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The Reality of Manti Te'o's Hoax

We humans are built for connection. We were made to connect. We like hanging out with our friends and family. We like posting pictures and comments on Facebook for others to see. We enjoy sharing a laugh with others via a text message. We really seem to seek out and desire a connection with fellow human beings.  This is no great insight. We have known this since our elementary school days and our exploits in trying to fit in, get along and otherwise connect with classmates. We all want to be in a place like the TV show Cheers from the 80’s and 90’s. As the theme song for the show says we all want to go “Where everybody knows your name; And they're always glad you came.”
I do not know, nor honestly desire to know, all of the details surrounding Manti Te’o’s fake girlfriend hoax. I am more interested in the reality that Manti Te’o’s situation seems to highlight. Manti Te’o made a “love connection” with a person that he had never meet in person. In fact the person Te’o claimed to be in love with never truly existed at all. Yet, Te’o desired to have a connection. The Note Dame football star and runner up to winning the Heisman trophy did not want to be alone.
This is the reality that Te’o’s hoax truly reveals about us all. We all desire connection. We were made to connect. We don’t want to be alone. In our quest to not be alone it appears that many of us have fallen into a similar Te’o type hoax. We have come to expect more from our technology then real face to face relationships. We fear the risks and disappointments of relationships with fellow humans. We have become so insecure about ourselves and others that we, like Te’o, often substitute technology for being “connected”.  We seem to expect certain kind of reality from our technology and less from reality.  This has happened in a host of ways like:
·         We often consider our mobile internet connection as “taking others with us.” We are always “connected” to others yet hidden at the same time.
 
·         As a culture we seem to be determined to give human qualities to objects like Zhu Zhu pets that demand our attention and love. Yet we are content to treat other people (actual humans) as things. Zhu Zhu pets are lovable and responsive. Other people are not so loveable and responsive.
 
·         In January 2010 a Neilson study reported that the average teen sends over 3,000 text messages a month. We would rather text a person then talk because to call someone might be intrusive.
Seems our technology seductively offers to meet our human vulnerabilities. We, like Te’o, desire a true connection. We are lonely yet fearful and unsure of how to handle intimacy. Our technology offers us the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship. It would seem then that the hoax that Te’o found himself apart of is something that we all participate in as well. The hoax that somehow we will all be more connected by being connected via technology all the while we are truly lonely. How is it that we might brag about how many Facebook friends we have yet so many Americans feel friendless?
How do we combat the hoax? Here is one idea to consider.
Sacred Spaces
Our connectivity via technology allows us to be bombarded by the random thoughts of others. How often have we or others given our opinion on some matter that was completely ill conceived and ignorant yet broadcast to the widest possible audience? We seem to have some sense that all of these opinions must be tended to in some manner. When we do this we are never truly where we are. Do we truly need to keep our technology busy? Have we become their (technology) killer app? We spend hours on email yet we too are being spent. We can have instant conversations yet they seem flat when reduced to abbreviations. Our hunt to connect via technology leaves us all somewhere else all the while surrounded by other people.
Perhaps we might consider creating some sacred space. If you are going to create a sacred space then you are going to have to consider what you value. If you value the relationships of family and friends then perhaps some limits should be placed on your technology. If you truly desire a real conversation then perhaps some limitations should be placed on your technology. If you wish to connect with where you truly are then, you got it, perhaps some limitations should be placed on your technology. As more innovations in technology come the challenge will not be connecting but disconnecting.

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