"Can I friend you?" is a phrase that I can be pretty sure my grandmother never heard. The social network has already become a huge part of our lives even if we were sure we would never do that kind of thing. Someone asked me the other day "how many friends do you have on facebook?" I replied that I did not know for sure but not many, then I went on line and looked I have 137!!! I had no idea. But I know how it happens, I get the friend request and I think "I don't know them that well maybe not, then I see that I have some of their friends on my list and I worry that they will find out that I didn't "friend" their friend and what does it hurt to have another friend anyway?"
But I have noticed that as people get more friends on their list, their conversation hits are less and their content is less personal. I guess this is to be expected with more "friends" we have to watch what we say. One of my friends made a comment about a certain political party and had a huge backlash with the people on her list. She did not realize that not all her "friends" were in the same political party. Lesson learned. At the school we have blocked facebook (and other things). Now I realize that we will need an overall policy for conduct in the social networks. Who do we have on our lists and is that appropriate? I had 3 or 4 middle school and high school kids on my list (because they asked) and today I dropped them off, since that is probably not appropriate. Then my thought was how does that look to them? They just got dropped from their pastor's "friend list". What a dilemma!
The lesson that we all are learning is that even this very impersonal form of communication has become something that reflects on us. The comments that we make, the comments that others make on our page all of these things reflect on us as people. So as I am thinking of this, social networks are another place where the world see by what we say and do if you and I are "friends" with JESUS!
In Christ,
Paul Hoyer
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