Author: Shane Hipps
Genre: Christian
Year Published: 2009
From the back cover: Flickering pixels are the tiny dots of light that make up the screens of life---from TVs to cell phones. They are nearly invisible, but they change us. In this provocative book, author Shane Hipps takes readers beneath the surface of things to see how the technologies we use end up using us.
Not all is dire, however, as Hipps shows us that hidden things have far less power to shape us when they aren't hidden anymore. We are only puppets of our technology if we remain asleep. Flickering Pixels will wake us up---and nothing will look the same again.
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Jaimie's Review:
I think I was predisposed to liking Flickering Pixels because I usually prefer non-fiction to fiction. The first two chapters of this book were a bit rough, as I thought the examples the author gave to illustrate the point of his book didn’t convey his ideas very clearly. It picks up in the third chapter, however, and I found myself very much engrossed in his theories and the topic after that.
I liked the idea of the book, that the mediums we’ve created (like TV, cell phones, even the alphabet) to experience the world aren’t neutral, but in themselves convey messages regardless of their content. You’ll have to read the book to understand what the author means by that! I also really enjoyed his comparison of individualistic and group (tribal) societies, and how the difference between these societies colors how we (in an individualistic society) interpret the Bible (written mainly from a ‘group’ perspective) and our faith. Furthermore, in summation of all the theories that he presented in the book, he ends with a worthwhile question: if the medium IS the message, what does it mean that God chose Jesus as His medium for salvation and the church for spreading that message?
However, I’ve definitely read better non-fiction, and better apologetics. The author seemed to vacillate between writing an informational book and a call-to-action book. And sometimes, as he transitioned between information and a call to action, he made assertions that weren’t backed up by evidence. His most frequent error was jumping very quickly from correlation to causation, like when he implied that the organization of pews were a result of what the page of a printed book looked like. So, I would say that while this book has an interesting topic and theories that do spark the imagination, it’s more like apologetics ‘light’.
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Kristin's Review:
I must admit it took me a while to get into Flickering Pixels. I felt the content was interesting but somewhat disconnected as the author Shane Hipps includes a large assortment of facts and trivia about the history of technology, the Internet, the power of pictures, the secret codes in texting, and more. Despite this fact, I enjoyed his perspective, his trivia, and his modern analogies and stories found at the beginning of nearly every chapter.
Other than raising awareness about how I should be careful to not substitute the Internet for direct communication in relationships, the part that stuck out to me the most was the last couple chapters when he focuses on the Christian church, broken and imperfect as we are, as the bearers of light in this dark world.
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