There is no time in history in which I would rather live. I, of all people, would have drunk the cup of sorrow long ago if I had lived even fifty years before the moment in history in which I live. Teri would have been like a huge number of women—up until modern times—who, without the aid of modern technology and medicine, would have died in childbirth. She never went into hard labor without the use of a wonder drug called patosin (a drug that induces hard labor). Then, with the last child, Teri’s uterus ruptured and not only did she live, but Eliot is a live wire! A hundred years ago I would have been a mourner burying my wife and child, trying to explain to my other five young children what had happened.

           That is just one case in point of blessings we have because of technology. I have relatives who are alive today that even fifty years ago would have never made it out of childhood. People today live with unprecedented advantages because of medicine, communication, and technology. Our lives are easier because of engines, machines, e-mail, and cell phones. I have no romantic illusions concerning a “golden era” in the past. Every age that preceded us has been just as messed up as we are. They struggled with the same issues of sin and selfishness we do. However, each age has to deal with cultural issues particular to their moment in history. Since Adam and Eve, the world has been broken and needed the redemption of Jesus. I say all this in hopes that it will help us look objectively at our own time, to see what has perhaps been lost in our technologically savvy age.

          Ellen Goodmen, syndicated columnist who writes a column in the Commercial Appeal, cites a recent study by a Duke sociologist called “Social Isolation in America” which chronicles a monumental shift in the way people live in our age which is different from any age since Adam and Eve. “One-fourth of all Americans report that they have nobody to talk to about ‘important matters.’ Another quarter report they are just one person away from nobody.”  To show where this trend is leading, the study notes that in just the past twenty years, the number of people who say they have no one to talk to has doubled. Goodmen continues: “The greatest loss has been in neighbors and friends who will help, support, advise and provide connections to the wider world.”  What is being lost are friendships and community.

     Here is where we have to be honest about technology and affirm that while it is a good thing, if it makes us less human and less able to connect with neighbors and friends, then it has become harmful. Goodman again: “…in the past 20 years technology has changed the way we use our ‘relationship time.’ Walk along any city street and people talking on cell phones are more common than pigeons. Go to Starbucks and a third of the customers are having coffee dates with their laptops.” I remember walking on both of the campuses of Ole Miss and the University of Tennessee during orientation with my children, and in beautiful places—built generations ago where students could linger, hang out, talk, debate, and gather—there was little interaction, as almost everyone had a cell phone to an ear or was jacked into an iPod. No one was talking to another human being face to face. In Time

Magazine there was a report recently about youth using two or three media at a time:

 Researchers point to studies that show that output and depth of thought deteriorate as a person attempts to attend to multiple tasks. Teachers and professors also believe students are becoming dependent on their media stimuli, with many unable to walk from one class to the next without pulling out their phones or iPods to absorb the 4-minutes passing times. While the current generation has become very good at manipulating information, using visual and audio clips in multi-media presentations in class, many college professors feel writing and critical thinking skills are suffering in the media saturation.” (Quoted in Touchtone Magazine.)

          We might also add to these concerns the destruction of relational skills, community, and friendship. There is a real sense in which our technology is slowly destroying the thing that makes life the most meaningful: communion with other image bearers of God. We were made for community. God screams in distress when he sees Adam, the apex of creation, alone with no one like him to commune with. Why? God was never alone, but always in a communion of mutual love in the Godhead. We were built to know and be known.

          We are like Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods, and therefore think that because we have this novelty we are all wise. But is that true? If the studies are right (and empirical evidence suggests that you do not need a grant from a university to come up with these conclusions), then our lives might be much easier because of technology, but they are not better. The easy path may not be the best path. We are not wise if the technology we employ takes us away from a genuine face-to-face community and deep friendships. I love my Apple PowerBook, but it has never put its arms around me when my heart was breaking, or belly laughed with me at dinner table when the conversation was hilarious. My Apple is a seductive mistress. It will tell me I need it all the time, where I can get on the internet anywhere there is wireless and whisper to me to spend time with it even when at home. It tries to seduce me into believing I am better served to know a thousand useless facts than to take that limited time I have and spend it reading to my children. It is so jealous of my time that it argues that what little available time I have is better spend surfing the internet than time with my wife, children and friends. I love my Blackberry, but if I am not careful I will never be in the meaningful conversation, game of golf, or leisure over a hot grill without being pulled away from the moment to handle some urgent matter only I can attend to. Is that true? What did Jesus do without a cell phone? He was simply not available to any and everyone 24/7, and he didn’t sweat it.

     We all have the same amount of limited time, and it is easy to get sucked into spending that time jacked into a virtual community to the point that there is no time to develop deep bonds of community and communion with real flesh and blood people. If technology is taking up all the time that could be spent in community with other people, I would suggest you turn it off for a while. You might find your neighbor you thought weird to be far more interesting, mysterious and entertaining than you could imagine. Also, hidden in them is Jesus himself.