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Facebook Fasting
Posted by Tom McFeely
Monday, February 23, 2009 4:55 PM
GetReligion.org posts the above video, along with a critique of an article published last week by The Wall Street Journal about giving up social networking for Lent.
The video is a reminder of how easily social networking can incline people towards self-obsession and triviality.
As for The Wall Street Journal article, here’s how it begins:
“They’re a little too old to give up potato chips, Guitar Hero or Red Bull for Lent.
“But as Christian parents ponder an appropriate sacrifice, they find themselves mulling a choice they’d have once seen as preposterous: A Facebook fast — not for their teens but for themselves.
“Lenten sacrifices are meant to honor and in a small way reenact the 40 days Jesus is said to have wandered the wilderness, fasting and resisting temptation. Abstaining from Facebook for the 40 days of Lent was the rage among college students last year. This Lenten season — which starts next week on Ash Wednesday — the cause has been taken up by a surprising number of adults. The digital sacrifice won’t be easy, they say, but it may help them reclaim their analog lives.”
Just so you know: The Daily Blog is all in favor of Facebook fasting as a Lenten sacrifice. But we don’t think it’s necessarily prudent to forswear all other forms of Internet use, such as regular trips to the website of America’s finest weekly Catholic newspaper!
| Filed under facebook, lent, social networking
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