When it comes to communication, the pace of innovation is unlike anything else.  We have an insatiable desire to connect with one another on this planet.  Consider the following:

• the radio took 38 years to reach 50 million users
• the television took 13 years
• the Internet took 4 years
• Facebook did it in 5 months

Facebook has now surpassed Google in Internet traffic, with 500 million users spending 500 billion minutes per month on the website.  How do you even compute that and allow that number to sink in?  Where does this end?

Going further… if Facebook was a country and all its users actual citizens, it would be the 3rd largest in the world.

Keep in mind that with the growth of social networking, television didn’t just go away.  The growth has been additional.  We have more channels to distract our days away with things we can’t really remember a day later.

It goes beyond just Facebook and social networks though.

We now consume more information (facts, images, song lyrics, etc) in a single day than a person living in an urban setting 100 years ago might accumulate in a year.  But how much do we know deeply?  Have we simply become a ‘jack of all trades but master of none’?  When I read a book written 100 years ago, I notice an immediate difference in the depth of the author and the weight of each sentence, compared with those today.  You might have the same experience.

There’s an interesting article here: The ‘Superficial’ Webby Mind that has captures some key points regarding the onslaught the Internet has had on our ability to actually think coherently, originally and deeply.  The author points out the fact that he has been happier since spending less time online.

I am curious as to how our age – its breakneck pace, full of sound bytes and headlines – is impacting our ability to actually hear the voice of and word of God.  People report feeling naked when they are disconnected from the web, email and their mobile phone.  There are so many voices clamouring for our attention, promising not to intrude too deeply…  like a swarm of locusts they descend on us daily, replaying in our restless minds as we lay down our heads to rest and no doubt infiltrating our dreams (after all, advertisers don’t spend millions on ads because they don’t work).

At the risk of sounding too shrill, it appears that, collectively, we’re losing our minds.  Do we run to the hills or curl up in a cave and hope this fad blows over?  The truth is that it’s not a fad, but a reality of our present day.  But still, it is worth realizing trends such as these to ensure we walk carefully and wisely.  So much time is flittered away in non-essentials.   We need to be proactive and thoughtful, not distracted and chaffy.

“The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign LORD, “when I will send a famine through the land–not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD.” – Amos 8:11