Recently, as we left a wedding we had attended, my daughter-in-law said to me. “Facebook has really interfered with people’s ability to have conversations”. I asked her to explain – and she told me that during the course of the entire day, in the conversations they had with my son's friends, not one had asked questions about each other – but simply each person had a story to tell – news to broadcast – the desperate need to be listened to. The problem was … NO one was listening! They were all waiting to tell their own story. Hazelle felt that due the daily broadcasting our society does through social media – we’ve lost the ability to converse.
At the end of 2014, United Nations indicated that 2.7 billion people were online! That is 40% of the world’s population. Four years from now, 5.1 billion people will be mobile phone users around the globe — almost 1 billion more mobile users than the 4.3 billion people worldwide using them now.
The world is approachable like never before. Research shows that 72% of North American adults use social networking and media to connect with others. People today are connecting more online now than in person. (Pew Foundation)
The world is online … everyone is talking!
But, there is a problem:
The problem is that it is increasingly difficult for people to connect. We “cocoon” in our homes. We live behind locked doors. We ride alone in cars and often don’t even see our next-door neighbours.
We have tremendous opportunity to connect! People are seeking relationship and wanting to talk – all we have to do is learn to listen and engage. However, the noise is overwhelming. How can we expect someone to hear us, much less respond? We have to communicate differently than we ever have before.
Think about this…. You are already telling a story. Look at your personal Facebook wall. Most of your posts are stories of relationship – photos with friends, social events, messages from family, anecdotes of funny things friends have said. We already use social media to tell the stories about relationships…ours, as well as others. We need to learn how to talk about Jesus, our number one relationship, through the connections we have in our personal and ministry social media platforms. We wont do this by talking more – but by having conversations – and this begins by being available to listen.
Elicit a response through your content, listen and engage people like never before so you can share the message that really matters.