Earlier this week I found myself in a phone conversation with someone with over a decade of experience in  church leadership. Yes, we were on the phone talking about social media, which just underscores my perpetual point about choosing communication tools wisely and well. Among other things, she was concerned about  the questionable quality of interaction among Christians that sometimes shows up on social media. “It’s much too snarky, too negative,” she said.  My response? “Please do not blame the tools.”

I pressed for more information.

Was the edginess coming from GenXers or Millennials? If so, they might characterize it as their form of humor.  Was the negativity coming from those in church leadership? If so, they might characterize it as blowing off steam. What happens if you respond with concern, either in public or through a back channel like email or private message? Have you considered offering the option of continuing the conversation by phone or in person?

The question behind my questions: are you willing to view social media as a tool for ministry?

Over the past four years of engagement with social media, I’ve had the privilege of observing people reach out to one another  in response to posts that were raw expressions of pain. I, too, have been the grateful recipient of tender outreach when I’ve jammed my frustration du jour into 140 characters.  And I prayerfully hope I’ve provided such comfort for others, especially those for whom gallows humor is a coping mechanism for living a life of faith these days.

On social media, as in daily life offline, we choose the lens that informs our vision. When it comes to social media, I suggest choosing to look through the lens of ministry and then answering the invitation to love one another.

Meredith,

Alas, it’s time to bring our blog-alogue about social media to a close.  I think it’s been entertaining and thoroughly informative, and many followers of this blog feel the same way, judging by the many comments we’ve had to these posts.  We’re not finished with the subject by any means; you’ll be posting about social media here in the future.  But I’m going to end the blog-alogue part of it with one final question.

First, a summary.  In the past couple of months, we’ve talked about a vision for social media, its Ignatian character, giving it up for Lent, social media tools, and models.  My last question is one that’s been lurking in my mind all along, and I’ll bet it’s occurred to many readers as well: where do I find the time to do all this?

Time is precious.  I can’t keep up with the blogs I want to follow.  I don’t look at my Facebook page very often. I neglect Twitter.  So — how can I fit social media into my life?

Jim

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Jim,

Is there a sentient person alive today who doesn’t wish for more time? Given how calibrated time is a human fabrication, you’d think our forebears would have granted us more than 24 hours in a day.  Alas, they did not.  And what, pray tell, would we do with that “extra” time? Me? I’d probably get more sleep or deep clean my bathroom, thus raising the issue of priorities.

Once again, I’m going to say discernment is at the core of deciding how and when to fit social media into daily life.  Social media certainly seem to require an overwhelming amount of time. In addition to the growing number of tools, technology has changed the way we deal with time.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how “real time” isn’t even real time as I’ve experienced it in the past. I’ve been pondering how asynchronous communication, such as that which (allegedly) occurs in the digital world, can actually feel synchronous.

Digital technology has also re-shaped expectations about response rate.

Post something on Twitter or Facebook and anyone paying attention in that moment  may respond immediately.  As a result, communication feels faster than fast.  More present. More real.  Real presence? But post a blog comment or send e-mail, and you might get a response hours or a day later. Behold a new source of social anxiety: What? You didn’t respond instantly to my post or e-mail?  What does that mean? Are you ignoring me?

What to do?  You can reduce anxiety by knowing why you want to use social media and then choosing platforms (i.e., tools) accordingly.

If, for example, you decide to use Twitter or Facebook lists as news feeds, then scan what’s there as frequently as you might read a daily print newspaper.

If, for example, you want to have conversations with like-hearted folks, then you’ll need to cultivate a consistent presence. Remember: whatever happens in “real” community will happen in a virtual community.  You cannot wander in and mostly out of a community and expect to be viewed as a member — not in the physical world and not online, although online community tends to be more forgiving of wanderers.

In either event, whether you want to use social media to retrieve content or engage in conversation, you can reduce time pressure by integrating it into the way you routinely engage with the world.  You’ve already done this with the telephone and with e-mail, so you know how to do this.  Don’t make social media into something different, separate, or special.

