What kind of community does the Internet build?

. . . perhaps the Internet does build "community," but what kind of community does it build?

It seems to me that, even in "community," the Internet is inherently isolating, depending as it does on corrupt notions of freedom and selfhood. The Internet may be the greatest tool of the modern age, but it comes with all the problematic dualities that this age and its products have had--both for good and bad, for weal and woe, for liberation and enslavement. Yet many today are unable to understand both the boon and the bane of the Internet, that it can, even while creating community, radically undermine community, and thus foster isolation.

The Internet is isolating because it subtly convinces people that fellowship and community can be had with only as much commitment as a click of a button. If I get bored, or frustrated, or angry, or hurt online, I can just log off, or connect to a different forum. The Internet is the ultimate voluntary society. And the voluntaristic impulse embedded in online interactions is destructive of real community. It erodes trust, and renders impossible the collective building of a shared history and a shared set of ideals.

The church, as a community, must do more than simply bless such an idea of community with tacit acceptance. Rather, the church ought to challenge it by living an authentic alternative. In preaching, worship, catechesis, and mission, the church has the opportunity to subvert the voluntaristic model of community many people learn from modern life, and from its most effective pedagogue, the Internet. The church can preach the good news that God in Christ established a community transcending our voluntarism. The church can teach about the meaning of the Gospel to an information-saturated people. And in mission with and among these same people the church can live out a constancy and patience that will not "log off" when times are difficult and relationships are strained.

Daniel M. Griswold - "Beyond the Hype: The Internet and the Church" Perspectives: Journal of Reformed Christian Thought January 2003.

Never had a problem with tap water, anyway.

. . . Ounce for ounce, it costs more than gasoline, even at today's high gasoline prices; depending on the brand, it costs 250 to 10,000 times more than tap water. Globally, bottled water is now a $46 billion industry. Why has it become so popular?

It cannot be the taste, since most people cannot tell the difference in a blind tasting. Much bottled water is, in any case, derived from municipal water supplies, though it is sometimes filtered, or has additional minerals added to it.

Nor is there any health or nutritional benefit to drinking bottled water over tap water. In one study, published in The Archives of Family Medicine, researchers compared bottled water with tap water from Cleveland, and found that nearly a quarter of the samples of bottled water had significantly higher levels of bacteria. The scientists concluded that "use of bottled water on the assumption of purity can be misguided." Another study carried out at the University of Geneva found that bottled water was no better from a nutritional point of view than ordinary tap water.

. . . Bottled water is undeniably more fashionable and portable than tap water. The practice of carrying a small bottle, pioneered by supermodels, has become commonplace. But despite its association with purity and cleanliness, bottled water is bad for the environment. It is shipped at vast expense from one part of the world to another, is then kept refrigerated before sale, and causes huge numbers of plastic bottles to go into landfills.

Of course, tap water is not so abundant in the developing world. And that is ultimately why I find the illogical enthusiasm for bottled water not simply peculiar, but distasteful. For those of us in the developed world, safe water is now so abundant that we can afford to shun the tap water under our noses, and drink bottled water instead: our choice of water has become a lifestyle option. For many people in the developing world, however, access to water remains a matter of life or death.

"Bad to the Last Drop", by Tom Standage. New York Times August 1, 2005.