A piece of sunshine

Life with and without smartphones

More than ever, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, our apostolate is also making an effort to meet with such a turning point by creating online programs that can be executed via contactless communication methods.

 

As a result, the Pauline planning team with several sectors initiated an online prayer school, an online faith school, and an online book forum called "Daldal bookshop."

 

Naturally, we cannot but make the best use of smartphones with apps, games and YouTube.

 

Late last year, the life of Korean Carthusians, a Catholic religious order of enclosed monastics founded by Bruno of Cologne in 1084, was introduced on TV. In an advanced technological society, they still live most simply and frugally in silence and prayer in a hermitage located deep in the mountain.

 

They bear witness to the fact that it is possible to live without a smartphone or the internet.

 

In the midst of many conveniences of communication tools, various religious sects respectively organized "no smartphone for a day" event. For one day, parents are advised not to provide smartphones to their children.

 

In this rapidly changing world, we are still closely connected and related to one another, through social media. The internet has an infinite possibility to access knowledge, information, and relationships. Various social networks help us to connect, rediscover, and assist one another. In this way, social networks build the community as a network of solidarity among people.

 

Nevertheless, a true relationship always requires attentive listening and dialogue as well. "We are members one of another!" (Eph 4,25) This was the title of the message of Pope Francis for the 53rd World Day of Social Communications in 2019. In this message, he suggests moving from social network communities to the human community.

 

By nature, we are human beings who need constant interaction and relationships. We don't want to be left isolated, for we are created to be social and to be complementary. Without an intimate relationship with others, we cannot be born at all.

 

I think virtual social networks building super relationships are great inventions created by human beings with a profound longing for communication.

 

As Pope Francis recommends, what we need is to open the way for "dialogue and encounter", to share "smiles and expressions of tenderness", and to communicate the self in communion.

 

These communion-oriented behaviors can easily start with the family. But what would happen when each member of the family looks at their smartphone without facing and talking to each other? It is an irony that we seek online encounters while building walls in offline reality.

 

In connection with the yearly theme of communication, the message of the 54th world day of social communications in 2020 tells us the beauty of living together while creating history "that we can tell our son and grandson" (Cf. Ex 10:2). Our memory as a "dynamic reality" tells us that we are "the image of God" and we are born to live "in community and in communion". We shall have to admit that we need one another even though we are individually immersed in the web.

 

While keeping social distance and living non-face-to-face, we are longing to live in communion with others.

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