Saturday, August 01, 2009
Archbishop issues websites warning
UK Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols of the Catholic Church issued an official warning about the dangers of Facebook and Myspace especially regarding the impact of "transient relationships" on teens moral development. Check out the AP story I found at the Guardian online: Archbishop issues websites warning. Do you agree that SNS encourages a dehumanising of society?
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2 comments:
The archbishop's warning seems odd because my experience of SNS is so unrelated to his concerns. If anything, SNS have allowed me to maintain friendships when geography and laziness (/business) would not have otherwise allowed me to. Granted, these sites didn't exist when I was in my teens, but I don't really see transience as the major problem. Gossip, pettiness, vanity, maybe. Not that high school didn't already have all those things.
The archbishop's warning needs to be coupled with positive statements from the Catholic Church on SNS. Earlier this year Archbishop Celli, who heads the Vatican's Pontifical Council of Social Communication, stated that the quest for human relationships or friendship is a deep human desire. SNS are just a modern day expression of that desire.
"The concept of friendship has enjoyed a renewed prominence in the vocabulary of the new digital social networks that have emerged in the last few years. The concept is one of the noblest achievements of human culture. It is in and through our friendships that we grow and develop as humans"
The warning that needs to go with this is that friendship should not then be trivialized.
As in all forms of communication there is an upside and a downside.
For more information see:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/messages/communications/documents/hf_ben-xvi_mes_20090124_43rd-world-communications-day_en.html
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