We always walk into the unknown. Although this fact is often obscured by the regular rhythms of daily life, it is sometimes disconcertingly clear to us that we do not know what tomorrow holds. Of course, we now live in a time like this, when nations struggle to manage. the pandemic that has spread around the world in recent weeks.
Suddenly we are living what seems to be an interrupted time, our regular schedules are confusing and unrecognizable, we struggle to find new rhythms while the old ones are interrupted, time itself seems to distort unpredictably, our current crisis, yet it also gives us the opportunity to reconsider our old habits and practices, or what we call “normal”. Perhaps many of us recognize that we could have better organized our days and structured our time. Most of us will surely learn from this prolonged and unprecedented interruption. of daily life, and it would be good if we did.
- In particular.
- We can take the opportunity to rethly our relationship with digital media.
- In recent years.
- The place of digital in our lives has become increasingly worrying.
- Thanks to mobile devices and almost ubiquitous access to wireless networks.
- The Internet is no longer a reality.
- To be a place that we visit occasionally from our desks to become a ubiquitous reality.
- Paving the way for almost every conceivable dimension of the human experience.
- As digital media has involved our lives.
- They have raised a number of moral.
- Legal.
- Philosophical and even theological questions about the nature of privacy.
- The health of civil society.
- The value of human labor.
- The state of artificially intelligent machines.
- And the conditions of human prosperity.
Under intense and justified pressure to stay physically away from each other, most of us now turn to digital tools to stay connected and perform as much as possible the activities of daily life. can and cannot do for us and how we can use them intelligently and creatively in times of uncertainty and anxiety.
In the coming weeks and months, there will be a lively debate about the deployment of the digital surveillance device (many of them already exist in our applications and devices) to monitor, monitor and contain the spread of COVID-19. If this is a critical debate that deserves our attention, I will focus on the most prosaic uses of digital in our times of crisis, namely most of us will use digital technology, even more than usual, to be informed and connected.
In the face of a health crisis it is essential that we have as much access as possible to the best information, so that we can take care of ourselves, our families and our communities, on the one hand, digital technology presents us with a minimum effort, we can follow the work of leading epidemiologists, virologists and public health specialists around the world. We can also support national and international health organizations and local health and emergency management authorities. we can easily find misinformation, some of which are potentially dangerous to the health of our bodies and the health of society. As I write these words, health officials warn of the dangers of trying to bring down medications and therapies, which some are now turning desperately and panicked at. It also doesn’t take much work to find unfounded theories about the origins of the virus or, more likely, to find others that minimize its deadly consequences. Uencias.
The need to navigate wisely in this information landscape is not new, digital communication tools have always presented users with the risk of finding misleading or even dangerous information, a pandemic only increases the need for discernment, but the digital media environment also presents us with other risks Even if we limit ourselves to strong and responsible sources of information , we could still find ourselves in a distorted relationship with information technology.
Many of us can, at this time, obsessively search our news channels for the latest information available, perhaps without being able to escape, as we talk about not being able to escape the site of a train accident. , was designed to induce exactly this state of compulsive commitment, even in ordinary times. The danger is now more serious, as we are all trying to find our way without a reliable map. But our desire to keep us as informed as possible can also paralyze us. or get emotionally overwhelmed.
We also need to be very clear about the information that can and cannot do anything for us, we certainly need good information to know how to mitigate the spread of the virus, we need to know what local governments are demanding from their citizens. to know how we can continue to serve our communities. Good sources of information meet these needs. However, not necessarily much and better information alleviates our anxiety or brings us peace. We may not have exposed it that way, but if we are honest, many of us are looking for information in the hope of dispelling fears or taking control of a problem. A terribly uncertain future. But it’s asking for information they can’t give us. If we find ourselves in this situation, what we have to do is set aside our devices and pray for our fear and anxiety.
It may be wise to set aside a certain time each day to check for the latest developments or to cultivate the discipline of leaving our information streams when needed. We can do well, for example, to quickly check certain reliable sources sometime in the morning, and then continue our day. Unless you are a health care professional or emergency planner, it will not be helpful to know the exact number of coronavirus patients in each condition throughout the day. Unless you are a legislator or a political expert, my day should probably not be devoted to the topical partisan discussions in search of possible solutions. At a time of abundant information, we need the virtue of knowing when we have enough information to act. As intuitive as it may seem, there comes a time when too much information becomes an obstacle to action.
In addition to using our digital tools to get information, many of us now turn to screens to stay connected with friends and family. In fact, many churches are now conducting their activities virtually to help mitigate the spread of the virus. We should not underestimate the value of these tools at this time. We are social creatures, and camaraderie and community are essential to our well-being. Some have noticed that the now colloquial expression of social distance can be called better physical distance. What we need is to remain physically separate but if we want to succeed for a while, we will also have to remain socially present with each other.
Most of us are already well trained in the ability to stay digitally connected. Text messages, social media, and apps like FaceTime have become a common feature of our lives and we use them more than ever. Video conferencing tools have proven to be particularly valuable in those early days of relative isolation. These tools, however imperfect, ensure that we can interact with each other in real time and comfort us with a smile and the sound of a beloved voice. We do well to allow ourselves such comfort.
But here there is also an opportunity for clarifications and adjustments. Forced to depend on the digital media of the company for a long time, we can also have a better appreciation of physical presence. Do humans thrive when everyone needs it? both physical and spiritual? they are explained and answered. We are creatures incarnate. Our incarnate state, along with the rest of God’s creation, was declared good from the beginning. Our hope is not to be definitively separated from our body, but to participate in the resurrection of the body and in eternal life. Likewise, in our current state, our bodies are an essential part of our humanity, and rightly so, we will find ourselves longing for the physical presence of our beloved friends and loved ones. As we rejoice to hear the Word preached through our screens, we rightly wish for the day when we can be surrounded by the voices of our brothers and sisters singing praises to God, when we can reach out the hands of fellowship. one another, when we can again withhold the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper and taste these divinely appointed means by God’s grace.
We can also rediscover the difference between loneliness and loneliness, the first so destructive of human well-being and the second so essential to it. For a long time, we try to stay connected superficially, leaving no time for loneliness. Little task if, at this difficult time, we rediscover the limits of digital communication technologies and put them back in place.