Technology and Lent

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-cotown-lent5-2009mar05,0,5041732.story

The pope has put a ban on technology for the 40 days of lent. His reasoning behind this is that people should focus on concrete relationships and less on virtual ones. While this sounds sensible, is it reasonable to ask people to give up their technology? Where is the line drawn? Is just texting not allowed or are cell phone conversations banned too?
The fact that the pope has even taken the time to ban technology shows how important it has become in our current culture. Catholic groups in Italy are calling for a ban on text messaging every Friday of lent. I personally think it’s hilarious that texting is playing a part in religion. There are a lot of people who give up facebook or other social networking sites for lent. This brings up the question as to whether technology is actually something bad that needs to be given up.
Although technology makes our lives much easier in many different ways, there are several who still see it in an unfavorable light. Watching too much TV or playing video games for too long are seen as bad things, and parents often limit their children’s exposure to technology. Poor exercise and diet habits tend to be associated with technology because a lot of times people are immobile when using it. But devices like the Wii fitness have been designed to try to counter the sometimes negative connotation of technology.