Creating an Image—What have we gained or lost when all our interactions are on multiple platforms?

Reclaiming Conversation--Week 4

“In order to feel more, and to feel more like ourselves, we connect. But in our rush to connect, we flee solitude. In time, our ability to be separate and gather ourselves is diminished. If we don’t know who we are when we are alone, we turn to other people to support our sense of self. This makes it impossible to fully experience others as who they are. We take what we need from them in bits and pieces; it is as though we use them as spare parts to support our fragile selves. If you don’t have practice in thinking alone, you are less able to bring your ideas to the table with confidence and authority. Collaboration suffers. As does innovation.

It is only when we are alone with our thoughts—not reacting to external stimuli—that we engage that part of the brain’s basic infrastructure devoted to building up a sense of our stable autobiographical past. This is the “default mode network.” So, without solitude, we can’t construct a stable sense of self. 

Yet children who grow up digital have always had something external to respond to. When they go online, their minds are not wandering but rather are captured and divided. These days, we may mistake time on the net for solitude. It isn’t. In fact, solitude is challenged by our habit of turning to our screens rather than inward. And it is challenged by our culture of continual sharing. 

Afraid of being alone, we struggle to pay attention to ourselves. And what suffers is our ability to pay attention to each other. If we can’t find our own center, we lose confidence in what we have to offer others.

What these (digital) friendships do best is support a self that needs to use other people as a mirror, a self that has not found itself. (From Reclaiming Conversation, Sherry Turkle)

• What do you think? Summary?
• What does posting and sharing do for our sense of self? For our relationships?
• “Without solitude, we can’t construct a stable sense of self.” What do you think this means? Do you agree?
• What gets in the way of solitude?

Who we are in Christ:
Genesis 1:27
So God created humans in God’s own image.
Psalm 139:14
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.
Ephesians 5:8
At one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.
Matthew 5:14
We are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.
Ephesians 2:22
In Christ you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
Ephesians 2:19
We are no longer strangers and aliens, but we are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.
John 15:15
No longer do I call you servants, for servants do not know what their master is doing; but I have called you friends.
Galatians 4:7
So we are no longer slaves, but children, and if children, then heirs through God.
Romans 8:1
There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
1 John 3:1
See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. 
2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
Ephesians 2:10
We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
2 Corinthians 5:20
We are ambassadors for Christ, God making an appeal through us. 
Romans 8:37
In all these things we are more than conquerors through Christ who loved us.
Philippians 1:6
I am sure of this, that the God who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
1 Peter 2:9-10
We are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that we may proclaim the excellencies of a God who called us out of darkness into marvelous light. Once we were not a people, but now we are God’s people; once we had not received mercy, but now we have received mercy.

• What is our identity?
• How does this affect the belief, the feeling, that we don’t know who we are unless we’re posting, liking, sharing, being validated, liking the same videos, posts, etc as others?

• What have we gained or lost when all our interactions are on multiple platforms?
• How can the church, or we as individuals, change the conversation on how we and others see identity?