And here are some practical solutions to social media time management:

• Use Tweetdeck or HootSuite to manage content from and post content to all your social media accounts.  My Tweetdeck is configured into 14 columns, one of which is exclusively devoted to accounts delivering secular and religion news.  It’s also set up so I can post from four different Twitter accounts and LinkedIn.

• Use Google Reader to feed blogs you want to read into a desktop reader rather than cluttering your e-mail box. Periodically review and unsubscribe to blogs you never read.

• Sort Facebook friends into groups and reconfigure your news feed so you see only what you want to read. My news feed is configured so I get news/posts from organizations and publications only.  Posts from people about their puppies, gardens, and Jesus show up in groups.

• Either delete or don’t stress about accounts you never or rarely look at.  No one is taking attendance!

• Set up and stick to a schedule for reading and commenting on blogs, Facebook posts, or tweets. You don’t even have to do this every day. I’m only on social media all day and much of the night because church communications is my ministry and I love it. What blesses me beyond measure may seem  like your worst nightmare.

• Build social media Sabbaths and sabbaticals into your use, but if you’ve developed a presence, don’t disappear. Just as you’d record an “on vacation” message on voice mail, let people know when you’re taking a break.

These are some practical ways to fit social media into your life, but only if you want it to be there at all. Unless you’re a digital strategist, a community manager,  or love using social media to connect, you do not have do any of this.

That’s right — you don’t have to use social media. Go ahead and delete your Twitter and Facebook accounts.  No one’s salvation is jeopardized by opting out of social media, except possibly mine?!?

Meredith

Meredith,

Easter greetings!  I wish you the joy of the season.

In this blog-alogue we’ve talked about “why” of social media, and last time you described some of the tools–the “how.”  Now I’d like to ask about “where.”  Can you point us to organizations that have used social media  particularly well?  I’m especially interested in places where it’s used to build a community among people with common spiritual interests.

Jim

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Jim,

And also with you! (Yes, I plan to continue responding this way . . . indefinitely!)

Social media has been around for less than a decade and many organizations are still in the throes of figuring out how to use it to build community. The ones that succeed, are those that recognize and honor time-tested principles of community organizing and development.

Not every group will become a community. Common interests might be necessary, but are not a sufficient reason for a community to emerge. Communities emerge when interaction among members is personal and ongoing.  I’ve observed how this holds true when individuals form groups online. I’ve also observed, with no shortage of  sociological glee, how social media enhances the speed with which interaction becomes personal, heartfelt, and ongoing.

Organizations that use social media particularly well to build community will:

• carefully assess which social media tools would work best for the group they hope will become a community, and then choose one as the primary location for community development.
• focus on generating and sustaining conversation, rather than broadcasting content on that primary location.
• use community managers to support and encourage community development.
• experiment with different ways to generate involvement, quickly ditching whatever doesn’t work.

I’m sure another social media enthusiast would come up with different examples, but I hope we’d agree that communities don’t get established by fiat. Individuals form groups and sometimes those groups become communities.  Social media helps move the process along, but that shouldn’t stop us from praying, “God, come to my assistance. Lord, make haste to help me.”  Can I get an amen?

Meredith

While we’re on the subject of social media, I thought I’d point to a couple of notable digital projects by Loyola Press, the sponsor of this website.

The Press’s 3-Minute Retreat has just won the 2012 Wilbur award for web-based communications in multimedia or online video from the Religion Communications Council.  This is a pretty big deal.   The Council is also giving awards this year to CBS News, Entertainment Weekly, and the Oscar-nominated film The Help.  The 3-Minute Retreat combines music, scripture, and reflective questions.  A new one is posted every morning.

The other project is a contest for students and teachers to produce the best short video that answers the question “Where do you find God?”  Entries are posted here, and if you look at a couple of them, you’ll see that this contest is incredibly cute and thoroughly charming.

