theo|digital

A few months ago I noted this TED talk by anthropologist Stefana Broadbent (dated Nov 2009, but given July 2009), but my friend Ty recently reminded me to watch it again:

Broadbent has interesting points and shares my optimistic, curious view. Some of her (loose) key quotes and my comments:

Fundamentally, people are communicating on a regular basis with five, six, or seven of their most intimate sphere. Research shows people have an average of 120 friends on Facebook, but communicate with four to six regularly. 80% of cell phone calls are made to 4 people. When you go to Skype it drops to 2 people.

Question: does this change dramatically for younger generation? An average friend count of 120 seems really low in my experience. 450 seems more like it. Does this increase the intimate circle or does it remain the same?
Theological sidenote: Jesus had the masses, hundreds, the twelve, and the three.

“Some sociologists actually are quite disappointed. … all this deployment just for 5 people? Some feel it’s a closure, it’s a cocooning, that we’re disengaging from the public. And I would actually like to show you that if you look at who is doing it and from where they’re doing it—actually there is an incredible social transformation.”

Examples:
- Guy at factory who sneaks away to text his girlfriend good night.
- Brazilian couple who eats dinner with their parents every couple weeks by placing the laptop on the table.
- Best friends who install IM on work computers so they can be together during the day despite working at different places.

The cultural norm has changed, and not only in new technologies. Phones have been here for much longer. But the expectation of connection on phone has increased… of being connected throughout the day.

Question: doesn’t this reinforce our way of thinking church as “doing life together?” Small groups not as once-a-week bible studies but as soccer games and leftovers and crying and daily rhythms?

Some institutions have tried to block this. $15 fines for some kids in Texas schools who are seen with their phone out. There are arguments of security and safety… which in fact have always been the argument for social control. The question is: do we have the right to self-determine our attention? Do decide whether we should be isolate?

Exactly. These “blockages” have always been short-sighted, and, in the long-run, ineffective. Institutions need to learn how to flow with the social trend, not swim upstream.

I’m attending the Ecclesia National Gathering with Dallas Willard and others. I’ll be live tweeting on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. For more live content from the time, see the Ecclesia LiveBlog.

So many sections of Orlando seem chincy to me. Weeds and faded pavement and aging one-stories with pink trim. Then there are the little fake oasis spots with three palm trees and a fountain that mark the entrance to every strip mall and Apartment Home complex. The roads are Frogger-special 8-lane behemoths, screaming cars racing by to the next stacked-up stoplight. They slice the suburban landscape, isolating Publix parking lots and Baptist churches and LA Fitness.

I’ve been on the apartment hunt. So many smiley people explaining floorplans called “Copacabana” and pointing out granite countertops and Berber carpet and three treadmills + mirror they call a “24-hour fitness center.” Everything is “gorgeous” and “convenient” and “luxury” and “such an amazing price right now.” The apartment that almost won me is in a small, un-Florida New Urbanist community that trades the stucco Outlet Malls for small winding streets, storefront shops, and a neighborhood feel. But at $400 *more* monthly, trendy Baldwin Park outpriced my budget. I’ve resigned myself to the brightly-painted traditional Florida complex complete with miniature lake and yes, a palm tree oasis at the entrance. That’s okay. I’ll adjust. I’m just not sure how I’m going to meet or love my literal neighbors with my “private ground-floor entrance” apartment and a community so certain that nobody walks that they neglected to install sidewalks.

But for my whining, the skies here are optimistically blue and the snowstorms that have made news across the East Coast feel as distant as terrorism or the BBC. The brothers and sisters I’ve met have been warm and hospitable and easily allowed me to slip into their rhythms of life. And the responsibility and opportunity of the ministry here is already in motion—hopeful and exciting. For all my cynical observations, things aren’t bad here.

As long as I can embrace the Flamingo as the representative lawn ornament of Central Florida.

I guess I’ve moved to Orlando.