Josh Mitchell is a
professor of political theory at Georgetown University and the author of the
book, Tocqueville in Arabia: Dilemmas in
a Democratic Age. He also helped with the founding of Georgetown’s School
of Foreign Service in Qatar. In fact, as a professor in Qatar from 2005 to 2008
and as a chancellor of the American University of Iraq from 2008 to 2010,
Mitchell enjoys a distinct vantage point. With his teaching experience, he had
become acquainted with how young adults in both cultures see life and the
world. As for his American students, he has duly noted their strengths, but he
has also identified the challenges they face.
Professor Mitchell’s
observations speaks to the underlying difficulty that parents and parish
leaders are facing today as they attempt to evangelize young people. We live in
an age of computers and smartphones, gadgets that can prove to be a blessing
and a curse to a nation’s faith. Indeed, every strength has a corresponding
weakness. And the weakness of being more entertained, more connected and more
informed on a 24/7 basis is that it can have the unintended consequence of
burying the human need for communion with God and neighbor.
What is particularly new about it is that to which evangelization must pierce
through. Unlike the Old Evangelization of the Apostles and the Church Fathers,
the New Evangelization has to contend with a myriad of distractions that
inhibit the ability to be present in the moment. With these distractions,
face-to-face interaction naturally suffers. They can easily occasion people to
drift into their own little worlds.
Though they may be in the same room, they
are, nevertheless, by themselves. And this solitary existence where the need of
the family is less felt, gives fresh ventilation to narcissism and loneliness
that is latent in all of us. In fact, Professor Mitchell makes this
observation:
“My American students update their homepage;
they jot down and comment here or there for a 'friend,' spontaneously, of
course; they all know and chatter about the latest television programs or
games- and they fall asleep at night rehearsing their soliloquies to
themselves, in a recurring loop that can be halted by the one thing many of
them are most frightened to do, namely, involve themselves in actual
face-to-face relations- not for a moment, but for an extended period...My
students are more 'connected' than any generation in history of the human race.
They nevertheless sense themselves to be alone.”
Just
in the last ten years, our world has changed because the way we communicate has
changed. I remember seeing a picture of St. Peter’s Square when they announced
a new pope, namely, Pope Benedict XVI, in 2005 contrasted with 2013, when the
announced Pope Francis as the new pope. As for the latter, it looked as though
every single person were using the video capacity of a smartphone. Hardly a
person in St. Peter’s Square was without one.
There are, to be sure, many positives about being well connected. The blessing of a smartphone is that it not only facilitates communication, but it can do just about everything a computer can. A good thing indeed! Yet, again, with every positive there is a corresponding negative. For instance, with texting, emails and the internet so readily available now, people are bound to experience a kind of chronic and insatiable curiosity. A curiosity about what, you might ask? A curiosity about the most recent text or email received. Although it is not true to say this about every user, it would seem that this curiosity continually draws us to our smartphones. And in doing so, we can lose sight of the people in our immediate surroundings. I would even go so far as to say it is becoming an addiction among many young Americans. These considerations, no doubt, has an impact on our ability to evangelize; especially the younger generations.
According to a Wall Street Journal’s article in July of 2013, A Rising Addiction Among Youths: Smartphones, South Koreans are suffering from this addiction in epidemic proportions. In part, it reads:
“Earlier this month, the South Korean government said it plans to provide nationwide counseling programs for youngsters by the end of the year and train teachers on how to deal with students with addiction. Taxpayer-funded counseling treatment here already exists for adult addicts.”
But the article goes on to give us something very insightful: With an over reliance on texting, especially among the youth, interpersonal and nonverbal communication becomes impoverished. "Students today are very bad at reading facial expressions," said Setsuko Tamura, a professor of applied psychology at Tokyo Seitoku University. "When you spend more time texting people instead of talking to them, you don't learn how to read nonverbal language." Furthermore, strong relationships require a sense of being present to family members and friends. Without this attentiveness, our interaction with others becomes fragmented, rushed and superficial.
Yet, nonverbal communication is not the only thing that is compromised. The
ability to think in silence for long periods of time is less attainable as
well. This is important because thinking in silence is when our communion with
God is most intense. What is more, the compulsion to communicate through the
smartphone has great potential to distract us from doing things such as
preparing for the day ahead, being attentive to our duties, and examining each
day in light of our faith in Christ. It also hinders children’s creativity and
productivity because the entertainment on smartphones, computers and X-boxes
are already prepared for them. As such, seldom do children invent their own
play. Seldom are they the authors of their own fun. Creativity is born out of silence
and even boredom, but so is spiritual growth. In fact, it is in the quiet of
our minds that the whisper of God is more easily heard and eternity is more
frequently pondered.
In
sum, the smartphone will benefit youth- as it well the rest of us –only if they
are masters of it. But if they are compelled to use it at every moment, then
not only will the voice of God be suppressed, but the heralds of the New
Evangelization will be greeted with increasing indifference. After all, if the
voice of God is not heard from within, neither will the voice of the Church be
heard from without. To be sure, the latter derives its strength from the
former!
We
can expect, therefore, that out of necessity, the Catholic Church will have
more to say and teach about this new form of communication. And although church
leaders and evangelists should continue to affirm all that is good in this new
technology, they will, nevertheless, inherit the mission of having to restore
the love of silence and face-to-face communication. Religion classes in
Catholic schools, faith formation classes in parish programs and youth groups
alike will provide a great service to youth by accentuating the need for
simplicity. Not only will families and communities be indebted to this new
focus in evangelization, but the Church will too.
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This article is the property of the Department of New Evangelization/ Diocese of Green Bay