Meredith,

In this blog-alogue we’ve been talking mainly about the why of social media.  Why it’s important, what you can do with it.  There seem to be new social media tools emerging every day.  My question is about getting started. I began with blogging.  Is there another way to get started with social media? What do you need to know about yourself to get started with these tools?

Jim

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Jim,

Not only do new social media emerge every day, but existing ones seem to morph almost as quickly.  In the world of online social networking, something is always changing, usually in response to issues raised via social media by its users!

Such changeability highlights the importance of making discernment a component of getting started.  Self-awareness and deeper self-knowledge is as valuable in this domain as it is in the rest of life. The more you know about yourself, the better you’ll be able to choose among social media.  I recommend people new to social media – and anyone feeling at an impasse – make time to explore these issues:

• How do you best receive and retain information?  Are you a visual, auditory, or kinesthetic learner?
• What’s your favorite mode of communication?  Are you more likely to pick up the phone or write a letter or e-mail?  Are you long-winded or brief and to-the-point?
• How do you feel about groups? Are you energized by interacting with lots of people or do you prefer observing and listening?  Extrovert or an introvert?
• What’s your tolerance for technology?  Are you eager to explore online options or do you wish it would all disappear?  Are you willing to learn or happy to let technology pass you by?
• How do you typically find God in your life?  Are you engaged primarily at a sensory level or a cognitive one?  If both, then in what proportion?

These are questions I ask whenever people tell me they’ve tried social media and it didn’t work. Without fail, I quickly discovered they’ve chosen a social media tool that’s incompatible with how they typically engage with the world. No surprise, this disconnect shows up in other ways and places. Please ask me about why I insist virtual community is real community.

Know thyself . . . and choose social media platforms from that vantage point. It’s a great way to get started without getting stuck.

Meredith

Meredith,

I had a thought after reading your answer to my last question in this blog-alogue about social media.  You talked about using social media to enhance our relationship with God and to help us serve and support others.  I thought that this was a very “Ignatian” attitude.

We like all things Ignatian here at IgnatianSpirituality.com, so how about giving us an Ignatian take on social media.  Can we use it to advance Ignatian values such as finding God in all things, being contemplatives in action, and living as men and women for others?  To put it another way, what would Ignatius do with it?

Jim

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Jim,

Your question about what Ignatius would have done with social media reminds me of some fun we had during the weekly Twitter-based church social media (#ChSocM) chat.  I asked, “If the first 12 apostles & the Marys had social media, which platform(s) would they use? Why & how?”

Responses were brilliantly hilarious, revealing participants’ keen understanding about how  different and distinct social media tools serve different and distinct purposes.  Social media tools are not interchangeable. (Treat yourself to reading  a summary of the twit and twisdom from that chat here. )

Now you’ve got me wondering how St. Ignatius and two more favorite saints, St. Benedict of Nursia and St. Teresa of Avila, might have used social media.  My guess:

St. Benedict might have assigned some Scriptorium-bound monk the task of setting up a Facebook page to educate those outside monasteries about the Rule, and to provide a forum to discuss ora et labora (“pray and work”) in secular life. Given her penchant for snappy comebacks,  I’m thinking St. Teresa of Avila would have  had a robust, exuberant presence on Twitter.  (I could be projecting.)  As for St. Ignatius, my money is on him going for blogging, since it’s the perfect medium for telling stories about a life of faith in progress.

Contemplating this leads me right back to my earlier definition: Social media are online (or digital) technologies (or platforms) that can be used to generate and sustain conversation and build community.

Strategies for using social media, prayerfully developed in alignment with a particular charism, will advance that charism. And so, using social media to advance Ignatian values requires first knowing what they are, and then committing to  live every aspect of life in alignment with them. From there, it’s simply (?) a matter of choosing social media tools that fit the communicator’s style and skill set.

To paraphrase Ignatius, “All digital technologies can be seen as gifts of God, created for us, to be the means by which we can come to know him better, love him more surely, and serve him more faithfully.  As a result, we ought to appreciate and use social media tools insofar as they help us toward our goal of loving service and union with God. But insofar as social media tools might hinder our progress toward our goal, we ought to let them go.”

