Archbishop Vincent Nichols (link)

I think there's a worry that an excessive use or an almost exclusive use of text and emails means that as a society we're losing some of the ability to build interpersonal communication that's necessary for living together and building a community.

We're losing social skills, the human interaction skills, how to read a person's mood, to read their body language, how to be patient until the moment is right to make or press a point.

Too much exclusive use of electronic information dehumanises what is a very, very important part of community life and living together.

Facebook and MySpace might contribute towards communities, but I'm wary about it. It's not rounded communication so it won't build a rounded community.

If we mean by community a genuine growing together and a mutual sharing in an interest that is of some significance then it needs more than Facebook.

Among young people often a key factor in them committing suicide is the trauma of transient relationships.

They throw themselves into a friendship or network of friendships, then it collapses and they're desolate.

It's an all or nothing syndrome that you have to have in an attempt to shore up an identity; a collection of friends about whom you can talk and even boast.

But friendship is not a commodity, friendship is something that is hard work and enduring when it's right.

Biz Stone (link)

I think it's kind of silly, anyone who says that isn't really familiar with the service because it's about humans connecting with each other and often in ways that they couldn't otherwise and it's the opposite of dehumanizing as far as I'm concerned.

Everything on the internet and in technology is built on other stuff and we stood on the shoulders of giants in many ways but Twitter adds a nuance and a new sense of connectivity that is pretty unique.

I don't think it's false, necessarily, people are using technology to communicate, it's not any less real than using the telephone to communicate.

Jonathon Blake (link)

So the Archbishop of Westminster warns about the dangers of electronic isolation and relationships mediated through the keyboard. Of course there are dangers and wise parents and balanced adults will guard against them.

However, there are greater dangers to relationships perhaps in Roman Catholicism. I have counselled those heartbroken that a member of their family had been snatched from them into a closed order of Nuns, others sucked into the loneliness of the celibate priesthood, many more isolated into religious fanaticism, others damaged by the homophobia, authoritarianism and sexism enshrined in church policy.

Religious bigotry has fuelled the fragmentation of societies, the increase in prejudice and reactionary thinking. Strange, because the Sacrament of the Mass is all about Holy Communication.

So when Facebook and other social networking sites allow people to communicate, to reconnect, to discover the thrill of friendships and to provide the resources to maintain them and explore them perhaps the church should be encouraging and supportive.

David Aaronovitch (link)

The Archbishop of Westminster is just the latest in a long line of pessimists to be bewildered by a younger generation.

We’re only doomed if we want to be, and it isn’t Facebook, TV or Pop Idol that constitutes the greatest threat to the mental and social health of our teenagers, but rather the determined — almost ruthless — cultural pessimism of some of their spiritual, academic and commentating elders.

Shane Richmond (link)

Vincent Nichols' views are alarmist, ill-informed and unhelpful.

He seems to be under the impression that social networking sites are replacing other forms of communication. Nobody has said that we’re going to use the internet instead of real life. The internet makes it easier to stay in touch with people when you can’t be with them in person. It enriches communication, it doesn’t destroy it.

Vincent Nichols is mistaking social problems for technological ones. Still, not every Catholic agrees with him. Even the Pope is social networking.

Jonathan Wynne-Jones (link)

If the archbishop was concerned about the decline of personal communications and the impact of this on society, maybe he should also be worried about the apparent inability of people to read. Or maybe it’s just an inability to get past prejudice and overcome intolerance.

If people actually bothered to read the story and read the quotes they would see that the archbishop actually has an impressive grasp of modern culture and cares deeply about its future.

Nowhere does he actually attack these websites, rather he acknowledges - rightly - that for most people they can help build a community, if not a fully rounded one.

Much of the criticism of Nichols derives from a hostility to the Church and a drive to have its leaders’ pronouncement pushed from the public square, no matter how pertinent their comments are. Some also no doubt comes from those who are addicted to these sites and don’t want to face the facts.

George Pitcher (link)

Archbishop Nichols does have a strong, broader point about the dehumanising effects of online communication. And not only among the young. We are all, frankly, in danger now of conducting human relationships almost exclusively through the prism of a computer screen.

Clearly a marriage, or parental responsibilities, cannot effectively (or enjoyably) be run by email and texting, though I have seen some who try. But it's at the professional and occupational level that I see the most insidious, creeping dehumanisation of technology.

You want to reach one of your household utilities? There's a website. Want to report something to the local council? Type it in the box. Note also that the "Contact us" page of most institutional websites usually never has a phone number.

What Archbishop Nicols [sic], who I notice makes himself personally available whenever he can, has pointed up is that the internet, with all its talk of "connectivity", was meant to bring the world together. Actually, it's driving us apart.

Alberto Contri (link)

There is no doubt that the birth of the Web has been the really big media revolution of the last century. It is equally true that the various applications that have been created search engine to social networking are radically changing the way we study, work, have fun, and socialize. In a word, they are changing the way we live.

When asked whether society is ready to absorb and manage such a change, it seems true that we must say no. And the aphorism of McLuhan "the medium is the message" is becoming a very bitter prophecy. The first internet bubble shows that platoons of managers have invested in crazy expectations of technological developments without asking questions about what content they should carry and why. Millions of people buy phones, increasing the performance of multimedia activities with increasingly poor phone connections; and the population, especially young people, has earned more than others from the visually apparent game of technology, while they are increasingly unaware of the research on any quality content. Tens of thousands of marketing managers have squandered nights on Second Life, forgetting that in nature nothing is created and nothing is destroyed, and that what is virtual is not real and therefore does not exist.

For Archbishop Nichols where one of the most efficient means of interactive communication triumphs, the content of communication has become so invalid or nonexistent, that, paradoxically, people are increasingly alone. And because loneliness is certainly one of the contributory causes of suicide, the excess of virtuality, with its fake friends, unreal or surreal, in the end may be an exasperating cause of loneliness.