Blogs are changing journalism. Sure. Therefore colleges that desire to train the next generation of reporters and columnists should include teaching on responsible blogging. I follow that.
But I’m most interested in the following advice to teachers:
Help (students) understand that there is nowhere to hide this material in the world of Google. If you write it and publish it now, it may affect you when you apply for a job 12 years from now. And it will affect your classmates. It will affect your best friend. You have a Christian responsibility not only to your own talents and career that God has given you, but to those of your colleagues.
This applies to much more than news-blogs by Christian college students. It applies to every personal blog, MySpace, Facebook, and like page published to the world-wide-web. I’m amazed at the thoughtlessness of some students to think their idiocy won’t be found. Some are even livid that their parents read it. They think it is private. I think they are fools.
Of course, the real issue is not inability to escape from Google’s notice. The real issue is not being able to avoid God’s.
As a footnote, the author of the above article is Terry Mattingly, a former professor at Milligan College which is one of the three undergraduate institutions I experienced. It’s a small world after all.
(HT: Short Caps)
12 Comments
This hits on a major (but not primary) reason that I don’t have a blog of any sort. I’ve had too many times when I think back to things that I said 2-3 years before and marvel at my own stupidity. I hope that it’s helped me think before I speak now… I’ll only know for sure in 2-3 years.
To open such random acts of stupidity to be permanently stored in all their crystalline shimmering beauty in this glorious series of tubes is a bit much for me. And that’s just the stuff I express! The enormous amount of brainlessness that God must see in my unexpressed thought makes me wonder about His divine sanity in adopting me as a joint heir with His perfect Son. Jesus uses very apt parables.
I’m taking the opposite approach. I figure that what I say now will make me look really smart two or three years from now by comparison. So the more I get out today, the more mature I’ll sound tomorrow. [For my literalist friends, please be advised that the preceding comment was sarcastic. Your postmodern interpretation can’t change my authorial intent.]
Great post and great point. I never thought about that before. I mean, I know you have talked about the stupid things people put on myspace and such. But I never thought about how what I have said on my blog will be found years from now by someone. It might be some guy in Arkansas or a colleague I might have later. Interesting.
I’ve been on this for a little while in our group. So far I’ve been dissapointed that the response has been more directed at me for (a) looking at these sites and (b) saying that I think people should be Christ-honoring in what they put there.
There’s that part in The Matrix where we are told that within the Matrix Neo will look like his own mental projection of himself. So once inside the Matrix he looks way more cool. I think the same is true in the real online world. I see these personal websites to be people’s mental projection of who they think they are. In many cases these sites are a window into the heart. Online, you can be who you really want to be.
SKH - don’t you know that deconstructionism paired with post-modernism has completey obliterated even the concept of authorial intent? Not to mention one of my student’s comments that sarcasm and hyperbole and destroying the English language :o).
A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks… and his fingers blog.
I think the internet most definitely applies to the above reference and could in some ways be a clearer picture of the heart than interaction in RL. Here you have relative anonymity - I myself don’t even go by my real name (which is Glenn, btw). The obvious consequences that words have in life can be mitigated (or at least delayed) by the idea especially prevalent in the minds of younger folks that no one knows who they are and the consequences can not trace back to them. The very act of typing even increases the severity of un-Christ-like behavior. A hastily spoken evil word can reveal sickness in the heart, but it doesn’t even come close to the revelation provided by evil words that are pondered and typed letter-by-letter and that one has the opportunity to rephrase or eliminate before you click submit. (Now, if only my tongue had a submit button.)
This comments font does capital g’s very strangely, btw… at least on my system. Who in the world is Clenn? ;)
Sean, I think this is a very important post, and should be heeded by all, but I am not sure that will happen, maybe only for the wise.
Dave, I’m kind of irked you look at my site. And when you comment, please only refer to me as “Master of the Void” (my online identity).
Leila, not only does the authorial intent of your comment allude me, I don’t even believe it exists.
Trinian, here at tohu va bohu we don’t believe in serifs. I hereby submit that I reject your serif meta-narrative as part of my story.
Andy, maybe then we should try to be “wise guys.” I mean…wha?…no…that’s not what I mean. (Or is it?)
That’s one of the reasons why the 2007 edition of my blog will feature a domain and blog name that is totally unrelated to my name. The other reason would be that no one can spell http://www.philipdeoliveira.net, and people are too lazy to bookmark the page, which would, in effect, make way for future laziness by them just having to click a button instead of type a lengthy URL! sigh People don’t make sense.
MMmuhahahaha!
No serifs? Seems a bit doctrinally unsound to me. ;)