Faculty Mentor(s)
Dr. Chad Maxson
Project Type
Student Scholarship
Scholarship Domain(s)
Scholarship of Interdisciplinary Integration, Scholarship of Faith Integration
Presentation Type
Presentation
Abstract
Social media aims to move the communal sphere into the digital world. It is often quipped that the current generation is the most “connected” yet “disconnected” generation in history. If social media truly succeeds in moving the social community into a digital sphere, what is the source of the widely experienced disconnect from one another? I will argue that evaluating social media in light of Bonhoeffer’s cosmic community reveals that social media insufficiently invades the space of human relationship, not capable of supporting either connection between individuals or creation. Thus, rather than affirming real relationship online, social media replaces community with an individual pursuit of self-justification, and, as a result, denies the physical body as well as creation all together, constituting a secondary creation imposed onto the first.
Permission Type
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Included in
Practical Theology Commons, Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons
Social Media as Second Creation: Cyber-Space as a Denial of Cosmic Community
Reed 330
Social media aims to move the communal sphere into the digital world. It is often quipped that the current generation is the most “connected” yet “disconnected” generation in history. If social media truly succeeds in moving the social community into a digital sphere, what is the source of the widely experienced disconnect from one another? I will argue that evaluating social media in light of Bonhoeffer’s cosmic community reveals that social media insufficiently invades the space of human relationship, not capable of supporting either connection between individuals or creation. Thus, rather than affirming real relationship online, social media replaces community with an individual pursuit of self-justification, and, as a result, denies the physical body as well as creation all together, constituting a secondary creation imposed onto the first.