A couple of weeks ago, I experienced the "Twilight Zone" in Sunday School. Even though the room was full of students, there was this strange silence. At first, I couldn't tell what was happening. I know Sunday School is early, but as I looked around at the group, I could tell it wasn't that everyone was tired or bored. Friends were sitting next to friends and everyone seemed fine, except for me. As I looked around the room again, I realized everyone had his or her phone out and was texting away, many of them texting each other!

I experienced a similar phenomenon while I was with some family friends for their daughter's wedding. Their daughter, who had just graduated from college, had all her bridesmaids together at the house to hangout before the rehearsal. This group of girls had been great friends throughout college and loved being with each other. Now that these girls were together, reunited, instead of laughing and telling stories, the room was quiet with just the soft sound of typing while they updated their Facebook pages with their laptops and phones in front of them.

Advertisement

These are just two antidotal encounters of groups of friends who are together, and instead of relating in human-to-human contact, they chose to connect through texting and Facebook. Technology always changes how we communicate, but this new development is changing the ways in which we communicate and connect, as well as changing the definition of friend.

I don't want to be an alarmist, proclaiming the sky is falling. I know we never are going to get back to the days of handwritten letters. In fact, we might never get back to the days of email; but this continued evolution in communication and social networking brings with it some pitfalls of which those of us who love and work with students should be aware. In doing so, we can help them navigate their world and develop socially in a way that reflects their God-given nature.

The 1990s were amazing in the advancement of electronic communication. Car phones and email first showed up on the radar in the early 90s; the World Wide Web became a viable tool by the mid-90s; and by the end of the decade, email, websites and cell phones had become part of our everyday experience. In August 2003, MySpace entered the scene and the social networking phenomenon was underway. MySpace rose in prominence through the 2000s until Facebook took over in 2008. For the past two years, Facebook has been the number one place for students to connect, share life and communicate the large and small parts of their lives with each other.

This incredible rise of social networking is an astonishing thing all by itself, but alongside this development is the rise and proliferation of cell phones. When I talked to the students I work with, many of them have had cell phones since middle school (around 2006) and our middle schoolers have had cell phones since fourth or fifth grade. From the moment they got their cell phones, they have been texting—and at an amazing rate. Many students are texting in the 3,000- to 5000-per-month range and some much higher. When I asked some of them about how many cell phone minutes they use, the overwhelming response was "hardly any."