I never ascended the blogging ranks like Sullivan or Armstrong, and yet I too recently decided to complete my time as a regular blogger here at Christianity Today to pursue writing of a different sort. Like Sullivan, I yearn to slow down. Instead of creating post after post, I want to focus on writing that allows me more time and thought. Blogging itself\u201d\u201dits immediacy, its informality, its conversational tone\u201d\u201dis fleeting. There\u2019s always an occasion for another update, another issue to comment on.<\/p>\n
With such a transient, \u201cwhat next?\u201d\u009d mindset, bloggers and tweeters may experience what media theorist Douglas Rushkoff calls \u201cpresent shock.\u201d\u009d In his book of the same name, Rushkoff explains, \u201cOur society has reoriented itself to the present moment. Everything is live, real time, and always-on. It\u2019s not a mere speeding up\u201d\u00a6 It\u2019s more of a diminishment of anything that isn\u2019t happening right now\u201d\u201dand the onslaught of everything that supposedly is.\u201d\u009d Our focus upon the present leads to \u201cnarrative collapse,\u201d\u009d the end of storytelling, the end of understanding our place in the world as something with a beginning, a middle, and an end.<\/p>\n