A Longing for Connectivity
CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, in his Web article “Is Connectivity a Human Right?” expressed his ambition to make the world “more open and connected.”1 He states that Facebook currently connects more than 1.15 billion people each month, and he set a mission to increase the number to 5 billion. Given the world population of 7.2 billion,2 the number represents more than two thirds of the world. It is a gigantic network in a global society on a daily basis. Truly, we have shifted from the industrial age to the digital age of connectivity.3
Reactions to this shift are various: some people welcome the sense of connection beyond time and space, while others are ambivalent and fearful of “techno-colonialism” and a “global cyberimperialism.”4 Whatever the consequences of digital connectivity are, “the internet access springs from a powerful longing for community-the very same force that drives church congregations”.5 People desire to stay connected with other people twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
A longing for community is not new. Psychologists have long discussed the basic human needs of both separateness and togetherness in relationships. When there is an imbalance between the two basic needs, people eventually suffer from some aspect or another of an unhealthy relationship. When people become too separated, they feel alone and disconnected; when they have too much togetherness, their relationships become enmeshed and individuality suffocates. In this sense, I see the current desire for digital connectivity as an expression of people’s sense of disconnection and a longing for meaningful community.
The sense of disconnection is a legacy of Western “rugged individualism” which disproportionately emphasizes an individual’s freedom, right, and self-sufficiency. In the late nineteenth century, some psychologists began to pay serious attention to people’s desire for relationship as the most basic human need and in response developed Object Relations Theory. This relational theory is a critique of intra-psychic Freudian psychoanalysis, which mostly focuses on the individual’s inner psychic dynamics of id, ego, and superego. Traditional Freudian psychoanalysts see problems mainly as existing in the imbalance among those intra-psychic energies within an individual. In contrast, object relations theorists see the same problem as originating from the individual’s early relationship with primary caregivers. A shift is noticed from an “intra-personal” to “inter-personal” focus. Psychological explanations of relationship and connection have flourished, and Object Relations Theory is considered a major psychological theory of relationship.
However, Object Relations Theory has been critiqued for being not about genuine relationship but only a subtle version of the interest in an individual self. As evidence, the critiques argue that Object Relations Theory reduces the Other to being merely an “object” that can satisfy an individual’s need for survival. The stigma of individualism seems never to leave Western understanding of human beings. Faced with this dilemma, pastoral theologian Bonnie Miller McLemore in the 1990s radically revised Anton Boisen’s well-known metaphor of humans as “living human documents” to “living document within the web” or simply “living web.”6 Her aim was to balance individual personhood with necessary relationality.
McLemore’s metaphor of a living web is an accurate description of the current social network, which dramatically expands our ability to connect with one another. For example, some 6,000 tweets7 are tweeted on Twitter per second, which corresponds to 500 million tweets per day. This number increased from 5,000 tweets per day in 2007, to 2.5 million in 2009, and 340 million in 2012.8 Online technology has opened a new world of revolutionized connectivity. A question is whether the long legacy of “rugged individualism” still haunts this revolution. This is the same question asked about Object Relations Theory in the past. Religious writer Andrea Useem tackles this question and claims that the daily-based online technology of the social network is navigated and controlled primarily by individuals rather than larger social units. The result is a “networked individualism.”9 In the world of networked individuals, it is an individual’s need that is the focus, more than the family’s or the community’s. The individual, the autonomous center of the online operating system, is free to control her or his social networking options as particular needs arise. When the need ceases, they can easily quit the social network with one click of a key. There is no obligation except for an interest in individual right and freedom. Some criticize this as a manifestation of the narcissistic and exhibitionistic tendencies of the social networker.10
Reactions to this revolutionized connectivity are still ambivalent and uncertain, particularly among church communities. Skeptics suggest that the Internet is a closed space that isolates people and limits genuine relationship: People are connected, but not really related. Yet others welcome online connectivity simply because of its potential to promote more connections among people who are bound by limited space and time. Online connectivity is a two-edged sword, uncharted territory. A congregation that ignores the digital revolution will risk becoming irrelevant, especially among the young, future generation that faces the challenge of connectivity/lack of connectivity more radically in their daily lives.
