Remembering a Prophet
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Remembering a Prophet

This year marks the 20th anniversary of Neil Postman’s death at age 72. Postman spent most of his career at New York University as a Professor of Media Ecology and wrote more than 20 books, mostly about the effects of the electronic media on our lives. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age…

Holy indifference
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Holy indifference

The word “indifference” has a bad reputation. It’s difficult, in fact, to think of any context where the word is used positively, or of any situation where someone would be happy to be described as indifferent. An exception might be in those situations where we must choose between things of little consequence. If it’s a…

Social media during Synod? Pray rather than post
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Social media during Synod? Pray rather than post

A recent article in The Atlantic was titled “Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid.” In this article, author Jonathan Haidt uses the tower of Babel story as a metaphor for how social media has shaped the current context such that people are “disoriented, unable to speak the same language…

Loss and connection in the time of covid

Loss and connection in the time of covid

I met James in 2008 when I interviewed him for a job. He was about my age. He had a son about my son’s age. He was recently divorced, too, just like me. He liked politics, Star Trek, old movies and NFL football, and I liked three out of four of those things, too. It…

The truth in a preposterous story

The truth in a preposterous story

The recently released Netflix movie Don’t Look Up is a satirical film featuring a star-studded cast of actors. It’s a gripping story about a comet heading for earth as a metaphor for climate change, but it also provides a profound commentary on American politics, entertainment, and social media. Leonardo DiCaprio plays an astronomer named Dr….

Social media and the afterlife
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Social media and the afterlife

Have you made a list of all your social media accounts? Does a loved one know where you do online banking or hold digital assets? Have you chosen someone to gain access to your phone once you’re gone? The effects of a global pandemic have hit every corner of our lives, from the workplace to…

Tilting the floor of human behaviour
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Tilting the floor of human behaviour

A recent Netflix documentary titled The Social Dilemma interviews several engineers who initially helped build social media platforms, but who are now sounding the alarm on their creations. The film features prominent designers from Google, Facebook and Twitter, including the engineer who created the pervasive “like” button and the inventor of the “infinite scroll.” The…

Buckle up!
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Buckle up!

Justin Trudeau is currently promoting an app for my phone that will notify me if I’ve been in contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19. My iPhone is flipping on the microphone every so often to listen in – or maybe it isn’t – you can ask Siri. I’ll be going home soon…

Competing Rights in a Media World
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Competing Rights in a Media World

I find it a challenge to balance staying informed about news and thinking within my faith community, being alert to other perspectives, and engaging in the public conversations that are shaping our society. This month, Christian Courier celebrates 75 years of connecting and building a community. Without it, we readers would be less connected and weaker in…

Vaccines and Social Media
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Vaccines and Social Media

In a recent column (“Anti-Vax Reversal?,” June 8), I ended with the hope that a vaccine for COVID-19 might be developed quickly. Scientists are working on many possible vaccines in an amazing time frame. Our government has partnered with multiple companies to make a vaccine available for Canadians, and the Americans have implemented “Operation Warp…

Losing Perspective
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Losing Perspective

To paraphrase Luke Skywalker: “Amazing: every word of what I wrote there . . . was wrong.” Looking around at social media just five years later, there’s more division, more arguing, more yelling than ever before. People are not breaking down walls, they’re reinforcing them. Isolating themselves in echo chambers where the only ideas they encounter are the ones they agree with and where every voice is a familiar and reassuring one.

Sanity amid cynicism
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Sanity amid cynicism

Instant info-gratification has its own perils, but when current events take a dark turn, watch out. In the wake of the election, my Twitter feed became a dark place. Snark turned to cynicism. Debate turned shouty and insulting. Trolls abounded.