Secondly, digital media are also changing the way we obtain information. Through the internet we now live in what amounts to a single, world-wide virtual library. Receptive knowledge, or what University of Connecticut philosopher Michael Patrick Lynch calls “Google-knowing,”¹⁵ is available to anyone who can use a computer or other digital device that can connect to the internet. Information retrieval is much easier than it used to be.

As an experiment Lynch says that he wrote down four rather random questions to which he wanted answers:

1. What is the capital of Bulgaria?
2. Is a four-stroke outboard engine more efficient than a two-stroke?
3. What is the phone number of my U.S. representative?
4. What is the best-reviewed restaurant in Austin, Texas, this week?

He tried to answer those questions without resorting to digital sources. He pulled a dictionary from his shelves, located a map, and confirmed that Sofia was the capital of Bulgaria. He worried, however, that the information might be inaccurate given the publication date of his dictionary and the fluidity of eastern Europe.

Question 2 was more difficult, not least because he didn’t have any boat engine manuals. So he went to a local marina and consulted a mechanic. He got his answer after some effort and depending on whether or not the mechanic actually knew what he was talking about.

Though he thought the third question would be easiest, he remembered that he no longer owned a phone book. And when he went to his local library, instead of pointing him to a telephone book, the person behind the counter suggested that he use the computer to find out. After finally locating a telephone book on the library shelves, he discovered his answer, despite the fact that it could have been wrong since it was several years old.

Question 4 proved to be the most difficult because he did not know anyone in Austin, Texas. He thought about calling the local chamber of commerce, but he didn’t have any way to get their number. Besides, there was no reason to think the chamber would necessarily know the answer to such a timely question. Since his local library in Connecticut did not have any Texas newspapers, he was stymied. The best restaurant in Austin that week remained elusive.

I just replicated his experiment using the internet and found the answers to all the questions in about 2 minutes. “Speed is the most obvious distinguishing characteristic of how we know now,” says Lynch. “Google-knowing is fast.”¹⁶ Lynch points out that because of the speed and contemporaneous nature of the data, we increasingly trust digitally acquired information over other sources of information—whether or not that trust is truly warranted. More about that later.

Books, encyclopedias, dictionaries, news, and commentaries are available with a simple mouse click or touch of a finger-tip on a digital app on a mobile device. Although sales of e-readers dropped to 12 million in 2015 from 20 million in 2011, most books today are published in both digital and hardcopy formats. According to a 2015 Nielsen survey, 32 percent of people read books primarily on e-readers. Even libraries are finding digital holdings to be popular among patrons. The Brevard County, Florida, library lent 1 million digital materials (ebooks, eAudiobooks, and periodicals) between August 2011 and October 2016.

Thirdly, digital media are changing the way work gets done in business. A Pew Research Center study published in 2014, pointed out that 94% of the U.S. job force are internet users. Sixty-one percent of adult internet users said that email was “very important” to doing their job, while 54% said the internet itself was very important for their jobs. Somewhat surprisingly, just 7% of working online adults feel their productivity has dropped because of the internet, email and cell phones, while 46% feel more productive. Fifty-one percent of those surveyed said that the internet expanded the number of people with whom they communicate outside of their company, and 39% said that the internet allowed more flexibility in the hours they worked, while 35% said the internet increased the number of hours they worked. ¹⁷

According to a 2016 report from Deloitte, the multinational professional services firm, “Today’s growth in technological capabilities, exponential increase in computing power available to both consumers and enterprises, and almost ubiquitous Internet connectivity among other digital advances is changing the way employees and enterprises work.” Faster computing speed and greater storage is making virtual and global collaboration possible in more fields every day. As digital technology becomes more robust and hardware more reliable, employers become more comfortable with employees working on their devices instead of meeting face-to-face or coming into an office. Deloitte suggests that since millennials are the first truly “digital native” generation, they should get special attention when it comes to technology in the workplace. After all, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that by 2030 millennials will make up 75 percent of the workforce. “As millennials grow into managerial roles, their priorities—i.e., working for more than just a paycheck—and leadership styles will have a huge impact on all organizations in the coming years.”¹⁸ Obviously, then, new media are playing pivotal roles in the economy. In fact, the nearly universal penetration of digital media in business has been tagged by some business leaders and social commentators “the third industrial revolution.”

In many of the same ways digital media are changing the way churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples do their business. Shane Hipps, the Lead Pastor of Trinity Mennonite Church in Phoenix, offers an apologia for the use of digital technology in his book Flickering Pixels:How Technology Shapes Your Faith. The book, says Hipps, “explores the hidden power of media and technology as a way to understand who we are, who we think God is, and how God’s unchanging message has changed, is changing, and will change”¹⁹ as a result of the mosaic of flickering pixels. Borrowing Marshall McLuhan’s famous aphorism, “the medium is the message,” Hipps argues that “Jesus is God’s perfect medium—and the medium is the message.”²⁰ Since Jesus embodies God’s grace and mercy, and since the church is the body of Christ, by extension Christians “are the message,” says Hipps, a message of healing and hope to the world.²¹ Social media become a strategic way for the church to bear witness to God’s grace and to serve others in his name.

From a sociological and communications standpoint, technology and religious groups are so thoroughly integrated that “digital religion” is now something to be studied. Religious expression on the internet has moved far beyond digitized sermons, Christian chat rooms, and live-streamed worship services.

With the rise of the virtual world many groups are embracing technologies such as Second Life to create an online worship experience that offers an interactive worship via avatars (for example the Anglican Cathedral in Second Life, or the Church of Fools). Now we see the Internet becoming a tool to extend a church’s offline ministry into online spaces. For instance, we see the rise of Internet campuses within many multisite churches, and webcasting of services via iPhone and Facebook apps (for example LifeChurch.tv) becoming common. Thus, rather than being an alternative social space for a few, digital technology becomes an important platform extending and altering religious practice for many.²²

Digital media can facilitate education and life-long learning. Online education is a growth industry thanks to the internet. “More than 35 million people have enrolled in online courses in the last four years, and 2015 enrollments doubled from 2014. (That’s equal to one out of five working professionals in the U.S.!)”²³ “Today there are more than 4,200 MOOC courses available (many more if you include the corporate training programs from companies like Udemy, BigThink, Pluralsight, Lynda, NovoEd, and Skillsoft).” See also, How ‘Elite’ Universities Are Using Online Education at www.chronicle.com/article/How-Elite-Universities/229233.

The Challenges of Digital Media

Information retrieval, economic growth, digital religion, and access to education represent significant sectors of opportunity that the burgeoning digital revolution is helping us realize. As with nearly every other arena of life, however, there are both benefits and burdens. An accurate benefits versus burdens calculus may help us determine whether or not digital media are a net gain or a net loss; but it may well turn out to be more complex than that. Perhaps the gains are sufficiently robust to justify ongoing technological development, but instead of uncritical adoption, we should develop criteria for making better informed choices. How would we begin to do that? What should we know that will help us make good choices about technology?