The Advertiser, 20 December 2011
My induction as a Twitterer evoked religious parallels. We become followers of those seeking to maximise their following, and their tweets follow us.
MULTI-TASKING is no longer the dominion of one gender or one generation. Like many screen-agers, my children boast about this “multi-tasking”, juggling multiple screens.
They can send and receive with great dexterity – texting on a mobile phone, while completing a school project on the computer screen, while glancing at the TV screen in the background.
A computer may freeze when too many programs are operating concurrently, or if it is being driven too fast.
But we expect our God-made brains to evolve faster than our man-made technology.
This mismatch was identified last century by scientific genius Albert Einstein when he declared that “it has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity”.
Our real world mimics the virtual world, as our eyes scroll like a mouse, minimising and maximising the multiple screens that surround us.
This multi-focal lifestyle has also become hazardous for parents, who feel hypocritical criticising their children.
Even on a beautiful day, we wind up our car windows so that we can hear the cell phone, the Navigator and the sound system.
Like our children, we see the world through windows, so we cannot hear the bird tweets or smell the roses, literally and metaphorically.
It begs bigger questions: When was the last time that we totally focused on one task? Where does this tunnel of windows lead? What does this bombardment of external stimulation block out?
There does not appear to be any spiritual enlightenment at the end of this endless tunnel. Yet all things spiritual need us to “be still” and focus on our internal light.
I pretend this stillness happens before I sleep, but the phone and laptop screens even follow me there as my “second brain” never sleeps. Even as I sleep, I am still not still, but “on call”.
My recent induction as a Twitterer evoked religious parallels – we become followers of those seeking to maximise their following, and their tweets can follow us everywhere we go.
As we become saturated with these snappy screen messages, we may inadvertently be clicking “unfollow” to the eternal voice which transcends technology and whispers to our soul.
Ironically, Christian followers of the holy spirit would know that during the baptism of Jesus, it was also depicted as a bird.
Have we become sheep and allowed the tweets of the blue bird to drown out this white dove?
Technology is not the inherent problem, as it can be used or abused.
Clergy have embraced Facebook and Twitter to send spiritual messages to their flock once a day rather than a homily once a week.
In order to “be still”, we need to shut down many screens and windows. Paradoxically, high-speed signals to our sensors from these inter-connected technologies may insulate us from the inner peace that comes with stillness.
Without trivialising the debilitation of MS, I worry that this spiritual disconnect will lead to multiple screen-osis of our central spiritual system, as the accumulated and chronic status of sensory overload precludes us from the state of stillness.
We can choose to un-busy ourselves so that next time we are asked how we are, the answer is: “At peace”.