Re-evaluating Social Media

I am really good at convincing myself something’s not a big deal. This might just be a ‘me’ problem (though I doubt it), but I’ve gotten very talented over the years at deciding that something isn’t all that serious when in fact, it is serious. It’s like I’m in a movie, walking along the street, and an air-conditioner unit crashes right next to me. “Well, that’s not a big deal!” I’d say, and the narrator with his big booming voice would go “IT IS, IN FACT, A BIG DEAL.” Me and my brain have fun together.

So one of the big challenges in my life is calling a thing what it is. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and talks like a duck, it’s probably a duck.

If I’m canceling plans, skipping commitments, and not going anywhere on the weekends, I’m probably Forgetting Priorities (to use FASTER scale language). If someone’s mean to me all the time, I probably can’t convince them to like me. Once I can name reality, I'm usually 9/10ths of the way to solving the problem, or at least walking back out into the sunlight.

In the sunlight, I remember King Jesus is in charge.

Walk in the Arches by Richard Snowden

Here’s an example:

I love Instagram. It’s a social media platform focusing on photo and video, and I love seeing what my friends are up to, catching up on the latest trends and memes, and scrolling through it to decompress after a long day. And when I wake up. And when I’m on break—you can see where this is going. I’ve always had what I call “a bit of an issue” with my screen time, but I’ve figured that the problem has mostly to do with the fact that when I’m on my phone, I’m not doing other things I should be doing, like homework, or joking with my friends, or sleeping.

What I didn’t realize was that the much bigger problem was what I was consuming. I was scrolling one day (as I am want to do) when something stopped me. Science might say it’s pattern recognition, but again, my challenge is recognizing and naming reality. I believe the Holy Spirit put their hand on my shoulder and said look. I scrolled back up ten videos and realized that every single video had to do with calorie counting, low-carb recipes, gym aesthetics, or dieting.

Well, [redacted].

My eyes were opened to the challenge, and frankly, malice that social media had for me in the form of an algorithm tailored to my worst insecurities.

And because I struggle so much with calling something what it is, I needed help identifying that yes, this was a big deal. I screen-recorded all those videos in a row and sent them to my parents, who freaked out. I then sent it to my chronically offline friend who doesn’t have any social media, and to paraphrase his response, “THAT’S CRAZY! WHERE R THE MEMES?”

The Holy Spirit kicked off this recognition of a problem, and my community confirmed it.

I’m beyond grateful for the prompting of the Holy Spirit because not only can I miss things, I do. When bad things come strolling up, masquerading as something good, something I want, something desirable, sometimes it takes the prompting of God to stop, and take a closer look.

So bye-bye Instagram, hopefully I’ll see you never.

The kind of King that Jesus is, is the sort of King who calls something what it is. He calls good, good and bad, bad. He knows what challenges we face, and he wades in the middle of it to take the blindfolds off our eyes and show us the truth: the world is hard, but we’re not alone in it. Jesus is in charge of everything, including social media, the feed, and what kinds of messages are being put out in the world. He’s in charge of my heart, and how desperately I want to orient it toward Him in the noise and chaos of this life.

He’s in charge of reality, and what is really true, and real, and good, even when I can’t recognize it.

Perhaps most importantly, Jesus is the kind of King who gently places His hand on my shoulder and whispers, look. Look closer. That small, insistent voice that has the power to strip away whatever difficulty, lies, challenges, and obstacles lie before me to reveal what’s really going on.

Calling good, good. Calling bad, bad.

As it was in the beginning, separating the light from the dark.

Even in the midst of all kinds of other challenges we face—financial, political, familial, in the workplace, at school, on the streets—Jesus is still King. He’s in charge of the cosmos and everything that makes them up, from the stars to the oceans to the sidewalks. And thankfully, He’s the sort of ruler who cares about truth and goodness and our well-being, so we can trust that He’ll show up when we ask, when we need, and when we pray.

Join us at Spring Church for Christ the King Sunday as we talk about what kind of ruler this Jesus really is, and reflect on how He continues to show up love in the hard places. That gentle, guiding hand, and that powerful voice.