Technology and the LDS Church

Technology allows us to do church-related work and service faster, but should not reduce the amount of time and effort that we consecrate to serving the Lord. The ability to get as much work done in ten minutes that it used to take three hours to do does not give us an excuse to idle away the extra two hours and fifty minutes we saved into activities less worthy of our time. There is plenty of work for all when we are in the service of God, so we needn't worry that doing the work in an efficient manner is going to leave others with nothing to do. The Savior has said, "Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness (Doctrine and Covenants 58:27)." May we take this council to heart and foster the attitude of "How can I help move the work of the Lord forward" rather than "How fast can I get this done so I can play."

Good writing is not a big bang experience

The reason many people feel they are bad writers is not because they are lacking in intelligence, but they have failed to invest the time and effort to develop their skills and polish their writing. Mark Twain said, "The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is you really want to say." Even the best writers end up spending a lot of time revising and rewriting before they produce good writing. When people make excuses like "Writing just isn't my thing," and "I'm just not a very good writer," they are saying that they are not willing to invest the time and effort required to write well.

Anonymity != license to be rude

The anonymity behind online social networking is bringing out the monster in many of us. A report by Pew Internet reported that about one-third of all teenagers who use the Internet have been subject to some form of cyberbullying. It seems that many people are using the Internet to unload emotions that they would never share with a person face-to-face. Because what they say can't be traced back to them it somehow justifies the malice they inject into their online posts. Jacqui Cheng, a writer for Ars Technica, said in his article entitled Memo to Internet nutjobs: Please, think before you post that cyber-harassers need to "realize that [their] words aren't going into a black hole. They're being read by other people—a lot of them, in some cases." Internet users need to understand that the things they say online are not being sent off into a nonexistent virtual world, but they are published to real people in the real world. I'm sure many of us have had experiences that have taught us the importance of thinking before we speak. Now let us take that advice and apply it to the world we live in today and make sure we think before we post.

I left my brain in my cell phone

Reliance on technology can lead to a weaker memory. A few weeks ago I found myself without a cell phone thanks to the incompatibility of water and electronics. The following few weeks made me think about technology in a different light. I had come to rely on my cell phone so much that when I did not have it I was unable to call my parents. My phone remembered their numbers for me so I had not bothered to memorize them. Simple math problems are often delegated to a calculator even though they could be easily solved in our head. Papers are checked for spelling and grammar by the click of a button rather than carefully proofreading them ourselves. When we don't have our laptop or calculator handy we are left stranded. All this reliance on technology can make a power outage feel like the end of the world. If we continue to hand over every task that comes our way to the computer without exercising our minds we are going to lose one of the greatest abilities that God has given us: the ability to think.