Doreen Dodgen-Magee (left) is a psychologist and public speaker from Portland, Oregon. She loves celebrating people and can often be found, in the middle of the night, leaving sidewalk chalk messages at friends’ homes with her daughter, Kaija. She and her family attend Tigard (OR) Community Friends Church.
Bumper stickers have always fascinated me. It’s convenient, it seems, to send bold, often provocative messages to those you pass after you’ve passed them. No consequences, no opportunities for discussion, no messy interaction, just a message thrown at the world you’re in front of. On a recent jaunt to Portland I was passed by a TriMet bus whose entire back side read, “Teach your family not to share!”
Technologies and electronically driven gadgets have promised us a world of ease wherein simplicity will rule the day and we’ll be more connected to each other than ever. Is this, however, possible or true? Is community building best done in worlds where we do not encounter face to face conversation, conflict, or intimacy?
Literature reviews tell us that increased screen time ushers in decreased social practice and family talk time. We need social practice and talk time, however, because it is in the bumping around of failing and succeeding in our inter-actions with others that we become refined as people. In learning to love and respect others well we learn how to be our most healthy selves—selves that are sturdy and open to vulnerability at the same time. We cannot “become” in the same way with relationships that exist in cyberspace only.
The hard work in being intentional with our use of technology comes in learning to use it with thoughtfulness and care. The many promises made by social networks and cell phone companies to effortlessly connect us to others are driven by an assumption that we will buy something, namely the idea that bigger social networks are better. In this economy, we’re more connected, but we’re not sharing. Not really.
As I reflect on my drive to Portland I feel challenged to learn to share. Face to face. To risk and not edit. To wear my bumper stickers out front and in relationship where real conversation can occur…with you.
