Text Me; Or Text Me Not

Brethren, Companions, and Sir Knights – my brothers all! I write today to address a very deep and complicated question: “Text me; or text me not”?

Technology is here to help us, right? It’s our friend and it’s going to make our lives easier, isn’t that what we were told? I suppose it is generally true that, on the whole, technology has benefited us and our lodges, but – and this is a serious question – is it also working against us? There was a time when our lodges depended on a few primitive tools to send information to their members; they provided information directly to members present at meetings, they wrote letters to members, they published some information in local newspapers, they published and sent newsletters to members, and in the occasional cases of emergencies they would call on the phone and send brothers to the homes of those without phones. Primitive, as I said, but generally reliable and mostly affordable based on a lodge’s finances. There was simple efficiency in these methods which did allow a lodge to remain in contact with its members and to share important information with some level of assurance that it would reach all of them.

Then came what I like to call “the CompuServe” years or, if you prefer, the early “email onset” years. CompuServe, America on Line (AoL), Windows, and Netscape heralded the arrival of the personal computer and – the newest technology to make our lives easier – electronic connectivity! We could now go to this place called “online” and build accounts and find each other and, best of all, we could create and post notices on “internet bulletin boards” and we could share information about our lodges and brothers with our lodges and brothers by way of this new and magical tool called email! Browsers came and went and each carried with them their own shortfalls and inadequacies; AoL and Netscape gave way to an assortment of others such as FireFox and then Google, Chrome, and Microsoft Edge. Browsers were convenient for searching out tidbits of trivia and street maps, but they were deeply unsatisfying for connecting with our brothers, our friends, and our fellow travelers across the country and around the world. And then it happened – “MySpace” arrived! A true medium for social intercourse – unlike CompuServe that mostly served the business community, MySpace was an application specifically designed to share information quickly and effortlessly with everyone that cared to join and connect! We could finally create connections to share our lodge pictures and schedules, and we could send word to brothers about events and the latest lodge gossip! Our only problems were the limitations of the application itself, and the relatively limited number of lodge brothers that a) had a computer and b) had any desire for this “social media” thing; but it was a start!

The most immediate impact of this technological tidal wave both on society and on our lodges was an early divide between generations – one with a comfortable and historical perspective on how communications occur, and the other with a curiosity and talent for this new and almost magical form that was faster than U.S. mail, and more convenient than telephones because it allowed participants to exchange words, pictures, and music with the touch of a few buttons. For those inclined and involved, they found they could send information and post messages to friends and lodge brothers any time they could get their new-fangled 1200 baud modems and personal computers to connect to this other new thing called the internet. The lines between the generations had been drawn and this divide would continue to grow and further separate our generations.

At about the same time that this new social form of communication was teething and learning to walk, still another technological advancement was lurking in the shadows of our aging telecommunications networks – the mobile telephone. This ‘wonderful’ new technology promised to keep us “in touch” with friends and family whenever they needed us, wherever we might be, and at any given moment in time. The early technology was somewhat clunky, very high maintenance (as far as power and charging), less-than 100% reliable, and it was also carrier and carrier-plan dependent for reliability and affordability. Does anyone else remember the “color coded service area” maps of the U.S. that showed various carrier coverage areas and, magically, it always showed that the carrier you were considering at that particular moment miraculously seemed to have the widest area of coverage among all of your options. Not everyone was eager to embrace this new technology or to increase their personal availability to random callers, so ownership of this new, wonderful, and indispensable technology was initially very sparse. What society didn’t realize (but Bell Labs and other technology research hubs did) was that the new cellular phone, the personal computer, and the social media technologies were all advancing and they were on a collision course. Enter the smartphone!

To quote a famous and familiar tome, “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times”; the smartphone arrived and it took society by storm. Suddenly, (it seemed like) everyone had one, and we were using it – constantly. We now all had a computer in our pockets that let us make calls, send emails, browse the web, take and send pictures, participate in video conferences, access (and use) our bank accounts, keep up on our social media activities, and – maybe worst of all – text each other. Yes, we have arrived at the focus and the purpose of this piece – or so you probably thought! I’ve provided a lengthy roadmap that intentionally brought us through history to what you probably thought would be my ultimate destination – text messaging; but my actual purpose and focus of this piece is our most prominent and our most considered symbolic working tool, the twenty-four-inch gage! It’s quite logical actually, it just takes a little thought and some imagination to see it.

Let’s go back to the beginning, a time when lodges used old fashioned typewriters to type and send letters, newsletters, and articles for local newspapers; a brother would receive these communications and had them at his fingertips to read at his leisure. Most brothers also had telephones and when a brother called, they knew it might be an emergency of some sort. When not attending lodge, and when not reading the communication they received from lodge, their time was spent on their professions and in service to God and their families.

Once the personal home computer became ubiquitous throughout society, brothers still exercised ultimate control over their twenty-four-inch gage, dividing their time according to their masonic interests and pursuits (i.e. committee work, etc.), their professions, and their service to God and their families. Furthermore, the generational divide continued to grow between the generation that saw computers as a fad that added nothing of substance to one’s daily life, and the generation that saw a future with unlimited potential, a society that would be completely connected through the internet and that would be able to share information faster, more efficiently, and less expensively than by way of the U.S. Postal Service. New and younger masons rallied to this bright new world full of social media groups where lodges and lodge members could send direct emails to members, post their news and updates, chat with each other online, schedule and announce events, share pictures and gossip, and research and discover new masonic organizations and activities.

