Is Facebook the root of all evil?

Lent starts next week.  The fog-laden air of Sewanee is abuzz with Lenten discipline ideas.  The old standbys are still around: sugar, caffeine, alcohol, cursing, etc.  But in the past few years, with increasing frequency, Facebook has become something to jettison during Lent.  As I was pondering this, many conversations with friends (leaders in the church and the secular world) who love to hate Facebook drifted back into my consciousness.  I will agree that Facebook can be a delightful way to fritter away time.  It can beckon me from my theological texts with a siren call that is hard to ignore.  But to give it up altogether or to not even venture into it's world at all is unthinkable to me.

I'll admit that I am an extrovert.  I love to connect with people.  But I also genuinely delight in knowing what is happening in the lives of my friends.  I want to pray specifically for a cousin suffering with a migraine, a friend on a long trip who has a carsick child, a colleague who has taken a new position, or a teenager fighting against peer pressure.  If it weren't for Facebook, I wouldn't even know these things were happening, much less be able to pray about them. 

This community can't be denied or ignored if we really want to be the body of Christ.  I'm a proponent of meeting people where they are.  A tremendous amount of us are on Facebook - why not connect there?  If I gave up Facebook for Lent, I would lose track of dozens of good friends and hundreds of others about whom I care for the entire 40 days.  My schedule just does not permit me to connect individually with each of them in another way as regularly as Facebook does. 

I know that many people argue that connection on Facebook is artificial and limiting.  To some extent that is true.  Any communication without body language or face-to-face accountability is lacking, but that includes the telephone, letters, emails, carrier pigeon, etc.   Facebook is a real community.  People go there with regularity, share their joys and sorrows, post pictures of their lives, and connect and re-connect with friends and family.  According to one study (http://mashable.com/2011/11/18/facebook-stats/), 52% of Facebook users log on daily.  That is REAL interaction - no, it isn't traditional in the this-is-how-we-used-to-do-it way, but it IS interaction.  I have made friends on Facebook with whom I feel very closely connected. 

Yes, Facebook can be a distraction - but it doesn't have to be.  Even when it IS a distraction, it is a distraction that shares information about the people in your life that mean something to you.  Of the distractions I can list, that is one I can live with.  Technology is not going to stop moving forward.  Some technology is helpful, and some is scary and limiting.  I'm going to continue to cheer for technology that allows us to connect with each other, share joys and sorrows, encourage each other, and pray for each other in meaningful ways.  This Lent, I'm giving up meat and keeping time with my friends and family - see you on Facebook!