Time for another mobile activity. In our last one, we took a big step – you were asked to try becoming a publishing point for Gospel content that you created yourself. In that activity, you essentially were able to do similar to what Bible societies and publishers have done for a few thousand year,
This time, we are going the investigative-conversational route of a journalist. With the end result of having the elements of a story that can be created in one of several modes.
For the following activity you will need:
- Any mobile phone (preferably yours)
- The ability to record video or audio
- Courage
Step One:
Get associated with your mobile device. Take some time to figure out whether you can record audio or video.
Usually, there’s an application called Voice Recorder or Recorder on your device to do this. On some devices, this functionality is built into the Notes application. For videos, you should find this feature within the camera settings for your mobile.
Step Two:
Make a trip to a place where there’s a steady, but not necessarily high amount of people traffic (coffeeshops are great, libraries, waiting rooms, and food courts are great).
Your first goal here is to observe and note how people are using their mobile devices. Either by recording your voice, or the people themselves (get permission before you do this), note things such as how they maintain eye contact within conversations, whether or not they “play” with the device while in conversation, etc. Are there some people taking pictures of various items? Or, do you hear conversations about applications, ease (or dis-ease) of use, etc. Note these items in your “journal.”
Step Three:
This is where courage comes in. When opportunity presents itself, approach a person (or a small group) and ask them simply if they like their mobile device? Ask this question openly, giving them room to expand on reasons why they might like or not like the device.
You’ll be asked “why do you ask” and your response can be that you “are doing a mobile activity for Mobile Ministry Magazine. Its an activity designed to help me better understand how people are using mobile devices, and how I can better understand them in the context of my faith.”
After that, allow the conversation to take its course.
Here’s Your Opportunity: Open the Door
As you can tell, this kind of activity can easily get into evangelizing about your faith. It can also dive into a conversation about devices, apps, games, or challenges with mobile. The goal though is to simply open the door of conversation, and before you converse, you’ve already investigated the environment and gotten a base understanding of the context. In a sense, your time in observation will allow you to not ask the wrong questions.
We talked about being like a journalist in this activity. And that’s definitely the case – observing, recording, and questioning your environment. Your story elements are there, and now you can begin to put together a picture of the social fabric of that area. When you asked the question about liking one’s mobile, you shed some light on one aspect of social life, and as you dug into faith or other topics, you added color, layers to the story. What you ended up with is a picture of that environment, and all the information you’d need to respond by faith to the needs there. Imagine doing this exercise with youth or singles’ groups – what kinds of different stories could come from this investigation of life and faith?
Once you’ve had this conversation, note it and mark what you did right or wrong. Come back to this post also and share your experiences. What could have made broaching the conversations easier? Or, how could your mobile been better able to help you during that observational period?
Personal Testimony/Caution:
I commonly do this behavior – and usually over the course of weeks am I doing the observations. In many cases, I’ve got to take a little longer in explaining and demonstrating MMM as the question, “do you like your mobile,” I’ve been told can come off like a pick up line. To that end, I’ll simply say be mindful of whom you are asking, and the context in which you approach anyone – depending on your heart/walk and their’s, this could be interpreted differently. Be respectful above all things.
Previous Mobile Activities/Experiments:
For more information on activities similar to this, read our MMM Mobile Web Server Experiment Report (available in PDF, Google Doc, and blog post (pt1, pt2, pt3) formats) and the last mobile activity – Creating an Opportunity for Gospel Interactions.
I hear enough times, from certain generations/economic classes/ethnicities, that the idea of “community” that has some grounding in “electronic connectivity” is somehow less genuine and less effective than other methods. Of course, these comments tend to come from people groups where there’s been at least a few generations where the social stream has been disconnected from the family/village narrative, so I can understand why that perception lies so.
Of Kids and the Knowledge to Come
Wednesday, September 15th, 2010Some of the insightful comments and approaches to mobile and web technology comes from the hearts and mouths of kids that I run across. Whether its their impressions of a device that I have, or just their general curiosity, there’s something about them (and some retirees) which grants a view into this paradigm shift in ways that only deep research seems to expose.
For example, this past weekend, I sat down with twin 10yr olds to talk about technology, their interests, and to offer them some wisdom on how to move forward. Now, your first thought might be, “they’re 10 – they will probably change their minds a few dozen times before they are 13. Why speak to them about this subject?” But, that’s just it. If their imaginations and passions are sparked now, and then matured and cultivated by parents, teachers, and other community members, these small passions become the actions by adults which change the world.
As we sat to chat, one of the twins asked me about the microprocessor in my iPad, and started to detail much of what he read by researching on Google (and elsewhere) about its internal components. He could tell me all that he read, but didn’t understand how it worked. I was delightfully surprised and took the time to answer his question – and give him and his brother some unsupervised time on my iPad.
You see, these kids were already acute to the abilities of using search engines to find the high-level information towards those things they are interested in. They were well acquainted with both the Internet their parents know, and the one their parents don’t want them to see. And like some kids I’ve come across, they are very respectful of those persons that will take the time with them to talk to them about their interests, and how they could use them right now to move forward, and what it could look like in the future.
These kids aren’t starting from penmanship classes with $2 calculators. They have mobile phones with unlimited SMS plans, and have already figured out how to connect IM, Facebook, and their parent’s email to them. They are curious to a fault. And are simply asking to be directed.
Their father and I talked about me coming to sit with them ever 2-3 months to see how they are progressing with tech and life, and to continue to give them pointers. I’m not just serving the kids, I’m also enabling the parents to understand the kind of knowledge that these kids are willing to find on their own. The parents need a means to cultivate this into mature understanding, and later wisdom in application.
I believe that as we see the age for kids with mobile and web access come down (some areas this is as young as 7/8, in the US its 11/12), we will see the need to cultivate this kind of conversation with them so that they don’t just get enamored with the shiny, but that they also learn the implications of the world that will soon be theirs to shape and mold.
So the next time you ask someone to speak to you like a 4th grader, just remember, the bar for what these kids know is a lot higher than what it was for you in some areas. Be prepared to address some heady topics, while cultivating the wisdom and understanding of things relevant to both them and you, but which are also needed for a child that age to mature.
Tags: children, community, conversation, education, mobility, parents, technology, teens
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