Just thinking... | Technology, Relationships and Assimilating Into a New Place

This morning Nathan cited an article he read online about how technology has enabled people to renew and/or maintain relationships from times bygone.  I know, I know. Nothing new there.  Just look at the number of Baby Boomers taking over Facebook.

What got me thinking was what the article said next: the ability to maintain old relationships is inhibiting individuals in new communities from developing new, viable, meaningful friendships.  

In other words, after a move, individuals nowadays are taking longer to create new relationships in their new location because technology has allowed them to stay in contact with old friends, thus filling what would have been a relationship void.

Of course everything we read we try to view through the lens of our circumstances as expatriates, as missionaries serving cross culturally.  Nathan and I had to ask ourselves, have we let technology diminish our ability to cultivate meaningful relationships with those whom we've come to love and serve? I think in our position its easy to use the excuse that our yet-developing language skills prevent us from exchanging heart-to-heart conversations with our new friends and instead double-click on Skype or open up Voxer to share that concern with a friend or family member across the ocean instead.

Then Nathan went on to point out the effect of technology on our media consumption.  When he was a child living in Africa, he remembered his aunt and uncle sending him audio cassette recordings of episodes of the tv show Dukes of Hazzard.  Just a few years ago expats would re-watch favorite movies from a limited personal collection of English-speaking films and swap with other missionary friends.  Now, in an era of high-speed internet and VPNs there is no limit to what we want to view. We could easily create our little American bubble in our home where we exclusively listen live to our home radio stations (thank you, I Heart Radio), stream American music (love you, Pandora!), or watch Hulu and Netflix (oh my goodness they now carry HGTV shows!). And if we are still missing something from those services we can always purchase and download a movie or episode from Amazon or iTunes and even watch live television thanks to Slingbox.  

All of it points to more and more challenges to living a life with two feet firmly planted in Albania.  To be sure, it's not inherently bad, but where does the balance in the tension lie?  I have no answers.  Just thinking as I go off to teach English...