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<h5 style="padding-left: 420px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/ifraud/">ifraud</a></h5>
<strong>Sometimes conversations get off track in ways that border on annoying.</strong> At least from my perspective. Maybe I'm more Type A than I ever imagined.

I'm learning to go with the flow, though. If I can set aside the highly logical, orderly part of myself, I'm usually able to extricate the detour from whatever I was really trying to discuss, and see it as interesting, all on its own.

I went through this process over the weekend. Someone left a comment on a post of mine that was published at <a href="http://www.radiantmagazine.com/2009/05/what-do-you-call-that-other-kind-of-believer/">Radiant Magazine</a> last week. <strong>The post is about how difficult it can be to summarize who we are in a handful of words, as social media often requires us to do:</strong>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>Think about it. How do you sum up the guts of who you are while having lunch with a new friend? What about in 100 words, for a bio statement you need to write for your new blog? Or what do you say about yourself when you have only 140 characters, the limit for a Twitter bio?</em></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>Social media demands that we put ourselves in a neat, tidy little package. We’re creating personal brands in ways the average person a generation before us never even considered.</em></p>
<strong>The first response to my post, much to my dismay, was all about how social media feeds our narcissism and attention deficit disorder.</strong> Here's an excerpt:
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>Reading blogs is no different than reading commercial web-sites…My Life As Venture/Enterprise/Campaign/Project/Syndicate/Whatever. I find “social networkingâ€ stifling, misleading, and self-absorbed....</em></p>

<h4>Pushing through emotion to thought</h4>
My initial, knee-jerk response: OUCH!

My second, slightly less knee-jerk response: GRRRRRR!

My third, debate-oriented response: BRING IT ON!

My fourth response, written as an actual comment on the Radiant post:
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>Thanks for your comment. You raise some very good questions. While many people love social media, there’s much frustration and concern surrounding it, too, particularly when it comes to how it affects our understanding of community. I think I’ve embraced it to some extent, with healthy skepticism. Here’s what I’ve discovered:</em></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>1. Social media isn’t going away any time soon. Just like anything else that takes hold of culture, as Christians we have a choice. <strong>We can either see what it’s about and how it might be redeemed for good, or we can call it bad, avoid it, and hope it goes away.</strong> I’ve chosen the former approach, and have seen a lot of good come out of my interactions with people I might not otherwise meet.</em></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>2. Social media interactions are, in many ways, a lot like the in-person “old schoolâ€ interactions we have—<strong>in each mode, there’s great potential for honesty, truth-telling and being real with each other, and also plenty of opportunity to be self-centered, false and cold.</strong> To call social media “self-absorbedâ€ and “narcissisticâ€ and not acknowledge all of the narcissism apparent off-line seems unfair. (Also, I’m not sure why you would be reading the Radiant blog since you think “Reading blogs is no different than reading commercial web-sites.â€)</em></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>Finally, I have a strong “real-lifeâ€ community as well as the community I’ve built on Twitter and my blog. (If I only interacted with people on line that would be worrisome, for sure.) <strong>Every interaction, whether in person or on line, begins somewhere, with a few words and sentences, and builds from there</strong> (or doesn’t). The real question is this: Where do you begin, in whatever form your interaction takes, and what words do you use to identify yourself, particularly in terms of your faith?</em></p>

<h4>Questions &amp; ideas to ponder</h4>
This whole interaction has made me think of several things, that I'd love to hear your thoughts on:

1. Bloggers, <strong>how do you respond to/debate comments you disagree with</strong>, without coming off as aggressive or defensive?

2. Readers, <strong>how comfortable are you sharing what you really think</strong> in a comment on a blog? If you've built some sort of relationship with the blogger, does it make it easier or harder to disagree? (In this case, I've never interacted before with the person who left the comment.)

3. Everyone, <strong>do you find it annoying or refreshing when conversations wander away</strong> from your original intentions for them?

4. And finally, <strong>what do you think about the potential pitfalls of social media</strong>, versus the opportunities for good? (It's a much-discussed topic, for sure, but it's one I keep returning to from different directions.)