How Do You Explain Technology to Those Around You?

Every so often you get the chance to spend a day with special people.  Last Wednesday was one of those days as I gave a presentation to the leadership team of the Missionary Servants of the Most Holy Trinity.  The topic was digital life and its impact on evangelization.  

Most interesting was the group's desire to learn more about how new media impacts one's faith and spirituality.  We looked real-time at Twitter and Pinterest and Tumblr.  We discussed the dangerous side effects of social media as well.

At the end of the day, I had to answer the important question, "what's the point of all of this?"  While I'm by no means an expert, a few years of practice with social media gave me enough of a platform to explain technology to this eager group. 

Here I am with the leadership team of the Missionary Servants of the Most Holy Trinity- a terrific day!

We also spoke of Sherry Turkle's book, Alone Together.  Sherry discusses the various ways in which people are relying more and more on technology and less on one another- disturbing but true!   

I relied on personal experience, case studies and real-time data to help the group better understand technology.  Let's hope that it helped! 

I'm including Sherry's Ted talk below as a reference. 

So how do you explain technology to those around you?