19 August 2024
Credo

The little ticks on our WhatsApp messages serve a modest purpose. One tick indicates that the message was sent successfully, and two means it has been delivered to the recipient’s device. Two blue ticks confirm that the message has been read. However, these seemingly harmless technical signals can initiate a turbulent journey of mental turmoil.

The issue is the silence or inactivity following the appearance of two blue ticks. The message has already been received, but the response has not yet arrived. This digital state of “already but not yet” is unbearable for most message senders since all they get is a simple “read” receipt; that is, they are “left on read”.

The existence of the twin blue ticks indicates that the message was read and provides logical confirmation of the recipients’ presence. Knowing someone has read a message yet not being able to observe what he or she is doing arouses mistrust and suspicion. Is it not standard etiquette to respond to the sender?

Soon, a discourse bubbles from within ourselves, gripping us with a Tillichian existential angst. The greater the importance of a response, the more our eyes are riveted to our phone screen, and soon, all types of conjecture, impatience, and worry emerge. No-reply might be misinterpreted by the hypersensitive as a sign of being ignored or socially rejected, resulting in hurt.

Such unsettling thoughts we experience are a clear consequence of technology’s huge promise of co-presence, that it will “connect humanity”. Perceived this way, technology enslaves users as they conceive of WhatsApp as a tool that is at once local and global, across all imaginative borders.

Subjugation and deception set in when there is a belief that the world is interconnected around the clock and an app keeps us in continual communication wherever we are. In short, technology appears to transcend the boundaries of space and time. We forget that it is in Christ that “all things hold together” (Col. 1:15–17).

As a result, we become trapped in a continuous swirl of information overload, installing never-ending apps, scanning limitless QR codes, and downloading endless documents. The oft-quoted “zero distance” is a severely erroneous illusion: we think we have the entire universe in our hands since we can easily deploy technology products anytime, anyplace. We become accustomed to expecting a swift reply after sending a text message.

Hence, when using WhatsApp, we need to cultivate two life-transformative attitudes. First, sending a message is a humble attempt to connect with others. It is an act that underlines our amiable intention to reach out for an answer and to re-establish communication, especially with someone with whom we have not spoken for quite a while.

Often, the “re” step is overlooked, and with it, the app’s step-by-step electronic operations—message sent and finally read—are unidirectional in the strictest sense.  Whether the recipient replies and when the reply reaches us is totally beyond our control and projection. We can either be frustrated by our inability to control the response, or we can humbly wait.

Second, when the apostle Paul declared, “Love is patient, love is kind” (1 Cor. 13:1), he did not intend it in the descriptive sense. When love is patient, then patience is also love. Then, waiting patiently for the moment of reconnection and for meaningful interactions is how the self seeks not to control.

Those accustomed to fast food culture view waiting as wasteful opulence, prioritizing self-defined efficiency and time-saving. Yet being patient in love is the correct use of our time.

The invention of the mechanical clock by Benedictine monks heightened human awareness of time. By trying to define sacred time, the Benedictines opened up the possibility of understanding God as the Watchmaker. Human beings began to conceive the universe as governed by the timeless God, who sets time in motion. Frequently, our perspectives and self-perceptions are shaped by the technology we use.

By analogy, we might paraphrase the Psalmist’s prayer, “My times are in Your hand” (Ps. 31:15) as “deliver me from my insecurities and need to be in control”. God is already in time eternal, even when humans languish in their responses. So, precipitous glitches—such as unstable Wi-Fi speed—on our smartphones and other digital gadgets are inevitable technological gaps that enliven our time with God, for it is during such times that we are reminded that a great many things in life are beyond our control except prayerful waiting.

Every experience, once oriented toward God, helps connect us with others. Relationships are what define us and the world we live in. Meeting others on their own terms while respecting their time is an art to be mastered, especially when most communication is conducted via the ease of technology—all we get are pithy fragments of one another.

Echoing similar sentiments is Martin Buber, whose book I-Thou (a 1923 classic) explores the ordering of the spirit, heart, and mind for a truthful relationship. Simply put, Buber’s religious notion is twofold: the notion of I-Thou encounter, or “the world to be met”, establishes a stratosphere of relational intimacy, which demands authentic participation from each party for identity and belonging to flourish.

“All real living is meeting,” Buber would reiterate today. In contrast, in an I-It interaction, we address one another not as a presence but as an object at our disposal to satisfy our utilitarian self-interests. Not surprisingly, in “the world to be used”, genuine dialogue with civility and respect is absent.

As a faith confession, Buber expressed the I-Thou relationship as the embodiment of a human’s relationship with God, the most fundamental aspect of human nature that is often unrecognized. It follows that fulfilment in life is only possible if one first recognizes and restores the primacy of this relationship with God.

I am rather fond of the two blue ticks. In specific cases when a message is sent to someone whose character and practices whom I trust, then being “left on read” tells me that there must be a reason for a non-immediate reply, much like every believer who waits for an answer to prayer.  A delayed action reminds me that God is the active Person, and if praying entails yielding one’s desires and will to the divine Other, it definitely implies that prayers may not be answered in the way one expects and anticipates at the outset.

Kris H.K. Chong (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary; MPhil, Cambridge University) currently teaches at Baptist Theological Seminary. She has a prose column 《海角一方》in the Lianhe Zaobao newspaper. Recent academic publications include: Transcendence and Spirituality in Chinese Cinema: A Theological Exploration (Routledge, 2020) and “(Not) the End: From Death to Life in East Asian Films” (Concilium: International Journal for Theology, Dec. 2021). Kris worships at Paya Lebar Chinese Methodist Church.