Trouble communicating online? Return to the family to learn to do it well
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It’s the feast of Saint Francis de Sales and the Catholic Church has released Pope Francis’ World Communications Day message. It’s circulated earlier than World Communications Day itself (May 17 this year) so that churches around the world have the chance to read, reflect, and respond, or in the words of Pope St. John Paul II, take on the tasks of formation, dialogue, and participation in and through the media, and can be better prepared to celebrate World Communications Day.
It’s a succinct message and I’m excited to unpack it with you and apply it to our online communications:
The current message ‘Communicating the Family: A Privileged Place of Encounter with the Gift of Love’ connects the message from last year, which reminded us of the human person behind every communication online (a network not of wires but of people), to the central theme of the family in the upcoming synod. What has the family got to do with how I communicate online? Pope Francis proposes that how we express love to one another within the family – the first encounter most of us have with another human person and the place where we learn language and how to communicate our desires, longings, fears, joys, and thoughts, and in particular, our words and how we say things, how we express our innermost selves – influences how we communicate with others, both friend and stranger, online. By returning to the origin of where we learned to communicate, we can communicate more authentically and more humanely. But what is this new perspective on viewing the human family? The answer he proposes may surprise us. It’s from a child’s response that we can learn:
Communication involves the whole human person. It’s not merely about grammar or proper use of words. At the outset, it’s not going to be easy to dialogue authentically online because the current predominant mode of online communication is textual, and because body language and facial features aren’t always on view, it takes effort, sensitivity, and thoughtfulness to express ourselves.
Emoticons can only take us so far, and after the 10th smiley face animation in a paragraph, it might even start to get annoying. But Pope Francis is emphasizing something else. He’s emphasizes practicing joy at meeting others, which can influence and direct what we say and how we say it online. It’s symbolic that beginning in the womb, we listen first before we can speak. And it’s to a reassuring and repetitive message of the heart as it were that we’re first exposed. It’s also symbolic that the protective environment of the womb, and in turn, of the family, is where we practice engaging another outside ourselves. As much as we learn about the physical environment from our parents, the family is also a good place to learn about the online environment.
How do we practice communicating charitably with others online despite our differences? Do we try to identify common traits, common longings of the human heart? Do we remind ourselves: this person is human too and has experienced joy and sadness as I have? We can’t give what we ourselves lack. Ultimately, we must return to the Giver, Our Father God, and it is through prayer that we receive what we need:
In the family, we learn to embrace and support one another, to discern the meaning of facial expressions and moments of silence, to laugh and cry together with people who did not choose one other yet are so important to each other. This greatly helps us to understand the meaning of communication as recognizing and creating closeness. When we lessen distances by growing closer and accepting one another, we experience gratitude and joy. Mary’s greeting and the stirring of her child are a blessing for Elizabeth; they are followed by the beautiful canticle of the Magnificat, in which Mary praises God’s loving plan for her and for her people. A ‘yes’ spoken with faith can have effects that go well beyond ourselves and our place in the world. To ‘visit’ is to open doors, not remaining closed in our little world, but rather going out to others. So too the family comes alive as it reaches beyond itself; families who do so communicate their message of life and communion, giving comfort and hope to more fragile families, and thus build up the Church herself, which is the family of families.”
Not choosing to be closed in our own little worlds. Now there’s a challenge. Ironic isn’t it: the broader our options online, the narrower the interactions we experience. Our news feeds are increasingly so customized that we see only what we want to see, what we already agree with. I have noticed of late that a good percentage of the news I automatically receive comprises news in the Catholic world. On the one hand, this is great: news that I want is delivered to me daily, plus given the media’s generally poor coverage and unbalanced reportage of Catholic news, this direct access to Catholic news makes for a more balanced worldview. On the other hand, I’m not as exposed to opposing viewpoints that can serve to challenge and so affirm what I hold so dearly. I have to “go out of my way” to make bookmarks to other sites to listen, learn, and share the truth, goodness, and beauty of my faith as applied to the news and circumstances “out there”.
Encountering differences and conflict is part and parcel of communication. The key – and challenge – is courage… and forgiveness. Despite all the negatives that are possible in communication – the deceit, the disparaging remarks, the unspoken but hidden attacks, the misunderstandings, and biases (some getting so bad and hateful that it results in suicides) – communication is still a blessing and gift. Does it take one who is disabled to remind us of the gift of communication? It takes courage and forgiveness to break the spiral of evil, remembering that Love has triumphed over evil.
“The great challenge facing us today is to learn once again how to talk to one another, not simply how to generate and consume information. The latter is a tendency which our important and influential modern communications media can encourage. Information is important, but it is not enough. All too often things get simplified, different positions and viewpoints are pitted against one another, and people are invited to take sides, rather than to see things as a whole.”
Do we use online media as an escape from reality, or do we use it to engage the reality of human persons at the other end of this technology-enhanced communication channel? Do we use online media to evade physical contact with one another, or do we use it because we desire a closeness with others who are necessarily separated from us physically? Do we use online media to fill in for the “terrible silence” in our lives, or do we use it to reach out beyond ourselves to others – effectively countering any sadness and emptiness – to speak of the Good News that Jesus Christ is proposing something far greater, far lovelier than anything we have on earth? When it’s not all about us, generating and consuming our information, we can experience authentic joy. We can then have the courage to step away to see the big picture.
“Families should be seen as a resource rather than as a problem for society. Families at their best actively communicate by their witness the beauty and the richness of the relationship between man and woman, and between parents and children. We are not fighting to defend the past. Rather, with patience and trust, we are working to build a better future for the world in which we live.”
Let us strive, therefore, to make the family a place for joy, for an open environment where communication flourishes, a place where we can freely express ourselves, even risking misunderstandings in our faltering steps to be authentic while assured in mutual forgiveness. After all, communication as Scripture defines it, is Love: Jesus Christ communicating Himself to us (John 1:1-5).
Dr Eugene Gan is faculty associate of the Veritas Center and Professor of Interactive Media, Communications, and Fine Art at Franciscan University of Steubenville in the United States. His book, Infinite Bandwidth: Encountering Christ in the Media is grounded in Scripture and magisterial documents, and is a handbook and practical guide for understanding and engaging media in meaningful and healthy ways in daily life.