The computer began to claim more time from the collective twenty-four-inch gages of more and more masons, eating into their time nominally allotted for their service to God and to their chosen professions and families. Brothers began spending more and more time online in masonic discussion forums and social media groups; more and more of their free time was being claimed by masonry. It was still manageable because, even if masonic interests were consuming more and more of a mason’s free time – and this is important – each mason was ultimately in control of his own time and could turn off the computer at his own will and reclaim his personal time to pursue those all-important and increasingly neglected sections of his individual twenty-four-inch gage.

So now we arrive at the heart of the matter – the role and place of text messaging in lodge communications and its effect on the management of our respective twenty-four-inch gages. While social media groups offer us an inexpensive and fairly reliable way to post and share lodge information with brothers around the world, it depends on brothers to participate by setting aside some amount of time to actively engage with their email and social media accounts to find and receive those lodge communications. Brothers can divide (read: prioritize) their time according to their personal needs and desires – the lodge information will be there, and they will get to it eventually, as their time permits. Enter the text message with its descendants, the text group and the text string. These insidious little information tools have crept into our lives just as a virus invades a host. Does that sound a bit hyperbolic to you? Maybe a tad bit overstated? I admit, I thought so too and I initially wrote it as something of a throw-away line, but when I re-read it, I found it to be disturbingly accurate and on point. Once you have a smartphone and your lodge has the number, you become immediately susceptible to the infectious and extremely contagious text string which many lodges now use to disseminate information. Many brothers have discovered how easy it can be to create an email group and then send as much information and as many messages as they desire, limited only by the time it takes to either type or cut and paste each text message. On the surface, this sounds quite efficient and it appears to be a highly effective method for disseminating important lodge information, but I would argue that looks can be deceiving.

A brother whose phone has been added to the lodge text group now receives these messages at any time of day and in any location where he may find himself at the moment a brother hits “send”. This may be one message a week, or one a day; unfortunately, it may also be five, six, or seven messages a day plus all of the replies that the brother will receive from other brothers acknowledging the original text.

In the past, a brother could easily lay claim to his time and divide his attention as he desired – a part for service to the craft, a part for service to God and distressed worthy brothers, and a part for his chosen profession and family. He could move between those obligations as appropriate to his personal situation. Now, thanks to technology, he may begin receiving text messages from his various masonic lodges and organizations early in the morning, and continue receiving “replies”, “reminders”, “heads up”, and “event notices” via text messages all day long; his masonic communications have now invaded the time he had once set aside for the other two thirds of his twenty-four-inch gage and worse, some of these texts demand his attention in the form of “I need a head count”, “RSVP required”, “I need volunteers to…” and the like. It is becoming harder and harder for brothers to separate his masonic obligations from his other obligations. I would suggest that this trend will lead to unintended and unwanted results; brothers will start ignoring texts, silencing their notifications, or even turning their phones off all together, even at the risk of missing out on truly important events and activities as a cost of “tuning out”. My brothers, it’s called “saturation”.

Imagine a brother at the dinner table, his family gathered around eating and discussing the events of the day, and here’s dad, answering text after text from not one, but two masonic organizations who need degree team members for a degree next week and a volunteer to help sell goods at a lodge bake sale in three weeks: really? Could these texts have been emails or posts in the lodges’ social media groups? If we saturate every waking minute of every day of our brethren, it will not take long for them to come to resent masonry and its intrusion into every corner of their lives.

Yes, technology is our friend and yes, it has certainly made our lives and many of our chores much easier, but I ask you to focus a clear eye and open mind on this issue of lodge communications and non-stop, hyper-speed text communication with members through text messages. In my mind, the “notification” alert coming from your phone should alarm you to some matter of importance that needs your attention as soon as possible. I ask you to consider the need for all of us to keep all of our technological tools in our “working tool” belts – announcements at meetings, in newsletters, and through correspondence; phone calls might be used for urgent needs and emergencies; social media is great for schedules, events, and non-urgent updates; and text messages reserved for urgent needs, sickness or distress events, short-notice schedule changes, location changes, or other such timely alerts for lodge brothers. We have a wide selection of communication tools at our finger tips, but I am afraid that we are frequently limiting ourselves to the tool that feels like the easiest and fastest way to share every thought and idea we have about our lodges and masonry; instead, I would ask that we take some time, evaluate our lodge membership needs, and devise a communication strategy that is based on the best qualities of all of the tools matched to the needs of our brothers and members.

There is an old saying that tells us, “When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail”. My brothers, I am merely asking you to think about your lodge brothers and their individual twenty-four-inch gages; let’s be thrifty with each other’s time and share our information according to the urgency of the matter at hand by way of an appropriate method.  

Please travel safely my brethren and may the blessings of heaven rest upon us and all regular masons!

~AMJ

BroBill