My blog today involves two recent articles in the news. The first comes from FoxNews.com and was published on Aug 25, 2011:
Facebook Has Officially Hit 1 Trillion Page Views
Facebook has officially hit 1 trillion page views, according to figures released for web traffic in June, Time magazine’s TechLand column reports.
According to Time, those 870 million visitors are around 120 million greater than Facebook's reported total number of registered users. The discrepancy may be due to non-Facebook members visiting the site from other social media links or through search engine traffic.
After Facebook, the next most popular site is YouTube, which has only one-tenth of the page views, but matches 90% of Facebook's unique visitors for the same time period.
The data compiled by the Google-owned Double Click Adplanner show that throughout the month of June Facebook received more than 1 trillion page views and was visited by more than 870 million unique users -- an average of 1,149.42 page views per user.
The second article comes form the Associated Press four days later (August 29, 2011):
Sheriff: Facebook Boast Leads to Arrest
A suspected reckless motorcycle rider has discovered the law's long arm now reaches into cyberspace. The Yakima County Sheriff's office says they tracked the 19-year-old man down via Facebook.
Deputy Chris Gray says early Monday in a release that the incident began when a man on a motorcycle outran pursuing deputies late last week near Moxee, just east of Yakima.
Authorities later noticed a Facebook posting by a man boasting about eluding officers, as well as a photo on the page of a motorcycle similar to the one they sought.
Gray says that when the suspect was rousted at 4 a.m. Saturday by deputies with both a search warrant and a printout of the page, he acknowledged he was the rider. The man, whose name was not released, has been charged with reckless driving and other infractions.
What do these things teach us? Hopefully, a valuable lesson or two.
To begin with, we have all become social networking fanatics. We visit these sorts of web pages ten times as much as any other sites. The debate is still out over whether or not this is good, bad, or indifferent in regard to healthy human interaction.
Secondly, we can and often do get careless in what we say on these pages. I am quite sure the young man would love to retract his post wherein he bragged about outrunning the law.
As a pastor, I too have seen the damage people often do by posting pictures, statements, and/or opinions on social networking sites. More then once, a person or persons have come to see me hurt by what someone else has said or done via a social networking site.
As Christians, we must remember that we are called do wholesome, uplifting conversation, in all contexts. Despite our apparent misconception, simply captioning our conversation in a digital context does not in any way lessen our responsibility to build others up rather than to tear them down.
We would do well to remember what Jesus had to say in Matthew 12:36-37: "But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned."
No doubt Paul had this in mind when he later wrote to the Colossians (4:6): “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt…” and also to the Philippians (1:27): “Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ…” Amen.
Facebook Has Officially Hit 1 Trillion Page Views
Facebook has officially hit 1 trillion page views, according to figures released for web traffic in June, Time magazine’s TechLand column reports.
According to Time, those 870 million visitors are around 120 million greater than Facebook's reported total number of registered users. The discrepancy may be due to non-Facebook members visiting the site from other social media links or through search engine traffic.
After Facebook, the next most popular site is YouTube, which has only one-tenth of the page views, but matches 90% of Facebook's unique visitors for the same time period.
The data compiled by the Google-owned Double Click Adplanner show that throughout the month of June Facebook received more than 1 trillion page views and was visited by more than 870 million unique users -- an average of 1,149.42 page views per user.
The second article comes form the Associated Press four days later (August 29, 2011):
Sheriff: Facebook Boast Leads to Arrest
A suspected reckless motorcycle rider has discovered the law's long arm now reaches into cyberspace. The Yakima County Sheriff's office says they tracked the 19-year-old man down via Facebook.
Deputy Chris Gray says early Monday in a release that the incident began when a man on a motorcycle outran pursuing deputies late last week near Moxee, just east of Yakima.
Authorities later noticed a Facebook posting by a man boasting about eluding officers, as well as a photo on the page of a motorcycle similar to the one they sought.
Gray says that when the suspect was rousted at 4 a.m. Saturday by deputies with both a search warrant and a printout of the page, he acknowledged he was the rider. The man, whose name was not released, has been charged with reckless driving and other infractions.
What do these things teach us? Hopefully, a valuable lesson or two.
To begin with, we have all become social networking fanatics. We visit these sorts of web pages ten times as much as any other sites. The debate is still out over whether or not this is good, bad, or indifferent in regard to healthy human interaction.
Secondly, we can and often do get careless in what we say on these pages. I am quite sure the young man would love to retract his post wherein he bragged about outrunning the law.
As a pastor, I too have seen the damage people often do by posting pictures, statements, and/or opinions on social networking sites. More then once, a person or persons have come to see me hurt by what someone else has said or done via a social networking site.
As Christians, we must remember that we are called do wholesome, uplifting conversation, in all contexts. Despite our apparent misconception, simply captioning our conversation in a digital context does not in any way lessen our responsibility to build others up rather than to tear them down.
We would do well to remember what Jesus had to say in Matthew 12:36-37: "But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned."
No doubt Paul had this in mind when he later wrote to the Colossians (4:6): “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt…” and also to the Philippians (1:27): “Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ…” Amen.