Română
Abbot Damascene (St. Herman of Alaska Monastery, Platina, CA) talks about the pros and cons of the Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram…) and Internet.
Abbot Damascene (Christensen):
“The Internet is a double-edged sword.
In many ways it helps to spread the Orthodox faith, it’s an important tool that can be used for missionary work… there are many people that discover Orthodoxy on the Internet, all over the world… so we should be thankful for that…
At the same time, it is a tremendously corrupting influence and it’s a huge pastoral problem for many reasons… it’s not only a tool that God gives, it’s also a tool that Devil can use…
About Social Media… it’s not the worst thing about the Internet, however Social Media does have its specific problems that people should be aware of, especially the amount of time that people spend with Social Media it’s a problem. Secondly… there are some pastoral problems bound up with egotism and the narcissism of that platform, putting yourself out, displaying yourself, and in that matter it always seemed to me something spiritually suspect…
So, it’s not quite the same thing as the privacy of just sending an email, which is more like a fast way of communicating or sending a letter, it’s more like a public face… I don’t feel like an expert on the subject, but I do feel some uneasiness because of the sense of the narcissism and egotism that is connected with these aspects of Social Media…”
via pemptousia.com
