{"id":2217,"date":"2012-11-07T17:08:17","date_gmt":"2012-11-07T23:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/adamscenter\/?p=2217"},"modified":"2020-07-06T11:44:58","modified_gmt":"2020-07-06T16:44:58","slug":"beck-to-present-on-social-computing-and-spirituality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/adamscenter\/2012\/11\/07\/beck-to-present-on-social-computing-and-spirituality\/","title":{"rendered":"Beck to present on social computing and spirituality"},"content":{"rendered":"

Press release pulled from ACU News<\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n

On Friday, November 9, Dr. Richard Beck, ACU Mobile Research Fellow and chair of ACU’s Department of Psychology, will present groundbreaking research on the cognitive effects of social networking and how it relates to spirituality.<\/p>\n

Beck will share his findings concerning technology’s influence on faith, “Facebook fasting,” the “phantom phone vibration phenomenon,” and other topics. His research is tied to ACU’s Mobile Learning Initiative.<\/p>\n

The peer-to-peer presentation will take place in the Adams Center classroom in the Brown Library from noon to 12:50 p.m., with a faculty luncheon to precede the presentation at 11:30 a.m.<\/p>\n

About the research<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cMore and more studies are coming out every day documenting the cognitive and social impacts of social networking \u2013 all the texting, Tweeting, and Facebooking we do during the day,” says Beck. “To date, however, no one has taken a close look at the spiritual impact of all this electronic interaction. That\u2019s what my team set out to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beck, along with two psychology graduate students, Anne Briggs and Mary Tomkins, surveyed 313 undergraduate students at ACU about their social networking habits and how those habits affect their perceived spirituality, their relationship with God, and their faith overall.<\/p>\n

The research also surveyed various ways students have attempted to limit or moderate their use of social networking to mitigate its impact on their spiritual lives. For example, 53% of the students in the survey report having undertaken a \u201cFacebook fast,\u201d where they stopped checking or logging onto Facebook for a specified period of time.<\/p>\n

\u201cFasting,\u201d Beck observes, \u201cis the practice of refraining from something pleasurable in which we tend to overindulge. It’s an ancient spiritual practice used in Christianity and other faith traditions. It\u2019s interesting to see college students applying this discipline to the modern world of social computing. It seems that more and more people are exploring things like this in order to maintain their spiritual equilibrium in our hyper-connected age.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why is unplugging for spiritual purposes on the rise? According to Beck\u2019s survey, 49% of his students agree with the statement that \u201cthe time I spend on things like texting, Facebook or Twitter has drawn me away from God.”<\/p>\n

Beck also assessed a phenomenon researchers have dubbed \u201cphantom phone vibration,\u201d the experience of thinking your iPhone is buzzing in your pocket, only to find out it isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cEight-nine percent of our students reported having experienced phantom phone vibrations,” says Beck. “Of these, 38% of our students have this experience every day or every week.\u201d According to Beck, the experience suggests we have become hyper-vigilant in monitoring our cell phones.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven when we aren\u2019t on our phones, we are still on the edges of awareness paying attention to them,\u201d Beck observes. \u201cThis might be one reason we feel our social connectivity is making it more difficult for us to be fully present in the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

For example, according to the ACU survey, 55% of the students reported texting other people while talking with their friends. This might be why 28% of the survey respondents agree that \u201cthe time I spend on things like texting, Facebook or Twitter is interfering with me having deep, meaningful relationships with others.\u201d<\/p>\n

About ACU’s Mobile Learning Initiative<\/strong><\/p>\n

The ACU Mobile Learning Initiative is built upon the theory that humans learn best when they are in community – collaborating with others in a learning environment without boundaries. A technological solution that aims at increased learning must enhance communication and convergence. Mobile Learning at ACU seeks to connect learners through engaged, collaborative, distributive, integrated, and evaluative models, all of which combine to produce a profoundly connected learning experience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Press release pulled from ACU News: On Friday, November 9, Dr. Richard Beck, ACU Mobile Research Fellow and chair of ACU’s Department of Psychology, will present groundbreaking research on the cognitive effects of social networking and how it relates to spirituality. Beck will share his findings concerning technology’s influence on faith, “Facebook fasting,” the “phantom […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3961,"featured_media":2223,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42271],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-2217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faith-learning"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/adamscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/adamscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/adamscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/adamscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3961"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/adamscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2217"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/adamscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8379,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/adamscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2217\/revisions\/8379"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/adamscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/adamscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/adamscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/adamscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2217"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/adamscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=2217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}