Making It In A Technologically Frustrated World

I’m working on getting rid of the clutter in my life. It’s a hard process but the first step is to be utterly ruthless with throwing things away that you aren’t going to use or haven’t used in a year. In an electronic world, this is getting harder to do because it’s just a file, right? It’s time as well.

I’ve got 6 pages of apps on my iPhone because you never know when you’re going to want to know the name of that actor in that abstract film or how to say “I can’t see how this could possibly go wrong” in Pig Latin.

But I’ve figured some things out.

First, I’m done with Facebook. Yes, I still have an account and my updates will be updated (from the department of redundancy and repetitive department) but through Twitter. With the ‘respond to a comment via email’ feature now, I don’t ever have to get on their ridiculous cluttered site. Except when someone DM’s me and it takes me days to respond.

The truth is this – and I’m sorry if this hurts your feelings – but I don’t care about your farm, mafia hits, bejeweled scores, treasure hunts, movie quizzes or which character on LOST you are most like. Really…I don’t. I’m guessing most other people don’t either, they are just too scared to tell you. And since Facebook chooses to change the layout every 6 hours and I can’t or won’t take the time to figure out how to filter all the junk off my feed – it got punted.

Twitter — you are becoming a favorite. It’s simple. It’s clean. It’s fast. It works awesome on my iPhone. I can set up a list as to who I want to keep updated with. However, the whole following thing is intriguing to me. It is baffling to me who chooses to follow me. For instance, Dave Matthews Blog is following me. I’m honored and humbled. One of my favorite artists in the world. I reciprocated.

PETAnews and WiiGameCheats are also following me. I’m not as honored. In fact, I’m fairly confused as I’ve never posted anything about PETA…perhaps the Wii but the only cheating I do is take steroids before playing Guitar Hero. And while I’m not for the torture of any animal that isn’t a cat, I’ve enjoyed my fair share of animals with a side of potatoes and a nice Chianti.

Email – Handle it once. File it, respond to it, delete it, or keep it unread. Pretty straightforward, right? It is but the email inbox can get cluttered…very quickly. One solution I’ve come up with is that anything marked with FW and has like 50 other people on the recipient list gets spammed. Amazing how much that clears up the inbox.

There is one thing that is happening in my ministry circle that I don’t understand – signing other pastors/ministers up for email updates. It’s happened a couple of times. Some well meaning person signs me up for prayer updates across the globe and all of a sudden, my inbox is slammed. I’ve tried having one conversation about this and I quickly learned there is no way to NOT look like a jerk when you are asking to be unsubscribed from Johnny’s kidney replacement prayer update. Spam filters are wonderful things though.

I grew up using a computer, using email. If I want to sign up for an email update, I am perfectly able to do just that. I don’t need help. If you do that for me…you just lost your right to be in my inbox. (By the way, Danny P…I’m sorry for the Britney Spears Fan Club Update Newsletter I signed you up for last year. I’ve since repented. I hope you’ve forgiven me.)

iPhone — “I haven’t opened my Bible all week.” That is literally true for me thanks to the YouVersion.com app on my phone. Daily bible reading plans are right there, bookmarks. With Kindle and the web, I’m almost close to having my whole library accessible on my iPhone. And I love my iPhone. Can’t wait for 4.0.

I’m pretty sure that this culture’s golden calf is the iPhone. Or at least the technology behind it. To be able to put a web browser, pda, gps, email, camera, and phone in one device astounding. The problem is that we think it creates more time and more space to make life easier. That isn’t always true. Here’s to less clutter.