Doesn’t this sound like something Ignatius would have written in a blog post? Clearly, it’s way too long for a tweet!

Meredith

Meredith,

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday!  Here I am, still getting used to the Kindle I got for Christmas, and Lent is here.  Can the Fourth of July be far behind?

My question has to do with Lent — in a way.  Last week, when we started our blog-alogue about using social media, you urged us to think conceptually about social media instead of worrying about technical details.  Look at what we can do before talking about how to do it.

But I think there’s a conceptual issue right there at the beginning.  Many people perceive social media as yet another source of busyness and distraction.  It’s among the burdens of modern life. They report feeling so pressured to keep up with social media, that when Lent comes around, unplugging from the grid seems like a good idea.  Give up Facebook.  Stop reading all those tweets.  Limit email.  Stop texting so much.  Think about God.

My question: is this a helpful way to think about social media–as something you might give up for Lent?

Jim

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Jim,

Simply and bluntly put:  No, it’s not helpful to think of social media as something to renounce for Lent. I think it’s more helpful and more accurate to think of social media as means to:

• express faith and devotion
• participate in community
• receive support for spiritual practices

As people of faith, we’re called to do exactly this during Lent, and I’ve seen social media  make this possible. Many examples of expressing faith, participating in community, and receiving support for spiritual practices can be found right here on dotMagis (Some Other Ideas for Lent), but you and faithful readers already know this.

When it comes to busyness and distraction during Lent, social media isn’t the problem. The problem is how some people will dive into any activity without much discipline or consciousness.  Social media use is only one example. Free will is such a pesky gift, isn’t it?

Instead of unplugging from all social media, why not use it to focus on whatever will enhance Lent and block out everything else? It’s really quite easy to be selective about what shows up on the tiny silver screen. All social media platforms provide ways to block distractions.  Spending too much time playing games on Facebook? Simply remove or block the apps for 40 days.  Spending too much time reading news feeds or celebrity gossip on Twitter?  Block those particular accounts for 40 days.  (And then, consider keeping those distractions blocked for another 50 days during Easter.)  Me? I’ll be pinning images on the Pinterest boards set up for #ChSocM (Church Social Media) enthusiasts.

To generate heightened consciousness, I recommend contemplating these critical questions: Is social media helping to enhance my relationship with God or is it distracting me from my relationship with God? Do social media platforms help me serve and support others?

I believe these are the questions we need to be asking ourselves on a regular basis, throughout the year – and not just relative to social media use during Lent. Over the years I’ve observed well-meaning people get so caught up in parish-based programs during Lent (e.g., parish missions, soup and scripture suppers, Stations of the Cross, community service projects) that they’re still dead from exhaustion long after Jesus is Risen Indeed.

Meredith

On Sunday the Ignatian Prayer Adventure retreat begins here on IgnatianSpirituality.com. I hope you take a look at it and consider following it through the Lent-Easter season. Prayer material will be posted every day for the next eight weeks.

The retreat follows the design of St. Ignatius’s Spiritual Exercises. Here’s what you can expect to find every day:

A Grace to Pray For. Ignatius said that we should directly ask God for the grace we want to receive. Different graces are associated with each part of the Exercises, and you’ll find these graces every day. For example, the grace to pray for on Sunday is “to be more aware of how God is near; to trust in God’s personal care and love for me.”

A Reading. Most of these are scripture passages. Some are contemplations and meditations from The Spiritual Exercises.

A Reflection. These are quotes, prayers, Ignatian exercises, or other material related to the subject of the day.

There’s more: every week you can watch short videos by Paul Campbell SJ, Vinita Wright, and me about that week’s theme. We’ll also be writing on our blogs: Days of Deepening Friendship (Vinita) and People for Others (Paul), as well as dotMagis.

