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It's Facebook Official: How Communication Is Changing
01/17/08
It's Facebook Official: How Communication Is Changing
I logged into Facebook the other day and came across an interesting news feed. Apparently, even though my Aunt & Uncle had a wedding more than 20 years ago, it wasn't official until December 26, 2007; at least according to Facebook. I hope their first year of marriage is a good one. Finally their bastard children (Julia you better be laughing) have been vindicated. I think I found this all the more ironic because of what happened to me four days earlier...
My (ex-)girlfriend and I broke up three days or so before Christmas. This is now the 9th time in life I have gone through the infamous "breakup conversation" - it's never fun. But two things happened in this breakup that never happened in any other: she changed her Facebook status in the middle of the (2.5 hour!) conversation1. The most fascinating thing happened because of this: before she even left my house, I had 13 text messages, phone calls, e-mails, or Facebook messages.
All this got me thinking about communication and how it is changing. Out of the 13 communiques, the best by far was where person A saw on Facebook I was "no longer in a relationship." He proceeded to text message person B, who was driving with her sister to South Carolina. Person B then proceeded to text message person C. Person C then left me a voicemail. I was unable to pick up the call due to the fact that all this happened within 10 minutes of the Facebook "change," and as it turned out, I still had about an hour left to the conversation.
But this isn't about breakups, this is about communication, and how it is changing. I came across an article on Newsvine about how computers are writing financial news stories. Why? Because they can publish within .3 seconds of companies' initial post to NYSE & NASDAQ!! This is a huge advantage to hedge traders.
This also makes me reflect on a conversation I was having with a radio friend the other day about how churches and pastors miss the point in communication. Whether good or bad, Americans have about a 7-minute attention span before it "wants" a break2. This is largely due to the fact that most TV shows are 21 minutes long and have 9 minutes of advertising per half hour. Yet pastors wonder why when they get up to speak for 30 minutes (which is actually short for most pastors) people are bored and uninterested.
Communication fails to be communication if it doesn't communicate. I know profound! But seriously, think about that. It's a simple point, but often missed in the communication fields. Pastors fail to communicate by failing to change styles because their arrogance makes them think of course people want to listen to them talk for 45 minutes, they are brilliant. It doesn't take Steve Jobs to tell us that newspapers and book are dying off because people aren't reading. Radio is slowly dying as well.
None of these communication forms will ever die off completely. They will just continue to become less relevant unless they change. The challenge for the next wave of ministers and communicators is to look for ways to communicate in a way that is Facebook official.
1If you are curious about #2, I am sorry to disappoint but this this thread isn't about breaking up. That would be tacky.
2The exception to this would be movies. But frankly, the amount of effort and money it takes to produce movies offset the attention span. People should be able to pay attention if you spend $200 million on what you are doing.
1 comment
· http://www.allenhuntshowsucks.com Pastors fail to communicate by failing to change styles because their arrogance makes them think of course people want to listen to them talk for 45 minutes,
Seriously though, I think we are devolving into a world that is a perpetual now. I love all my iStuff, it's made my life immeasurably better, easier, even healthier. But something is lost also. As Father Campbell said regarding the tension between science and religion in human history: "Where there was once darkness, now there is light; but where there was once light, now there is only darkness."
In a world that is so immediate and so "instant" I think it's harder and harder to find things that are 3-dimensional and in possession of a kind of gravitas. Instant messaging (and instant Facebooking and myspacing and virbing and whatever else) is great stuff but it just skitters along the surface, no deeper than the pixels on the screen.
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01/18/08 @ 12:52 
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