A decade ago I suggested that research regarding the spirituality of young people gave insufficient attention to the place of technology in their lives. “Young peoples’ innate desires for intimacy and self-transcendence are bound up in their daily use of technology. These spiritual yearnings are embodied insofar as they are located within, rather than in opposition to, adolescents’ physiological and psycho-social development, and are further embodied in their personal media practices or habits.”[ Young People, Technoculture and Embodied Spirituality was published in Interface, Vol 14 No 2, 2011.]
Here are some excerpts from the article.
“The connection between spiritual development and social engagement is a recurring theme in studies of youth and young adults. According to the international, multi-faith research by the Search Institute’s Centre for Spiritual Development, spiritual development has three dimensions:
- connecting and belonging
- becoming aware of or awakened to self and life
- developing a way of living
[Eugene Roehlkepartain et al, With Their Own Voices (Minneapolis: Search Institute, 2008.]
In this schema, relational connectedness is a necessary aspect of healthy spirituality, both in terms of a sense of the transcendent or divine and of interdependence with other people.” [p74f]
What if we were to see in young people’s innate use of communicative technology not a negative denial of their true needs, but in fact an authentic search for well-being, meaning and intimacy? Indeed, what if their communicative capacities, augmented by technology, are inseparable from this spiritual quest? [p85f]
Rather than seeing young people as passive, even brainwashed, consumers of electronic culture, we may instead see them as consciously assigning significance to technological practices, constantly revising their media use and its meaning, and creatively producing novel applications and interpretations… [p89]
Public concerns regarding teenagers and their sexual development have been subsumed and even magnified by media discourses concerning technology. Social institutions, including churches, have viewed technology as a threat to young people at the same time that they have em braced its promise for progress. These mixed messages conveyed to young people regarding technology are a continuation of cultural narratives concerning the perils of teenage sexual expression. Furthermore, the personal and social aspects of communication technologies provide for regular, intimate connectedness in ways that can relieve loneliness, invite self-disclosure, and build trust, and may thus enable the deep knowing that human beings crave. To see the desire for intimacy and connectedness as a strong spiritual yearning, related to self-knowledge and self-transcendence, is to acknowledge ICT as a potentially significant vehicle for mediated spirituality for young people. [p94f]
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