I have a Facebook account. I’m not one to play games on it; in fact, I categorically refuse all game requests. I don’t worry about my privacy … I never post anything on it that I care whether the whole world sees it or not. I just use it to keep track of friends and family, and it’s been a valuable tool for that. Still, limited as my use may be, I often see posts from people that run along these lines: I really like/dislike *this particular thing or issue* … if you like/dislike it, copy everything I just said about it and post it on your Facebook page too! Similarly, once in a while I get an e-mail of the same order: Here is a very worthy/unworthy cause (insert dissertation on why) … please CC it to everyone in your address book so they can know about it too.
I have no difficulty with people using Internet tools to share causes and beliefs that are important to them. In fact, I would encourage it – if done rightly. It’s the whole copy/paste/distribute method that bothers me. For a start, if you aren’t the originator, it takes very little thought or effort to send it around. I would much rather see people making heartfelt, personal appeals. You also don’t always know if the matter is current … it may be something that has been circulating for years. There was a young boy suffering from cancer who wanted cards mailed to him so he could get in the records book before he died, and an e-mail call went out to fulfill his wish. He’s recovered and a grown man now, but he still gets cards, because the original e-mail is still circulating in various forms ( Snopes Shergold article). And, though it may not cost you anything to cut, paste, and repeat, it costs someone. Anything that traverses the Internet uses data storage somewhere, and uses up transmission bandwidth, especially if millions of people are copy/pasting it. The cost, according to a NY Times article in 2003, estimated the total cost for spam to be anywhere from $10 billion to $874 billion in the USA alone (which of course, includes all spam, not just copy/paste spam, but even if that amounts to only a small fraction, it’s still a lot of money).
But even if you set aside all those reasons, my biggest difficulty with it is that so many people engage in it not because they are moved by the cause, but because they feel like they would be held in lesser regard if they didn’t jump on the bandwagon. In other words, they do it because of social pressures, and anyone passing along a message for that kind of reason, in the end, is being phony. It isn’t necessarily hypocritical, because a person might actually believe in the cause. It’s just that they are only sharing it because they feel like they have to, and wouldn’t share it, at least that way, without those pressures.
The Bible doesn’t speak directly about the phenomenon of social pressure. But one passage that touches on the matter, is 1 Corinthians 13:1-3: “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.” Notice that Paul is never once saying that to do those things is meaningless, but to do them without love is meaningless. I believe that very neatly applies to social pressures as well. After all, is your goal to please God, or to please men (Gal. 1:10)? The two are frequently inimical, and if you are bowing to social pressure, you are pleasing men. The question is, is your heart also engaged in a way that God can be pleased too?
If you think about it, this issue goes well beyond Facebook and e-mails. How about the way you speak in church? Are your praises from the heart, or do they roll off your tongue because you think people expect them from you? When you serve, do you do so because you are convinced it is the Lord’s calling, and it is a thing you must do for His sake? Or do you serve because you were asked, and were afraid to say no and maybe be thought less of? Or even worse, because your pride was tickled, and you thought this area of service elevated you in people’s eyes? When you sing, is it because the words expressed in that song are the words of your own heart, or is it just because you don’t want to be the only one not singing? When the pastor gives a challenge from the pulpit, do you raise your hand, or stand, because you are truly moved to make a commitment, or because everyone else around you is doing so and you feel like the odd one out?
Even our service to other men, outside of church, ought to be heartfelt and sincere (Eph. 6:5-8). Do you do your work grudgingly, just to get the paycheck? Or do you treat it as another expression of your service to God, which in fact it truly is?
And so the bottom line is, are you real? Is your faith real (Rom. 6:17), and are your actions real? Do you worship in spirit and truth (John 4:14)? This is something God wants from all of us, genuine sincerity, and actions that reflect what is in our hearts.