Thoughts on New Media

A friend recently updated his facebook status with words similar to these: 

"(Name) is wondering how new media impacts prayer."

I quickly shot back this reply: "Off the top of my head I'm going to say negatively."

Since then I've had some more time to think about this. First, I'm not even certain what new media means, but I'll assume it has to do with iphones and the like--gadgets that are amazingly helpful in many ways but that perhaps have a dark side to them as well.

Let's consider the iphone. I have one. I love it. With a few finger touches I can take a picture of one of my kids, email it to Grammy, post it on facebook, and write a quick blog about it. With some other swipes of the fingers I can text a friend to confirm a lunch date, check the weather to see if we want to eat inside or outside, and quickly see what the score of the Angels spring training game is. 

They are incredibly useful. They are also incredibly distracting and, I would say, addicting. And the last thing an iphone is set up to do is help to point a person toward God. (Although I'm sure there are applications out there that attempt to do this.)

The iphone itself is just plastic and electronics, neither good nor evil. It is raw material. (C.S. Lewis speaks of this in The Screwtape Letters.) How it is utilized makes the difference. Do I control the iphone or does the iphone control me?

I've actually thought about this in terms of The One Ring of Power from The Lord of the Rings. Early on in The Fellowship of the Ring, the wizard Gandalf is offered the ring of power by a distraught Frodo. "You take it," Frodo says. Gandalf responds by telling Frodo not to tempt him, that he would wish to use the ring for good but that ultimately he fears it would corrupt him.

I wonder if new media, and the proliferation of the internet, cable and satellite TV and, yes, the iphone aren't analogous. They are all bright and shiny and mesmerizing in their way--like that ring--and we all long to have them on our fingers. But I imagine that not many of us are strong enough to bear them and still maintain a good focus on God.

Or maybe that's just me. Maybe I'm just weak like Gandalf and the rest of you are capable like Frodo.

But even he, ultimately, kept it only long enough to throw it into the fires of Mount Doom.

I may be projecting too much of myself here, but I think we'd all be a lot better off without new media--or any media. 

So go ahead and use your media and technology to respond to this call for its demise and I will do the same to answer/dialogue--perhaps even via my iphone.