Digital inter-face

I was recently browsing Facebook while at work, err um, I mean on my own free time and stumbled across the various types of people you see on social media:

-the 'must post everything that ever happens person

-the 'everything's an injustice' poster (my personal favorite)

-the 'look at all my cool travel pictures' person

-the 'GIVE ME ATTENTION!!!!' poster

We've all seen these and have likely been guilty of falling into these or other camps of people on Facebook, Instagram or popular social site of the month. And while I don't post all that often, I watch people all the time spilling the details of their life out for the internet to absorb and retain forever. Everyone wants to send out some specific 'ideal' of themselves to live online.

All too often as a youth pastor and church worker, I hear people tell me they want to be connected, but just don't 'feel like they are.' These people often tell me they'd go to church/youth group if they were connected but don't because they aren't. Nearly every time, you could place money on the bet that they don't make a regular effort to go.

This cycle of non-connectedness spins on. They don't feel connected, so they don't connect. They complain about not being connected, but give no effort to actually engage.

Sadly this is where we're at in most of our lives. I often wonder how many of my social media 'friends' would know anything about my life if I didn't post a picture about it. Would they know about the birth of my child? Would they know what I do for a living? If I had to guess, over 95% wouldn't. How sad is that?

We've replaced real relationship, real communication, with synthesized and highly edited tidbits of information we post online and then react to with a push of a button instead of an encouraging note, phone call or warm embrace.

Disclamer: I'm just as guilty as anyone when it comes to reaching out for real communication. All to often I hit the 'like' button when I could just as easily text, call or visit someone. My goal in writing this is not to point a blaming finger, rather to cause all of us to examine our interactions critically.

We're all dying for some real interaction. Someone just needs to take the first step.