In the midst of this uncertainty and the ambiguity concerning Internet connectivity, Useem calls for a reaffirmed sense of Christian mission that should actively guide this critical conversation. A “theology of the Internet” should be developed to provide a sense of direction for people engaged in the conversation at this time of uncertainty.11
Jaison Mulerikkal, a Catholic priest and computer scientist, has responded to this call and proposes an approach to this mission. In his online article, “Towards a theology of internet,” he begins by quoting Pope Benedict XVI’s comments that online media opens up “New spaces for evangelization” and “a continent where the Church must be present and where believers must share with others the deepest source of their joy and hope, Jesus Christ.12 Based on this affirmation, Mulerikkal considers the Internet to be a “new continent” with citizens known as “netizens.” In this sense, Facebook is the third largest nation on earth after China and India, considering its 1.06 billion monthly active users as of December 2012.13 He then argues that the Church sent out missionaries whenever humans discovered a new continent and that this should be true also of this newly discovered continent of online connection. He compares this mission with Jesus’ mission in Capernaum, the major mission field where Jesus spent half of his public ministry. Why did Jesus choose Capernaum? Mulerikkal claims that Capernaum was the major connecting town on the Jericho route between Galilee and Jerusalem; it had the largest synagogue in the region and a Roman military garrison. This connectivity of Capernaum would ensure that Jesus’ good news reached the ends of the world. Mulerikkal suggests that the Capernaum strategy should be that of missionaries in the new mission field of digitally networked continents. We, the church, are to be there at the crossroads with strong presence at the connected/unconnected world interface, to re-interpret the “unknown gods” latent in the networking connectivity, and to manifest its potential goodness as well as its challenges, to the netizens of this online continent.14 A well-developed theology of the Internet will help sort out all the doubts and excitements and help us to maneuver through the uncharted territories to produce good fruits for the kingdom of God.
Rather than simply comparing the pros and cons of the new ways of connection using primarily technical and practical points of view, we Christians must actively engage in developing a theology of the Internet both on a local, nation-wide, and universal level. When we interact online in the web of digital connectivity, are we doing so in a way that reaffirms our own and other’s humanity as created in the image of God? Such a fundamental question and inquiry will guide our exploration into this unknown territory and ultimately make online innovations subject to our church mission rather than allowing them to dictate and control our mission to the world. Today is the right time, and indeed perhaps already a little past time, to start the conversation in our local churches through Bible study, preaching, fellowship, pastoral care, intergenerational activities, and so on. We, as Church, should assume a leadership role in conversations about the new, radical possibilities of the social network and to understand the basic human need for and desire of being connected with others.
Notes
1. Mark Zuckerberg, Is Connectivity a Human Right? (2013) Retrieved from http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2013/08/mark-zuckerberg-is-connectivity-a-human-right/ Accessed September 5, 2015.
2. United States Census Bureau. Retrieved from http://www.census.gov/popclock/ Accessed September 6, 2015.
3. Jen Schradie, An Open Letter to Mark Zuckerberg: Is Facebook a Human Right? (2013, August 21). Retrieved from http://schradie.com/an-open-letter-to-mark-zuckerburg-is-facebook-a-human-right/ Accessed August 30, 2015.
4. Lev Grossman, The man who wired the world, Time (December 15, 2014, p.36).
5. Andrea Useem, The new connectivity: How internet innovations are changing the way we do church, Congregations, 2008 Fall, 34(4), 24.)
6. Bonnie Miller-McLemore, Revisiting the living human web: theological education and the role of clinical pastoral education, J Pastoral Care Counseling. 2008, 62 (1-2):3-18.
7. Twitter is an online social networking service that enables users to send and read short messages called “tweets” that are up to 140 characters in length.
8. Internet Live Stats. Retrieved from http://www.internetlivestats.com/twitter-statistics/ Accessed September 1, 2015
9. Andrea Useem, The new connectivity: How internet innovations are changing the way we do church, Congregations, 2008 Fall, 34(4), 27.
10. Christine Rosen, Virtual friendship and the new narcissism, The New Atlantis: Journal of Technology and Society. Retrieved from http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/virtual-friendship-and-the-new-narcissism Accessed August 28, 2015.
11. Fr. Antonio Spadaro. Cybertheology: Thinking Christianity in the Era of the Internet.
12. Jaison Mulerikkal. Towards a Theology of Internet (2014, January 31). Retrieved from http://www.theologyofinternet.com/2014/01/31/towards-a-theology-of-internet-2/ Accessed August 25, 2015.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
