The Scent of Lemons

Name: The Scent of Lemons
Price: 8.78 GBP
Availability: InStock
Author: Jonah Lynch
ISBN: 9780232529586

Technology and Relationships in the Age of Facebook

by Jonah Lynch

Paperback
112 pages
Publisher: Darton Longman & Todd
12.7 x 19.9 x 0.9 cm

Today‘s price£8.78

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In 'The Scent of Lemons', Jonah Lynch proposes a fast from social media technology as a means of cultivating real relationships with real depth and meaning.

Technology, he argues can’t transmit the joy, meaning and intimacy of the three fifths of human sensitivity in communication: You can’t send touch, scent or taste by mobile phone! We losing 60% of our reality when we rely on technology alone to express feelings and build friendships.

This book is an invitation to ask if relying on social media technology is stealing something essential from us in return for all its life changing gifts. In his book, the seminary teacher and lover of technology writes: “I feel the urgent need to clarify my relationship with the technologies which in ever more elegant and hidden ways accompany our lives.”

In a world where the greeting of many is: “See you on Facebook,” and the machine dictates the terms and conditions of the relationship, Jonah Lynch explores, starting from his own experiences, how way we see the world and construct relationships uses - or is used by technology. “Every place is singular, and every person is unique,” Lynch writes, “and to re-learn this truth it might be necessary to do a little technological fasting. Not to eliminate our freedom, but to joyfully rediscover it.”

Jonah Lynch was born in the United States and now lives in Rome. He is a seminarian and an avid technophile. This is his sixth book.

"- It shows us how we can both get on in a modern world full of diversions. Quite simply brilliant. Well done the author!"

Touch, scent, taste. Three of the five senses that cannot be transmitted through technology. Three-fifths of reality, sixty percent. This book is an invitation to notice that other sixty percent. In The Scent of Lemons Jonah Lynch considers if technology is stealing something essential from us in return for all it s marvellous gifts. He writes: I feel the urgent need to clarify my relationship with the technologies which in ever more elegant and hidden ways accompany our lives. - He wants to understand, starting from his own experiences, how the exercise of attention, the way we see the world and construct relationships, uses or is used by technology. Today many say: see you on Facebook, instead of see you at the usual bar, what the American writer Wendell Berry calls our lazy willingness to let machines, and the idea of the machine, prescribe the terms and conditions of the life of creatures. Every place is singular, and every person is unique, Lynch writes, and to re-learn this truth it might be necessary to do a little technological fasting. Not to eliminate our freedom, but to joyfully rediscover it.

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Our modern technologies offer the mirage that real life can be had in 'point and click' isolation, despite our gut instinct telling us something different. We long to connect, to belong, to give and take, even to shout, muddle and disagree… things that only happen in the messy world of relationships and communities. Whether there is freedom or bondage experienced through the addictive nature of Facebook and its endless stream of media offerings, here it is central to the engagement about social compulsions in Jonah Lynch's continuation of the prophetic work of Henri Nouwen. With so much on offer, Lynch navigates the inherent folly of letting technology prescribe the terms and conditions of our lives. At the heart of Lynch's writing is the penetrating truth that three of five senses; touch, scent and taste cannot ever be engaged with by technological means. Mythology, research and reflection are well woven here in a great write about the gains and challenges of the technological gifts of our age, in this insightful new book. Masks are removed through the unveiling of detail, aching truth, raw implications and inevitable addictions. These are all laid bare. My only gripe is that by the time we strike chapter nineteen Jonah Lynch might have offered us more than just a technological fast, as a remedy in the face of our pacey, all-access culture. There is much of beauty and another kingdom in the closing words; "power is love". This pacey, incisive, compact book offers much. As Lynch invites, "Being is gift, not robbery. Being is love."

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