I wrote the following in response to a colleague’s reflection about finding a “space for silence” in the midst of a technologically driven world.
I was immediately drawn to your words “a space for silence”. The idea of “spaces” has been intriguing me over this past semester and I believe the practice/discipline of observing silence plays an important part in our search for a reflective, listening community.
I just finished reading an article about technology and its shaping power in our society. The author David Balzer, cited the familiar quote, “The medium is the message” (by Marshal McLuhan). In that quote, McLuhan was suggesting that technology “will always shift a community’s environment and redefine relationships in the process. In other words, we choose our mediums, and then they shape us”. What I found interesting about this article was that Balzer challenged his readers to rethink the relationship between what we believe and the role we allow technology to play in our decision making.
Our ideas and beliefs should be the determining factor of how we use technology instead of the other way around. I’m thinking about your example of the black hole of on-line ideas and how they tunnel our vision – often very narrowly into what we want to see or hear. Your quote suggested that instead of going with the “happy content”, we use these ideas to “challenge, instead of simply to confirm what we already know and believe.” I think your idea of a “space for silence” is the start of what we need in order to use technology critically and wisely. In this space we can take time to value our beliefs, listen to others and broaden our understandings before making technological choices. Your reflection has given richness to my idea of spaces and caused me to think more about what informs and shapes my decisions around the use of technology.