Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith by Shane Hipps

Author Shane Hipps takes readers beneath the surface of things to see how the technologies we use end up using us. Not all is dire, however, as Hipps shows us that hidden things have far less power to shape us when they aren't hidden anymore. Flickering Pixels will wake us up--and nothing will look the same again.

Product Review:
Flickering Pixels: A Book Review By Jennifer Courtney

God’s Word tells us that He is the Word made flesh, and God has communicated His message to His people through the written word. Knowing this, how does Christianity itself change as our society transforms from a text-based culture to an image-based culture? Shane Hipps considers this question in his recent book Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith. Hipps summarizes the effects of this change: “Any serious study of God is a study of communication, and any effort to understand God is shaped by our understanding—or misunderstanding—of the media and technology we use to communicate” (13). In this short work, he finds many encouraging developments at the intersection of faith and technology.

The book reads a bit like a series of conversations or sermons strung together as Hipps considers different aspects of media and how it alters our perceptions. His goal is to make us conscious not only of the daily content to which we are exposed but to the media by which the content is delivered. When we watch television, we should be aware of the medium: “Instead, we sit hypnotized by the program—the content—which has gripped our attention, unaware of the ways in which the television, regardless of its content, is repatterning the neural pathways in our brain and reducing our capacity for abstract thought” (26). The experience of watching television is inherently a different experience from reading a book or listening to a sermon. As the saying goes “the medium is the message.”

Hipps uses the myth of Narcissus, the young Greek man who fell in love with his own reflection in a lake, to explain how we often use technology incorrectly: “when we fail to perceive that the things we create are extensions of ourselves, the created things take on god-like characteristics and we become their servants” (35). The cure is to consider the medium as well as the message: “when we remember that technology is simply an extension of ourselves, it takes much of the power away from the medium and returns it to us” (36). He seems to believe that contemplation of the media will allow us to use them wisely and to achieve mastery over them. Although I think he is wise to exhort others to consciously consider the effects of media, I am less confident than he that we will be able to resist becoming slaves to the tools.

Last week, while traveling to a practicum, I sat next to an eighteen-month-old baby who spent the two-hour flight absorbed in her mother’s iPad. The mother had also brought a stack of board books with her, but the baby much preferred to pop in and out of the apps designed to help babies learn letters and numbers. It caused me to ponder the differences between learning letters and sounds from a book read on Mommy’s lap to learning these skills from an animated, talking, impersonal screen. I wonder if the Mom paused to think of the Ipad as an extension of herself and her parenting? Who had the power in this scene—the Mom or the computer?

Hipps interprets many changes in media as positive developments for Christianity. In the chapter “Dyslexia and Deception,” he argues that the print culture turned the Gospel message into an efficient equation in which the Gospel message depends solely on fact and reason, ignoring emotions. Hipps argues that the linear arrangement of chairs in 15th century churches mirrored the linear arrangement of words on the page after Gutenberg’s printing press. (Although this is an interesting consideration, I’m not sure he entirely proves this connection). He attributes this elevation of logic over feeling to the print culture which dominated the Western world from the printing press to the twentieth century: “printing makes us prefer cognitive modes of processing while at the same time atrophying our appreciation for mysticism, intuition, and emotion. It can even make us suspicious or fearful of feelings, especially as they interact with our ‘logical’ faith” (49). The effect of this, he reflects, is that we “acquire the bland taste of a domesticated god who resides somewhere in our head” (51). He implores Christians to know God through direct experience as well and notes that there is a difference between knowing about God and knowing God.

Furthermore, Hipps ties the weakening of our communities to print-based culture. He argues that “the technology of writing, regardless of content, weakens and even destroys tribal bonds and profoundly amplifies the value of the individual” (56). He believes that corporate worship has been devalued while the individual disciplines, such as personal quiet times, have been over-emphasized. I wonder what he would think of the melding of the two cultures in Classical Conversations communities around the country. When we read the same books and discuss the abstract ideas contained in them, we are able to achieve deep individual thoughts while weaving our lives together in shared experiences.

Along the way, Hipps considers how instant delivery of news has allowed us to unconsciously accept the premise that truth is the same as information (68). He sees our image-based culture as drawing Christians away from abstract doctrine to parables, stories, and practical theology (81-84). He considers how technologies like Facebook encourage us to become a “tribe of individuals” who experience “empathy at a distance.” These communities contrast with “authentic communities (which) involve high degrees of intimacy, permanence, and proximity” (114). He considers practical questions like setting media boundaries for children and appropriately using e-mail communications. In the end, Hipps urges us to resist the temptation to label new technologies as good or bad too quickly. This book is a good opening to an ongoing conversation about how technology continues to shape us and our faith.