hand selected by me to be a “friend”.  While there are certainly overlaps on my friends list – people who know each other, and are potentially networked with each other through other networks – my network is a unique series of people who are not acquainted with the whole of my friends list.  In most cases, my friends list consists of people who will never meet.  This particular network exists because of me, which is why I am the center of it.  Without me, the network ceases to be.  This is in contrast to the idea of a tight-knit community such as a congregation, or peer group, or even a group of colleagues in a field of practice.

My network informs me.  If something is important, I’ll hear about it through my network eventually.  My network not only decides what is important, however.  It also becomes a kind of arbiter of what is true.

Here’s where it gets problematic, though.  My network is created by me.  Where a community is rooted in closeness – be it proximity, practice, or experience – a network can span vast distances.  Those in my network who actually ARE in close proximity are not in the network for that reason, but rather because I have carefully selected them.  My network recognizes and validates me, which is ironic when you consider that in a networked culture, I am the ‘performer’ and my network is my audience.  I perform and my network validates my performance and presence.

Theologically, the move away from community into networked culture begs another question; what about the community of the trinity? Or the Body of Christ?  Where do these exist in a networked culture?

What do you think about the move from close-knit communities to networked culture?  What do we gain or lose?  Are there any stats in this post that jump out at you?