Saturday, April 25, 2015

The Next Big Thing

I was talking with some students the other day and I happened to mention Facebook.  As a group they practically turned up their noses in disgust at the mere name.  "Mr.," one of them said, "no one uses Facebook anymore."

It got me to thinking.  Before Facebook there was MySpace, and I remember hearing the same about that website when Facebook took off.  So I asked the students what social media outlets were popular now, and they all responded with "Snapchat."

"What about Twitter?" I asked.  They all said they didn't use it.  So it seems that modes of communication are a generational thing.  Twitter and Facebook seem to be for the over 25 crowd, while SnapChat and a couple of others are the 'new' thing.

Later in the day I wondered about books.  Most bookstores all over the country have long since closed.  Barnes and Noble is the last major chain, and now they've branched out into coffee and toys in their stores.  People still buy books online, and there's also ebooks, but the audience seems to be dwindling. 

When bookstores dotted the landscape, it was easy for people to go inside, browse and find new things.  Now, unless you specifically look for something, it's hard to find anything new and fresh online.  We are all at the mercy of links, 'suggestions' carefully scripted for us and the like.

I also am cognizant of the fact that most people look for shorter reads now.  The days of the 300+ page book in the mainstream are over.  Most people I know under 20 only read small paragraphs here and there on websites.  Are books an older generational thing?  Many new ebooks are 'interactive' which means they embed songs, music, animations and the like in the text.

Are books of the future basically television lite?  I wonder what this means for our future generations of believers, because Islam is a text heavy religion.  Learning and knowledge are part and parcel of our program.  When I hear about how the different militant groups in the Middle East are 'using social media' to get recruits using videos, twitter feeds and chat rooms to make their points, I ponder over the lack of knowledge that seems to feed off itself.  Slogans are great, but if there is no substance behind the emotion, disaster is sure the follow.  Jazzing up the message with brutality and all that is a poor substance for introspection and deliberate mindfulness.

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