Recently I had to speak at a seminar on the future of digital for a publishing organisation. I was halfway through the session when someone said, ”Not everyone is as techno geekish as you.”
I must admit I was taken back. Not least because I never really thought as myself as a ‘techno geek’ before. On the contrary, I took this little dig in the form of a high compliment.
It all started with me flashing my new mobile or should I say my PDA (Personal Digital Assistant), a sort of 21st century equivalent of the Filofax, but oh so, so much more. Let me tell you about it.
It is a telephone, MP3 player, camera (stills and movie) clock/alarm, has a qwerty keypad. It allows me to send and receive emails. It has Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint facilities. And, importantly, synchs with my desktop. Phew! What a piece of kit! However, I am still looking for a device to take stones out of horse’s hooves.
Digital manufacturers call this convergence.
In the US, a survey by investment bank Piper Jaffray & Co found that nearly two-thirds of teens never wear a watch in the demographic most likely to have broadband. In the UK, 87% of 12-16 year olds now have a mobile. Most mobiles will have a clock on them, so why wear a watch when you can just take one item out with you?
Now you might love your iPod or relish the thought of the new Apple iPhone coming out later this year, but deep down you just know the next generation won’t be kind to us. Just like we aren’t kind to the Sony Walkman society.
They’ll laugh and say things like, “Oh yeh, I remember storage. Do remember iPod saying that they could store 10,000 songs on an iPod and download video to their phone? Or do you remember TV PVRs. And DVD racks? Sheesh! However, did we get cope without real time streaming straight from the internet.”
Yes, that really is the future talking. To quote a certain president, “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
Of course, it won’t stop there. In the future, our mobile handsets will allow us to control the television/computer screen, turn on the cooker and central heating when we are out. The choices will be endless.
Convergence will mean that we will never be out - or out of touch. We will always be present, even if that means virtually. People will always be able to see and hear us. We’ll never miss a call or anyone again. And we will never be unobtainable to them.
Convergence means you and I will have total control over our life - apparently.
Is this all starting to sound a bit scary? Okay, let’s take stock.
A much older former of unity is the Christian godhead, three in one. For many at the time, this was also seen as convergence and it, too, has been a source of controversy over the centuries. For instance, it was asked: Why do we need to have a belief in a Trinitarian God when surely a Binatarian God has been adequate (Judaism)? Or even a monotheistic belief in God (Islam)?
From a Christian perspective, the coming of Christ and a changing of the old order has been nothing but good news, but I can understand how threatening this must have been for first century Jews.
How can we possibly grasp that God is one, and three: Father, Son and Holy Spirit? The truth is we can’t – as we don’t have the mind of God. No more than can we fully understand that Jesus is fully God and fully man. It is a great philosophical conundrum.
However, what I do know, and believe, is that God is not virtually present but, by faith, really present. It does not mean that we treat him as an object for our own selfish advancement, but as a relational being that is supremely in control of the human experience. Yet, at the same time, out of love, He gives us freedom to choose and act for ourselves.
Like the handset, there is nothing to fear, as long as we keep being human beings by talking to each other – and not least God.
ASD
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