I just finished reading Shane Hipps, Flickering Pixels: How Using Technology Shapes Your Faith.  As a geeky guy, I love technology, flat panel TVs, computers, the internet, my iPhone – pretty much anything that plugs in.  While Shane is not critical of technology per se, he is critical of the adage that the medium is neutral.  I would have to agree with him that the medium does send a message apart from the message itself.  I had just never thought of many of the things he discussed as “media.”  While I didn’t agree with every premise, It was definitely a very thought-provoking read and I would recommend it.

Here are a few of my highlights and notes from the book:

• Media and technology are kind of like Stretch Armstrong: They extend our reach—our words, sounds, images, and even our selves—beyond our normal limits.
• a medium is anything that stretches, extends, or amplifies some human capacity.1
• When we fail to perceive that the things we create are extensions of ourselves, the created things take on god-like characteristics and we become their servants.2Note: refer to greek myth of Narcissus who fell in love with his own image in the water. His falure to understand the medium of a water mirror gave the medium extraordinary power …even power to destroy him.
• This conversation initiated a crisis of faith for me. I began to realize that I had all the answers to the questions no one was asking.
• As McLuhan once observed, “We shape our tools and afterward our tools shape us.”
• Information alone is strength without coordination. We become a danger mostly to ourselves when we have it. Understanding is the ability to coordinate that raw information in meaningful ways. Understanding creates a certain enthusiasm. We can direct our knowledge toward potentially useful ends—but we may also be a danger to others. Wisdom, however, is knowing how, when, and why we use our understanding; wisdom is settling into our understanding without being too enamored by it.
• If we are not alert, the Information Age may stunt our growth and create a permanent puberty of the mind.
• If a picture is worth a thousand words, then images must communicate information more efficiently than words.
• it’s the medium, not the content, that changes us.
• Images give and take away.
• Instead, our beliefs are judged by their fruit—how they change the world while we’re here.
• Direct service to people around us heals our feelings of helplessness and apathy. It is quite possible that the needs in some far-off place are greater. But you aren’t there. You’re here, and there are needs galore in your own backyard. We do what we can, where we are, and watch the world change life by life.
• That intimacy is preserved in that relationship as long as the information remains exclusive. The moment it is available to anyone and everyone is the moment intimacy begins to evaporate.Note: in contrast to Facebook where 400 of your closest friends find out verything at the same time
• In a virtual community, our contacts involve very little real risk and demand even less of us personally.
• Authentic community involves high degrees of intimacy, permanence, and proximity.1
• there is a big difference between being “in touch” and truly connecting with others.
• Reconciliation comes in the context of clear communication, meaningful listening, shared understandings, civility, openness, and a lot of patience.
• The most effective method of conflict resolution always establishes clear rules and boundaries on process long before the content of a dispute is ever discussed. The process is almost always designed to help people gain distance from intense emotions, usually through structured listening and sharing, controlled feedback, and language coaching. When done well, the process will serve to de-escalate emotional tensions long enough to make space for rational dialogue, which greatly increases the chances of resolution. This is another way of saying that the medium is the message. The very way we disagree sends a message, and that process determines the outcome as much or more than the content of our disagreement.
• How we disagree matters more than what we disagree about.
• There is an elastic relationship between access to information and power. In the simplest terms, power is derived from information control. Whenever people have exclusive access to information, they are granted a certain degree of authority, which is why doctors, lawyers, and mechanics receive such deference.
• when Jesus says the Spirit will teach you “all things” that means there is more to come, more that Jesus didn’t say, more insights, expanded knowledge, deeper realities. Jesus is pointing us to a God who keeps communicating an ever-evolving message. That is why the Spirit is given.
• Second, when Jesus says the Spirit will “remind you of everything I have said to you” it means what Jesus said back then is still valid.
• Certainty can be a great friend of arrogance.
• Daring humility shuns boredom, complacency, and endless arguments. Daring humility is honest enough to admit that we see things in a mirror dimly, and bold enough to live a life of deep conviction anyway.
• Jesus is God’s perfect medium—and the medium is the message.
• The church is God’s medium and message.
• Instead of simply resisting or caving in to cultural forces, we are invited to study and understand them. Only then will we learn to use them rather than be used by them.

A group blogging project is going on discussing Flickering Pixels at Church Crunch by John Saddington and a whole host of other bloggers.  Here is a link to the review of the first chapter over a Church Crunch.