The Internet is not like a system of water or gas lines. Nor is it a mass of cables, wires, tablets, cell phones and computers. It would be a mistake to identify the Internet and its use with the technological infrastructure that makes connection possible. Today the Web is, above all in its mobile form,… Read more »
The technological achievements of the Net and of bioelectronics are producing social and economic upheavals on the worldwide level. Technology is influencing the evolution of culture by means of changes that also involve the human being’s conception of him/ herself. Today’s technological culture tends to reduce the human being to a mechanical corporeality or to… Read more »
A growing number of Net users are expressing themselves with aggressive language, which is becoming a communicative style in contemporary society. Immediately amplified by the Net, hate language is by now passively accepted or considered “normal” by almost half of the Net’s users, according to an SWG research. The Net is reproducing more and more… Read more »
In the book The Moon and the Bonfires by Cesare Pavese, an Italian writer and poet, the protagonist–an orphan–closes his eyes to see if, upon reopening them, the world before him has disappeared and been replaced by a better one. Perhaps many of us have done the same thing at one time or another. And… Read more »
Speak courageously. Don’t be ashamed. Here, shame should be left at the door. Speak courageously. I say what I feel and if anyone is offended by it, I ask their pardon and move on. You know how to speak like this. But one must also listen with humility. If someone I don’t like is speaking, I… Read more »
The big event is drawing nearer. The XV General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, scheduled for October 2018, will focus on contemporary youth. The Church wants to listen to the new generations. The Synod will be about young people, but when Pope Francis announced the event, he revealed that his intention was to make… Read more »
Millions of people throughout the world use social networks. Many of the themes debated by the public revolve around issues connected to the Internet–from the loss of privacy to cyber-bullying, from fake news to the consequences of the Internet’s influence on democratic processes. By now we can see for ourselves that the Internet is an… Read more »
Virtue is a personal “device” that Michel Foucault would have included in what he called “technologies of the self.” But the concept of “device” should be understood according to the meaning attributed to it by this significant French philosopher. A device is not a contraption, an instrument, an electronic gadget. In the present context,… Read more »
The worst punishment we can inflict on another person is to say: “I’m not speaking to you anymore!” because in this case silence serves to exclude the other person from our life. It is not a way of chastising the person nor is it mutism. Instead, it is a profound negation of the other person’s… Read more »
This phrase, which encapsulates the heart of the Papal Message for the 51st World Communications Day (celebrated this year on 28 May), restores a central role to human beings and their capacity to choose between good and evil. Pope Francis urges us to act like millstones and “grind” the information we receive in a constructive… Read more »