He said he had lost his daughter seven months ago. She was two and had died in an accident. The rest of us in our small group were parents. It was easy to empathise. We wept with him.
We were all at a Christian publishing conference. Participants had come from various countries in Asia. Folks had spent a lot of time and money to be there. Technology would have allowed us to confer online but the organizers believed that there was still a place for face-to-face meetings. We spent most of the time talking about editing and marketing. We could have done that online. But we wouldn’t have been able to have shared our lives the way we did with the brother who had lost his girl. We would have been able to have attended to business with some form of video conferencing. But we wouldn’t have been able to connect relationally, and relationships are everything in Christian life and ministry.
So much of communication today is computer mediated. Computer-mediated communication has many advantages. Relatively cheap and high speed,
The Internet offers a low-cost and in many respects egalitarian way of connecting with millions of one’s fellow citizens, particularly those with whom one shares interests but not space or time. (Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone, New York, NY: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2000, 174).
The publishing conference had about 60 participants coming from 13 countries. Imagine how much money would have been saved if we had connected online. And although airfares are much more affordable in an era of budget airlines, it is still a lot of money, especially for those coming from countries where the monthly income is low. And there is also the problem of the carbon footprint of air travel.
Nevertheless the Bible recognises that there is a level of human interaction that can only be done face-to-face. Here is the apostle John in 2 John 12:
I have much to write to you, but I do not want to use paper and ink. Instead, I hope to visit you and talk with you face to face, so that our joy may be complete. (NIV)
John uses the medium of paper and ink but recognises that there are things that can only be communicated face to face. Modern science concurs:
The poverty of social cues in computer-mediated communication inhibits interpersonal collaboration and trust, especially when the interaction is anonymous and not nested in a wider social context. Experiments that compare face-to-face and computer-mediated communication, confirm that the richer the medium of communication, the more sociable, personal, trusting, and friendly the encounter. (Putnam, Bowling Alone, 176.)
Interestingly, computer-mediated communication may be more efficient in solving some problems, but the lack of emotional connection cripples the trust needed to implement decisions.
Computer-based groups are quicker to reach an intellectual understanding of their shared problems probably because they are less distracted by “extraneous” social communication—but they are much worse at generating the trust and reciprocity necessary to implement that understanding. (Putnam, Bowling Alone, 176).
Of course video conferencing through programmes like Skype does enable one to see whom he or she is talking to. I initiated my first Skype call recently when I called son Andrew to wish him happy birthday. Previously I had barged in when mum was on Skype with him. I enjoyed the conversation we had. Audio plus video sure beats audio alone. But it is still not the same as talking to him if he were in the room with me.
…experimental evidence suggests that the negative effects of computer-mediated communication — depersonalisation, psychological distance, weak social cues, and so on — are reduced but not eliminated even by high-quality video. (Putnam, Bowling Alone, 177.)
We are not here arguing that we should not use computer-mediated communication. We are only arguing that as computer-mediated communication gets more accessible and efficient, we do not make the mistake of thinking that it makes face-to-face communication unnecessary.
…it is a fundamental mistake to suppose that the question before us is computer-mediated communication versus face-to-face communication. Both the history of the telephone and the early evidence on Internet usage strongly suggest that computer-mediated communication will turn out to complement, not replace, face-to-face communities. (Putnam, Bowling Alone, 179.)
The publishing group I work with doesn’t organise publishing conferences often, maybe once in two or three years. But these conferences are critical for our life as a community and for the work we seek to do. This conference allowed me to rejoice with those who rejoiced. I met many old friends and made some significant new friendships. And it allowed me to share the grief of a brother who had suffered horrendous loss.