You can spend as much or as little time on this material as you wish. You can have a fine retreat if you just pray for the day’s grace and read the reading. If you have the time and inclination, you can keep a prayer journal and spend 30 to 40 minutes a day in prayer, as people do when they are making the Spiritual Exercises. Read this page Before You Begin for some ideas about praying this retreat.

If you can, try to visit the retreat pages every day (or most days). The retreat is a version of the Spiritual Exercises. It’s adapted from the excellent book The Ignatian Adventure, a presentation of the Spiritual Exercises by the author and spiritual director Kevin O’Brien, SJ. The Exercises have a structure and direction. If you follow An Ignatian Prayer Adventure for the next two months, you’ll experience many of the graces of the Exercises.

So please visit the retreat here on Sunday. If your friends and colleagues are looking for a good Lenten program, tell them to come too.

Meredith,

I’m inspired by your passionate interest in social media, and I’m looking forward to learning about it.  We’ll be doing this blog-alogue periodically over the next month or two.  Let’s get started.

So — I think I’m a web savvy guy.  I blog.  I’m on the internet all day.  I use the web for news, music, entertainment, all kinds of information.  I use Skype to talk to my kids in other states.  I read books on my Kindle.  Now people are saying I need to get up to speed with social media.  What are they talking about?

Jim

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Jim,

I’m delighted to be having this conversation here.  I love how you characterize me as passionate about social media. That, I am!

My adventures with these online technologies began long before they were called social media. Back in 1993, I was actively involved with a community that gathered on Compuserve to provide information and support to one another about health. (I wasn’t the only one, but certainly one of the few talking about faith and healing, but that’s another story.)

Fast forward to 2007 — the year I launched my personal blog. I quickly added LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook to the mix. These days I maintain accounts on quite a few social networking platforms, some I use a lot; others not so much. Some accounts are for me; others for groups or organizations. Much has changed in five years, often too quickly to track in real time. (Let’s talk about what happens to conventional notions of time online.)

The technology has changed and so has the culture of engagement. As a sociologist, I’m forever fascinated by the socio-cultural dimensions and dynamics of social media. As a person of faith, I’m excited what social media makes possible for Christians in general and Catholic Christians in particular.

So much for preamble.

You ask, “what are they talking about?”  I say, “it depends on who tells you to get up to speed.”  When I implore web-savvy people to get involved with social media, I first want to make sure our conversation is grounded in this definition:

Social media are online (or digital) technologies (or platforms) that can be used to generate and sustain conversation and build community. Social media is also used to “broadcast”  information.

Next, to move the conversation forward, I ask folks to do these things from the get-go:

• know that digital, online social media platforms (e.g., Facebook, Google Plus, Pinterest, Twitter, YouTube) are tools.
• realize these tools need to be used along with — and do not necessarily replace — print and face-to-face communication.
• be open to seeing how social media transforms individuals into groups, and groups into communities.
• understand the digital revolution has already taken place and social media is here to stay.

For me, getting “up to speed” must take place at: 1)  the practical level of learning how to install and use social media platforms without freaking; and 2) the conceptual level of understanding why to use social media platforms, especially as a means to see, know, and reveal God in all things.

No shortage of fine resources explaining how to get started, so at this tipping-tipping-tipped point in time, I’m fiercely committed to discussing the why to, especially for those who love and serve God.  AMDG!

Meredith

About a year ago, Meredith Gould wrote a post here called “Christ Has No Online Presence But Yours.”  The title played off St. Theresa of Avila’s famous prayer “Christ Has No Body but Yours.”  Her point: just as Christ relies on our hands and feet and brains to bring his love to the world, he also relies on our blogs and tweets and Facebook pages to be present online.

A provocative idea, no?  Even an inspiring one.  How can we use social media for spiritual work?  What might Christ’s “online presence” look like concretely?  What is social media, anyway?

Moving forward, Meredith will be writing about social media here on dotMagis.  She has lots of ideas about it, and much experience.  Most importantly, she has a passion for helping Catholics understand and use these new online tools.

We’ll kick this off on Monday with a blog-alogue.  Tell your friends.