Read on Twitter
I have spent this weekend reading about theologies of the internet after finishing week two of the semester, where I’ve watched colleagues continually tweet specific things (complaints) about profs, classmates and classes.
For instance, last week I opened Twitter after a class to see tweets from colleagues tweeted during a class discussion. These were about specific things students said. (Note: these colleagues said nothing in the actual class discussion.)
Fredrick has a concept of the “residual narrative self” that remains beyond us, an extension of our online activity. The words we tweet can never be unsaid. They remain, within online codes forever. They are real.
There’s something particularly uncomfortable about people training for ministry while tweeting v harsh takes about their colleagues (who are unable to respond) as if our activity on Twitter is immune from our own spiritual formation.
I say this as someone who has also tweeted things about class discussions, professors etc and had to delete them hours later, reckoning with the fact that I still sent those things into the world and they still exist.
I do wonder if not having in person class has heightened this as comments you might say to one another in the hallway after class can’t be said.
Anyway, in a move that rivals the “let’s all bake a cake out of rainbows” woman in mean girls:
1. The words we write on Twitter are real
2. They have power to form habits of virtue and vice
3. It’s not a great witness of the kingdom to be tweeting specific things colleagues say in class to ridicule them
2. They have power to form habits of virtue and vice
3. It’s not a great witness of the kingdom to be tweeting specific things colleagues say in class to ridicule them
