Breaking News! Students check facebook more than email, voicemail, and personal mailboxes!
This has been on my mind lately. How does facebook play into the New Evangelization? I think it could be a great tool. I have found it to the easiest way to contact and stay in touch with students. So questions for discussion…
Why the facebook craze? Is it good or bad?
How can we use facebook as a tool for frontline ministry?
Would John Paul II have a facebook account, if alive today? Why or Why not?
3 responses so far ↓
1 Kelly // Feb 28, 2007 at 3:42 am
I think people like Facebook because it contains more personal info. than just e-mail. Humans are intrigued by other human lives; it’s just part of our nature for good or evil. If they weren’t than certain celebrities could not dominate headlines for over a week at a time because people want custody over their body or because they shaved their head. However, privacy settings (I’m told) are higher than My Space and it’s slightly less customizable (ergo, no “pink font on bright pink background” types of pages with music that you have to listen to). Like all internet tools, it can be used well in moderation to keep in touch with old friends and show pictures to loved ones at home. OR it can be used to waste hours of precious time by mindlessly checking out 112 people’s favorite movie lists.
It certainly can be used as a tool for front line ministry. To communicate with students, we need to use the methods they use to communicate–snail mail letters are nice, but they are probably more likely to respond to a facebook message in a timely manner. It is also really helpful, because instead of merely jotting down a first name for a new person I meet with an e-mail address, I can get their full name and Facebook them. A quick glance over their profile helps me to see that they would probably love to join me for a hike on a Saturday, and I might as well send a Facebook invite to them for future events as well. In addition, students definitely “Facebook stalk” me–maybe it’s the first time they would have read a quotation on why we should be beautiful, chaste, women of God or committed Christians. It’s another way of being a witness.
In terms of JPII–I think he liked personal evangelization too much to have a Facebook account with every enthusiastic young Catholic in the world as his “friend.” Facebook is a great TOOL for connecting people who will actually keep in touch or see each other or need to exchange information quickly. But, if you merely use it as a popularity tool to collect “friends” (esp. those you’ve never met), it doesn’t seem to be worthwhile.
Sorry–that was longer than the origional post!!! I guess it just means the topic intrigued me…
2 Justin // Mar 10, 2007 at 9:54 pm
Nathan-
You pose some good questions, I think Facebook is a tool if it leads to “in person encounters” with friends or if this is not possible due to distance-, allows one to keep in touch with their mates.
However, I cannot help but think that “Gaudium Et Spes” alluded to the fundamental criticism of something like Facebook.
I am paraphrasing from memory, but in “Gaudium Et Spes” it mentioned that man is becoming more migratory and such increasing his social network as well as socialization, yet there is not enough development of relationships. It is towards the beginning of this awesome Vatican II document.
I see this trend played out in Facebook and to an extent email- that we are increasing our width/quanity of friendships but what has happened to the depth/quality?
FOCUS is cool because we look at the one-on-one as a building block-
Just some thoughts~
Justin
3 Kelly // Mar 28, 2007 at 2:08 am
Great points (and said much more briefly than my ramble…) I highly encourage you all to read “Gaudium et Spes” (Vatican II document on the role of the Church in the modern world) if you haven’t. It’s brilliant & extremely applicable to our time.
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