It was almost 20 years ago that I received a graduate degree in Journalism from San Jose State University. I was so excited as a young, inquisitive student studying what we called the "New Media". Living in what eventually became the Silicon Valley had a certain pre-cyberspace buzz to it.
My specific area of research involved interviewing users of the electronic card catalog at the local public library. As researchers, we found it fascinating that when the new card catalog system was introduced with kiosk terminals, only certain demographic sections used it. Our hypotheses proved accurate. The users were primarily white, highly-educated males. Translation – anyone who had been exposed to a computer at work and was thus was uninhibited to use an electronic system. Back then, only 1 in 50 people elected to use the new "device".
There were those of us who were studying the "Diffusion of Innovations" theory and estimating the pace at which any given innovation would diffuse or spread throughout its potential users. We knew we were looking forward into some kind of uncharted future as if through a telescope. Today, the sensation feels more like we are about to launch off the edge of a cliff with our new wings on, Leonardo di Vinci style.
I have always been interested in looking ahead even though I consider myself moderately low-tech. I can easily get overwhelmed when trying to program any one of the electronic appliances in my home. I love the Internet but I don’t know html and I certainly can’t put up a website in an afternoon. Thus, I would say I’m average when it comes to the embracing of the cyberworld.
But I’ve been thinking lately, compared to the other 4/5s of the world, I think I’m more tech-dependant than I think. And this has caused me to reflect back on the past and peer forward into the future. Our family consists of 2 adults and 2 school age children. We have a 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom home. Thus, we consider ourselves average. What we have physically accumulated has been steady, incrementally, over the course of an almost 20-year marriage.
Recently, however, I’ve begun to notice a dramatic lunging forward in our technologically related purchases. What I mean is that it has dawned on me that we have 4 television sets, 2 of them with video players and 2 of them with DVD players. We also have 4 computers, including 2 laptops. We have multiple cell phones, skype, 4 ipods, and 4 internet access points. We have multi-platform computer applications and DSL broadband hookups. We have a home network with remote printing and uploading options.
If our HP Photosmart 2610 all-in-one printer, fax, scanner copier was to go down, I don’t know how we’d get through an evening. Without our email, we wouldn’t know if our sports practices for the day were on or off. In fact, we wouldn’t even know if they were threatened as we get our weather forecast online. We wouldn’t know which songs were to be practiced at tonight’s music practice for church or what the chords were; those come off the Internet, too. We wouldn’t know whether or not the home Bible study we attend had been moved, as sometimes occurs. Nor would we be able to find the current week’s location without, nor what the day’s school homework assignments were. I wouldn’t have access to the dinner recipes nor could I find out what my bank account balance was after 5 pm.If we’re average, boy have things changed!
While I’ve been busy raising my family, the force and speed with which online technology has become a crucial aspect of everything that is shaping and defining our culture have over taken me like a mammoth tsunami. This prompts a question in my mind. Will convergent technologies revolutionize the Church the way they’ve transformed our home over the course of what amounts to basically a handful of months?
As a researcher, we certainly anticipated such a future. But I can't honestly say we had few mechanismss to anticipate the speed/ pace/ momentum that such technologies would diffuse. Discussion on how emerging technologies and more importantly, their applications and impacts, will redefine the operation of the Church of the future seem scarce. However, it may be worth postulating some questions and those of you who are future oriented and blogging feel free to jump in.
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