Social Networks: Pitfalls and Possibilities for Catholics

The Oratory Young Adults' Group (for ages 18-35) will meet on Thursday 11th June 2026, starting at 7.45pm in St Wilfrid's Hall at the Oratory. 

Please note that this event is only for young adults aged 18-35.

Topic: Social Networks: Pitfalls and Possibilities for Catholics
Speaker: Tasso Dattenberg-Doyle

Talk Summary: Social networks have quietly become the dominant infrastructure of human communication— and they are engineering how we relate to each other in ways that are fundamentally at odds with Catholic life. Drawing on E Unibus Pluram- David Foster Wallace’s prophetic 1993 essay on television and consumer culture - this talk argues that the attention economy doesn’t just distract us: it habituates us to envy, irony, and a subtle misanthropy that makes genuine communion harder even when we are face to face. With reference to Pope Leo’s recent remarks on AI, the talk also asks what comes next — and what a genuinely Catholic response might look like. Not a counsel of despair, but a call to build something better.

Speaker Bio: Tasso read Modern Languages at Wadham College, Oxford, and has since worked across writing, education, and technology. He is a parishioner at the Brompton Oratory and a member of the Brotherhood of the Little Oratory. He is the founder of Piips, a hyperlocal social platform designed as an alternative to the attention economy.

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Doors to St Wilfrid's Hall will open at about 7.30pm. The talk starts at 7.45pm.

After the talk, there will be some time for questions and discussion, concluding at around 8.45pm.
After that, light refreshments will be available along with the opportunity to socialise until 10pm.

If you are able to make a donation to help us cover our catering costs, we would be most grateful.

God bless you and we look forward to seeing you!

Photo by camilo jimenez on Unsplash