Some Things That We've Lost In Our 21st Century Digital Age

When this writer was growing up in the 1940's on my grandparent's farm, I can clearly remember the days of the telephone "party lines" in 1947 (see history here and here). There was no privacy on those lines (they were more like gossip lines than anything else), and if there was an emergency, you would have to immediately hang up the phone as a courtesy to the person experiencing the emergency.

In the 1950's, I vividly remember my late grandmother "running" to the telephone every time it rang, to see who was on the other line. One day, I told her that she was going to fall and hurt herself, if she didn't stop running to the phone. It seemed that the telephone ring was ingrained inside her head as a conditioned response to immediately run and answer it. With the onset of smart phones in the 21st Century digital age, we have somehow lost the desire to not only answer the telephone when it rings, but to ignore the phone completely when it rings (here are reasons why). In addition to the above lost desire, the following are five other things that we've lost in our 21st Century digital age:

1) Customer service is a thing of the past. Now customers must do some of the work themselves (more labor intensive), checking out and sacking their own products (see here). And we wonder why retail stores are slowly closing their doors.

2) Replacing face-to-face interaction with technology (see here).

3) The lost art of meditation because of too many worldly distractions (see here).

4) The lost Word of God for the same reason listed in #3.

5) The ability to properly think and reason rationally and responsibly (see here).

Beloved, like anything else, the 21st Century digital age can either be used for good or for evil (it's our choice - Joshua 24:14-15). With technology, we've come a long way since the 1940's. The question is, are we going forward, or are we going backward? (Jeremiah 7:23-24 -- see here and here). You be the judge.

---Mike Riley, Gospel Snippets