Flickering Pixels

Ever since Tina introduced me to the concept, I have been intrigued by the idea of participating in a blog tour. I love to read and I like to blog (well, occasionally at least), so what better way to tie the two together? I had been waiting on the right book to jump in with and Flickering Pixels by Shane Hipps was the one that caught my attention.

His writing style is anecdotal and easy to read, yet his content is deep and chewy theology. And by chewy, I mean something I can chew on for a good long while. I've probably spent more time processing the book than it actually took me to read it. He has some interesting thoughts on technology and how we, as Christians, interact with it.

There are some other bloggers participating in the tour that have summarized the book's themes more thoroughly than I will do here. I would encourage you to read their discussions if you're interested in learning more. I am opting to discuss a particular chapter that was immediately relevant to me.

In his chapter titled Our Nomadic Life, he discusses how the technology that enables virtual community (i.e. blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) has an unintended side-effect of creating anonymous intimacy.

"The internet has a natural bias toward exhibitionism and thus the erosion of real intimacy. There is nothing exclusive about it, yet it creates, paradoxically, a kind of illusion of intimacy with people we've never met in person."

How timely that I experienced this phenomenon just this morning. Really:

I was working the coffee shop and in walks a fellow I follow on Twitter. We had never met in real life (I recognized him from his profile picture). I inadvertently created an awkward social encounter for which I later kicked myself (and almost tweeted an apology). The conversation was something as follows:

Me: Good morning, welcome to Coffee House!
Him: Hello.
Me: [staring impolitely trying to figure out if he was Twitter Man]
Me: What can I get for you?
Him: Grande coffee.
Me: [overly interested] What's your name?
Him: D---
Me: Is your last name W---?
Him: [starting to get suspicious] Yes.
Me: Oh! [stuck my had out for a handshake] My name is Carrie Dils, a.k.a. cdils. I follow you on Twitter. (Yes, I actually said "a.k.a.")
Me: [continued to blather on entirely too long about irrelevant information]

I finally gave him his coffee and sent him along and he was, to his credit, very gracious. I suppose I just got a little over-excited to meet this guy in person and abandoned my usually-decent social graces. In my defense, I had just downed three shots of espresso.

So, to get back to the discussion, I experienced first-hand this idea of anonymous intimacy (an idea which I had not previously pondered). Here I was meeting a complete stranger, yet I knew details about his job, his family, his car, and so forth. Add to that, I am now privy to his coffee preferences. It was a weird feeling. The fact we had "talked" a few times in a virtual community in no way defined any real relationship between us when we met in person.

Is that bad? No. Is it something to be mindful of when thinking about those I share real community with? I think so. While it's great to have such easy access to friends and family via technology, I need to be careful not to emotionally stay at a safe distance just because technology enables me to do so.

While my virtual community is a great tool for staying in touch with old friends and maybe even making new ones, it is not a substitute for real community. That may sound overly obvious, but I found it good food for thought.