Ask anyone who knows me and he or she will tell you that I love my social media.
Yes, I’m one of those people. I blog. I tweet. I pin. I update. I link. And tumble and everything else in-between. (And if you have no idea what any of this means, you are not alone.) No, I don’t share what I had for lunch (usually) or every single brilliant and adorable gem uttered by my children. I do share snippets of my life as well as articles that I find interesting, conflicting, thought-provoking.
Bruce Feiler’s recent piece “The ‘I Dos,’ Unplugged,” which discusses a new movement to ask wedding guests to attend sans phones, is one such article.
What drew me to this piece is the notion that not every moment needs to be captured in real time; an idea with which I agree but often feel as though I am in an ever-shrinking minority. Feiler explores the numerous reasons why a couple might choose to ask their guests to check their cell phones at the door — quite literally. For me, the most compelling argument is that against the backdrop of a society that sees every moment as shareable are couples who want their friends and family to experience their sacred moment rather than simply record it. As one groom said, “A wedding is about having people paying witness…How can they do that if they don’t even hear your vows because they’re too busy taking pictures?”
Quite honestly, I was relieved to learn that there is an increasing backlash against the current trend. Because some moments really are meant to be lived in real time rather than posted in real time. I don’t want guests to tweet the play-by-play of what’s happening under the
chuppah
; I want their focus to be on what’s happening. Other moments are meant to be private as well. How focused can a parent-to-be be on what is happening in the labor room if he or she is too busy tweeting “she’s crowning!!”? And really, do we really need to know that?
In his most famous work, Ich und Du (“I and Thou”), Martin Buber, one of the preeminent theologians of the last century, divides the human experience into two categories: I-It and I-Thou. Buber posits that our lives are enhanced and defined by our relationships – with our goal of being in relationship with God as the Ultimate Thou. Surely it is in these moments, when we invite God into our midst, that we ought to remove any distraction that will prevent the I-Thou moments from blossoming.
