It's Friday, August 12, 2022. I'm Albert Moeller and this is the briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. We're going to

turn to questions and listeners in just a moment, but first I want to look at a

very interesting argument that has appeared and the argument suggests that human

beings are not just more dependent upon social media,

they are actually far less involved in social interaction.

And beyond that, they are really failing at relationality.

The argument appears in today's

addition to the Wall Street Journal in an essay by Jeffrey A. Hall who is a

professor of communications. Now it doesn't take a professor of

communications to tell us that we're looking at a

communications problem but nonetheless he makes a very interesting argument and he has

been looking at time diary data from three countries and here's what he found

quote time spent talking to other people

both inside the home and outside of it has been in decline for nearly 30 years he

goes on to say just in case you wondered telephone and video calls haven't made up for that loss."

End quote.

Now I think most of us have probably perceived that intuitionally and observationally.

We simply noted that there's been a decrease in the amount of interpersonal

communication and relationality. We know it comes with a cost. Christians as we

shall see, especially understand that comes with a cost, but it is interesting to see that

now you have a secular perspective and it's being issued in a secular alarm, people just

aren't as relational as they should be and perhaps even we're meant to be.

...