Dispatches by Adrian Conoza

💻  FEED Phone habit: Unplug, iGen: Put the Phone Down and Live by Jaquelle Crowe (DesiringGod) We need a balanced approach in viewing technology and social media without drifting into extremism (e.g., avoiding it out of fear or obsessing over it out of idolatry). And we need discipline to use technology for God’s glory instead of our own selfish gain.

Source: marcusradich.com While I was in high school I was much engrossed in science fiction, especially those under the themes of cyberspace. I chanced upon a secondhand book, a collection of short stories entitled Live Without A Net . And I bought it. The stories there center on the theme the title suggests—a future without cyberspace, without virtual reality, without the Web. And it made me think: what would happen to a world without the Internet? That seems impossible of course, but for a while I faced a dilemma similar to that.  I remember a time during my recently-concluded 2nd year in college (first semester in particular) when I had no access to the Internet at home due to some lapses in payment, which later on turned out to be some sort of misunderstanding in how much to pay. It hasn’t been easy to be away from the World Wide Web for months, but I managed to get through it, and I learned much from the experience. Routine From September until the middle of November last year...

In these times where the the World Wide Web—particularly the social media—is the main medium, Facebook's news feed is our most accessible newspaper. The News Feed has become one of our windows to what's happening or has happened within our circles (family and relatives, friends, communities) and around the world. Image credit: personneltoday.com With our scrolling ( which often becomes too tedious ), we see a plethora of posts, either they may be statuses, photos, or links. And along with these posts, Facebook introduced us to three functions we could use to respond to posts and to reactions to those posts, as well as to see whether our posts are well-received or not. These are the like , the comment , and the share . Among these three, the like is what Facebook is mostly known for; it even has taken its place on contemporary language and culture. But what does a like mean these days? As I have observed in my daily practice of logging on to Facebook,  that blue "thumbs-up...