In my regular blog reading a question was asked what people thought about Q Society Room, so naturally I went to take a look.  I wound up following a trail on the use of technology and the debate on overuse and how social media can be dehumanizing and that we need to spend more time in other pursuits.  Some interesting arguments were made for the value of human interaction and how social media doesn't really accomplish what we really need from our interactions with others.  I followed that trail for a while on the Q Ideas website and found myself reading what is called a Sabbath Manifesto which has been covered by the likes of USA Today, NY Times and CNN.  The Sabbath manifesto suggests ten principles we should follow for one day each week including avoiding technology, commerce, going outside, etc. All these principles are intended to help us tone our lives down to rest and I imagine to pursue our relationship with God.   I struggle with the notion that technology is really the cause for our distraction from worthwhile endeavors. 

Interestingly a number of completely unrelated cases of academic dishonesty recently came to light at the university I work at.  Unfortunately, I know this is not all that uncommon in academia these days.  The problem isn't limited to academia though, we see it from the "upper" levels of our society from our national and state leaders, corporations, and even religious leaders.  We as a society don't have much confidence in others, as reflected in Kouzes and Posner's book entitled Credibility (a book I recommend) where they cite a survey that found that "more than half of those surveyed...believe politicians will say or do anything to stay in office and make promises they don't intend to keep."  It is simply a joke now, but really not all that funny a joke anymore.  I think we are observing the consequences of such openly tolerated dishonesty in how us younger generations carry-on in life.  I suspect that the occurrences of cheating and illegal copying of intellectual property has only increased in recent decades.