The development of the web is more than a new technology; it is a new environment. There are 1,300,000,000 users connected to the web.
In North America, one out of eight couples married last year met via social media, according to a study by US-based McKinsey & Company. In Malta, research by Clive Bonnici, a professional youth worker, shows that young people aged 16 to 20 spend an average of 3.5 hours a day online. In addition, the Malta Communications Authority has just published findings that 97 per cent of students aged eight to 15 have access to the internet from home and make regular use of it. But it is not just a fad of the young; the fastest growing segment on Facebook worldwide is females aged between 55 and 65.
The internet is not merely a superficial extension of real life; online and offline have now become two interdependent dimensions of the same reality. Italian Jesuit Antonio Spadaro suggests the net surfaces the profound human desire to interact and share. The technological landscape is new; the human expectations and aspirations are the same.
Still, in this digital and multi-directional environment, new aspects of humanity emerge. The vast possibilities of the net are making us rethink privacy and anonymity, authorship and accountability. More concretely, they make us take a second look at aesthetics, politics, relations, justice and religion.
Individuality seems to have taken up a whole new meaning, understood not simply as “difference” but as a complex mix of “matches”; what one is ready to share. This shift is crucial to the world of business and commerce. We no longer look for news, products or services. Instead, they find us.
Online presence is more than an extraction of the self; the internet environment engages the users wholly and completely. This goes not only for individuals but for organisations too. Corporations, ministries and institutions are all venturing out into this new landscape, not stopping just at building websites and setting up e-newsletters but actively engaging in social media.
The Church in Malta is a good example of this enthusiastic leap into the interactive space of the net. Its portal provides direct contact to Archbishop Paul Cremona, allows users to comment on articles online, besides being present on Facebook and YouTube. The explosive emergence of social media has interested many sectors within the Church, not least young people.
Personality, experience, opinion and faith are all passed on to the net space. Young Christians too, have been exploring the net’s possibilities and seeking new ways of sharing their identities and their beliefs. Christianity centres on love and the web raises new questions of how their relationships and lifestyles are changing.
With this in mind, they will be discussing these issues at the Young People’s Forum on Monday at St James Cavalier at 7 p.m. As the primary consumers of new media, young people are coming together to share and debate perspectives on the implications of web-based applications.
Three leading researchers, Karen Bishop, Alex Grech and Rev. Prof. Saviour Chircop, will be sharing their expert insights on transformations in relationships, social interaction and the concept of “participation”.
Organised by the Church’s Commission for Youth, the Young People’s Forum is an exercise in opinion-building on pressing social issues. The three fora held so far have produced enlightening documents on issues of sexual responsibility and education, marriage within a family-oriented culture and the poverty margin in a welfare-state. Through these documents, young Christians have put forward concrete proposals to key ecclesiastical and political decision-makers.
Mr Mifsud is president of the Diocesan Commission for Youth and Mr Muscat is project co-ordinator.