The Strange, Ensorcelling, Oft-Inaccurate World of Today’s Technology

I’m having a strange technology week.

Some of it has to do with my weeks-old iPhone and my haltingly slow steps into the world of interacting with friends via texting. (Yes. I admit it. Texting really is quite convenient when you have to interact with people on time-sensitive matters. But do I really want to be that connected during my normal day? Even just two days of needing immediately to hear any “alerts” left me with a slight experience of the phantom iPhone vibrations I read about in a June issue of Bloomberg Businesweek. Creepy! Addictive! But very real.)

Some of it has to do with the fact that my name was mistakenly listed online as the author of an online article that I had absolutely nothing to do with—but there is no way you could ever know that. It was a reputable organization and website. Everything looked copacetic. There was the article title. There was my name. (Oh, and in between there was an amazingly inflammatory subtitle that I still cringe every time I think about it being attributed to me.) But there it was—absolutely, 100% inaccurate and yet seemingly 100% perfectly true. What do you do with that? (Besides gently contact the organization who, to their credit, remedied the error quite quickly given how large and important an organization it is. I thought it might be days before my request was even read more or less responded to.) How do I process other articles I read with author’s names on them? Did they really write that article? Do they even know that article exists? It’s just so strange.

 But it is the real world that we are living in now; the only world that my daughters are  ever going to know this side of Heaven—so I want to be diligent, prayerful, and biblical as I think through even such seemingly small things as (fantastic!) phonics games for Ella. (Maybe my paper index cards and good ol’ sharpies really are better for her, right now, at this season of life, as her precious little brain is developing? How intentional and full of thought was I before I downloaded that app? Not very, much to my surprise and chagrin.)

Time to re-read Tim Challies’ The Next Story: Life and Faith After the Digital Explosion. (And I’d love to hear from any of you re: authors/teachers you recommend on this topic. It’s just so complex and yet so important.)

All the best,
Tara B.