The web is awash with collections of images that attempt to sum up the past year.? And what news sites are doing for global events, Facebook is doing for your life. Log on, and you may discover that they’ve already created a collage of images to summarize the “wonderful” 2014 you’ve had.
It’s an interesting idea, but in this case, the choices aren’t being made by you – or any other person, for that matter. The highlights are selected algorithmically, based on “Likes” and other forms of online traction known only to Facebook. Is that really the best way to summarize your entire year?
Worse still, if you suffered a tragedy in 2014 and you shared it on Facebook, and those images were among the most noticed and shared, you now have the “privilege” of seeing those heartbreaking reminders packaged in a celebratory montage. For instance, take the case of one man whose year-end look back featured images of his deceased 6-year-old daughter. The grieving father complained, and Facebook has apologized, but that’s not the point. The real issue is: How wise is it to measure your year, whether for better or worse, based on a software-generated mashup of your online posts?
Since there are countless ways to measure most any event, let alone an entire year, an algorithmic approach may not be all bad – as long as it’s not your only way of taking stock of your life. Rather than chide Facebook for their mechanistic experiment, which confuses internet traction with genuine happiness, let’s view their one-size-fits-all campaign as an invitation to do for ourselves what they’re attempting to do for us.
How wise is it to measure your year, whether for better or worse, based on a software-generated mashup of your online posts?
How about sitting down with a calendar and looking back over the year you just lived? Perhaps open your phone, or whatever device you use to store images. Which highlights and low-lights would you single out, as the defining moments of your 2014? It’s your life, after all – take charge of summarizing it. It doesn’t have to be as “wonderful” as a social media algorithm casts it. It just has to be real.
Who can say if a selection of images and memories that you curate would end up garnering as many “likes” as a Facebook-generated collage, but who cares?? Depending upon the artifacts you select as representative of the last 12 months, you’re likely to discover a deeper gratitude about the joyful stuff that happened, and greater clarity about what you need in 2015 to help you heal the painful stuff and move forward.
Listed for many years in Newsweek as one of America’s “50 Most Influential Rabbis” and recognized as one of our nation’s leading “Preachers and Teachers,” by Beliefnet.com, Rabbi Brad Hirschfield serves as the President of Clal–The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, a training institute, think tank, and resource center nurturing religious and intellectual pluralism within the Jewish community, and the wider world, preparing people to meet the biggest challenges we face in our increasingly polarized world.
An ordained Orthodox rabbi who studied for his PhD and taught at The Jewish Theological Seminary, he has also taught the University of Pennsylvania, where he directs an ongoing seminar, and American Jewish University. Rabbi Brad regularly teaches and consults for the US Army and United States Department of Defense, religious organizations — Jewish and Christian — including United Seminary (Methodist), Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (Modern Orthodox) Luther Seminary (Lutheran), and The Jewish Theological Seminary (Conservative) — civic organizations including No Labels, Odyssey Impact, and The Aspen Institute, numerous Jewish Federations, and a variety of communal and family foundations.
Hirschfield is the author and editor of numerous books, including You Don’t Have To Be Wrong For Me To Be Right: Finding Faith Without Fanaticism, writes a column for Religion News Service, and appears regularly on TV and radio in outlets ranging from The Washington Post to Fox News Channel. He is also the founder of the Stand and See Fellowship, which brings hundreds of Christian religious leaders to Israel, preparing them to address the increasing polarization around Middle East issues — and really all currently polarizing issues at home and abroad — with six words, “It’s more complicated than we know.”