Antisocial Media?

I suspect every new medium has encountered some level of resistance from church elders.

According to Vincent Nichols, head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, modern friendships built around (or involving) heavy SMS volley, electronic mail correspondences, and social networking sites create "transient relationships" which put users at the risk of suicide.

Of course it does. Transient relationships? I bought one thing from Harry & David ten years ago and there's still no stopping them from e-mailing me.

I would imagine that if we went back in time to the advent of any new technology or communication medium, we would find all sorts of loopy pronouncements from those of the clerical persuasion, like "The Telephone: Collect Call from Mr. Satan," "The Telegraph: ... .. -." and probably even "CB Radios: Breaker, Breaker, Good Buddy...Of The Devil." And so it goes. Wait until the Pope starts Twittering. (I just checked. He's not. Yet.)

So what's the problem this time?

the Archbishop of Westminster believes that social networking sites encourage people to concentrate on their number of friends rather than build actual relationships, and they tend to view that number as a commodity.

Ah, because, of course, that never happens offline. Oh, and it's even worse than that:

your addiction to texting and email is ruining your relationship... with god.

You know, I think the archbishop is just bitter because god defriended him.