Sync-watching church?

Our Religion and Media class ended this morning, but I've certainly been transformed by the experience! One thing I've noticed already is the way in which I am more attuned to articles related to our discussions this past week.

So, here's one I came across this morning, from The New York Times: "For Couples Split by Distance, Two Screens Can Blink as One."

The article describes an increasingly-popular phenomenon the author calls "sync-watching," where couples or friends not able to be together in person virtually watch episodes of tv shows together, with help from a vast array of technology. 

The challenges described, relating to syncing video, preventing sound from echoing, and wanting to see and hear the other person's reaction to the show, especially resonated with me as I continue to explore how screens might "blink as one" to share in Compline together. 

Here's a quote from the article:

The rap against television has long been that it “isolates people from the environment, from each other, and from their own senses,” as Jerry Mander famously said in his 1978 book, “Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television.” But what these arduous efforts to sync-watch suggest is that the medium isn’t intrinsically isolating or intrinsically social. It is only a medium, and the way people use it — and other technologies with it — decides whether it becomes more like a sealed-off phone booth or a rollicking, motormouth coffeehouse.

Much like the conclusions made about television, I think our first reactions in thinking about what church might look like in an increasingly digital world are ones of fear and negativity. We like things how they are, and are wary of the ways machines and the internet might slowly whittle away those parts of us that make us human.

I think what this article points to, though, is how our fundamental characteristics as social and relational beings are pretty deeply embedded. We truly desire to be with one another, and we're willing to be pretty creative in order to make this happen. Yes, technology has power, but it is most basically a tool, a medium. 

So, I'm wondering - do we have the same commitment to worshiping together as we do to watching tv shows together? What about this shared experience is so important? Are we able to articulate this well? And, to what lengths are we willing to go to make this possible?