Promises of What I Seemed to Be

Part XVI (My Response)

Your experience at Austin Stone is exactly how I see churches adapting technology to the ever present need to make connections and build relationships. It's not technology for technology's sake. It's using technology as a means to an end not an end itself.

The last sentence of your response really caught my attention. We really are part of a generation that, as you say, has the "attention span of a gibbon with ADHD", although I think that might be unfair to gibbons worldwide. I've noticed a change in myself just over the last few months since I started working in terms of always wanting/needing something to occupy my attention. For example, before starting this job, I had never really paid much attention to my cell phone. Sure, with my phones in the past I had received calls and received (but could not send) text messages, but that was all my phone was there for. It wasn't a source of entertainment, it wasn't something that I used like an adult version of a mobile to distract me whenever I grew bored. Now, though, that I have the BlackBerry in hand, if there's ever a dull moment, I'll look down at my phone seeing who has posted something new on Twitter or looking to see if Liverpool has yet again disappointed me. I don't think it's to the point yet where others are distracted by me being distracted, but I have noticed the change in myself, even if no one else has yet.

Here's my question out of that rambling paragraph: What do we do to find the "balance" that we've discussed previously in this conversation between technology and solitude, between the amazing advances of the modern world and the quiet moments that man has been able to experience since the very beginning of time?