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Are you a slave to Zuckerberg, Musk, and the Google Overlords? If you opened this article, then there’s a good chance you are!
The content of this article is a synthesis of a couple blogs I wrote years ago, and I deleted my social media accounts afterward. AI has not been used to create this blog, but my thoughts are still in line with what I wrote. If you struggle with social media addiction but don’t want to go nuclear on your accounts, consider downloading Swiftlit and using the app-locker inside of it. I re-opened social media accounts to market the app, and but social media can still be a sinkhole to myself.
Here is some quick math on your screen time, using Swiftlit’s calculator. This is a free function in Swiftlit by clicking on the % symbol in the Ephemeral sub-app.
The average is ~ 2hrs 10 minutes. That is 2,471 full days of your life in 50 years, or roughly 6.5 full years of your life staring at your phone. That is with sleep subtracted. If you subtract a 40 hr workweek, it is much more than that.
The Good
1. Social media allows me to keep up with friends that I care about.
2. Social media allows for instant communication with almost everyone. If I need to connect with someone whose contact information I don’t have, I can instantly reach them.
3. Social media is great for information dissemination. I can reach a vast swath of people instantly if I (ever) need to.
4. Social media allows for others to connect with me quickly. If someone who doesn’t have my information wants to reach me, they have a way to.
Reasons to Delete Your Social Media Accounts
1. Social media is addictive
And there is a reason it has been made so. The more engagement and the more time on the platform is how the business and content creators make their money!
The platform tells me when my “friends” clicked the “like” button or saw my “story” with a little red dot. I get a hit of dopamine. Clicking dots and scrolling becomes my “go-to” thing to do while in between classes or pauses during the day. It becomes a distraction during homework and a distraction when I am among my friends. It affects my brain: instead of being able to focus on anything for a period of time, social media trains you to have your eyes glued to your phone.
- “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything.
- ~ 1 Corinthians 6:12
- … For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved.
- ~ 2 Peter 2:19
I often feel like my life is bound by chains to Instagram’s and Facebook’s ad revenue. It's "free," but you and I are the product that social media sells to advertisers.
2. Social media is narcissistic
Every time I post something, I have been very aware of my desire to be liked and approved by people. I become a people pleaser. Who liked my post? Who watched my story? What did they think of me? The approval of man, rather than of God, becomes my go-to way for fulfillment. Outside of the the app in real life, rather than enjoying God, the time, and the gifts that God has given me, I think about how I can use those moments to curate a perfect Instagram post (Phil 2:1-5ff; Is 2:12-19; Is 66:1-2; Jer 17:5-10).
It is immodest. All of my time begins to be focused on the approval of others, even if I never post a narcissistie. We never have pristine motives (Jer 17:9). I idolize my own importance (pride) and the opinions of my friends and people I have never met.
- Thus says the Lord: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. ~Jeremiah 17:5-7
In other words:
- “Here’s a picture of my face. Do you like this picture of my face? I want you to like this picture of my face as much as I like this picture of my face.”
- “This is the 20th time I’ve taken this photo, but once I get it just right, I’ll share it with my peeps.”
3. Social media presents an illusion of relationships
We can easily be “friends” on Facebook or follow each other on Instagram without experiencing each other as real friends. To actually know someone takes time and work. People’s real lives are messy, and not airbrushed with filters.
It’s so shallow. You can go from offering condolences to the loss of a loved one to celebrating someone’s birthday, from reading some horrible news headline to giggling at a meme - all in just a few seconds.
How often do you remember the stories or posts you’ve viewed or liked? Yet, that is what we sense as approval from others - they do not remember that they liked your post.
Once, I replied to an Instagram story, but my friend didn’t reply until a few days later when I couldn’t see the story anymore. I didn’t even remember what I had commented on.
4. Social media presents a false narrative of our lives
Similar to number 3, most of what we show others on social media are the happy, positive moments. What we do not show others is a marriage that is struggling; a mom who wants you to see her beautiful baby but not the amount of sleep she’s running on; the stress of disciplining sin in the lives of your children; the person who continues to grieve over the death of a family member, but everyone else has moved on; the crushing moments of loneliness; the breakup. These things rarely make it to social media because we want people to think we have everything together (Jer 17; James 5:16), and our culture of death usually shuns the appearance of it. People avoid hard things, and its hard to see them when you’re on your “down time” entertaining your moments away.
We want to be entertained, and you and I are the show, entertaining each other.
5. Social media wastes time
As noted above, I’ve been on social media way too often (and I’m guessing, if you’ve read this far, so have you). A justification for keeping it has been for people to be able to contact me. While people can reach me if they need to, I rarely have someone contact me out of the blue because they need me for something.
On the same hand, you don’t need me to help you decide every minuet detail of your life, such as what type of socks you should wear today, or what you had for dinner for the third time this week (not singling anyone out, but just an example). Moreover, it is rare that I “miss” anything so important they can’t tell me the next time I see them in person or that someone else won’t pass along to me.
6. Social media can encourage lust, grumbling, and other sins
For example, just because I click on a guy catching a fish or view pictures of the Swiss alps, it does not mean that I want to see scantily clad women in my “search” feed. If social media is frequently an avenue for temptation for you, it is necessary to cut it off (Matt 5:27-30). Also, there is a temptation to not trust the Lord and be discontent as you see friends getting engaged and marrying, having children, or someone else seems to have it more put together than you (see #4 above). Grumbling is a sin (Phil 2:14; 1 Cor 10:10).
- Not tempting, but this has happened because I was mis-categorized:
- Me: Watches a few videos of fancy ways to prepare desserts.
- Instagram: Here’s a girl putting her makeup on.
7. Social media cannot sustain real community
We were created to be social. We were created to love and know and to be known and loved by others. That love is expressed vertically, from God to man and man to God, and horizontally, between man and man. God is a triune community of love and self-giving, and therefore fellowship is a good thing. A good example of this is marriage: God created marriage to image him: “it is not good for man to be alone” (Gen 2:19); it is also a picture of the gospel “this mystery is profound, and I am saying it refers to Christ and the church (Eph 5:31). It is healthy to love and be loved by others. It images God. Community is a vital aspect of our humanity.
8. Social media is divisive
People say things that they would not normally say in public in front of another person. God will call every word and thought to account (Matt 12:36; 15:10-20). Tone is hard to communicate over text, and those without any filter can easily ramp up the heat BY USING ALL CAPS or bY mOckINg GaRBagE liKE ThIS. This is sinful, and God will be your judge your words and your heart (Romans 2:6-11; Acts 17:31; Ephesians 4:25). This is not just a left or a right problem; it is a human problem (Matt. 15:10-20).
Fake news and inflammatory headlines grab your attention. The platforms themselves have become partisan. Comment sections become ignorance aggregators (Proverbs 10:19). Everyone has the opinion they got from the last news cycle (Proverbs 10:19). Most are historically illiterate, unwilling to compromise, and make confident assertions about which they know very little. Mocking memes are everywhere (Proverbs 10:19). The tension makes a profit for social media companies, and profit for the posters - engagement is the goal! You are both consumer and product. Everyone wants you on a platform as much as possible to engage with their content as much as possible, because that’s how they all get paid.
To also be fair - the news cycle is like this as well. The more controversy in the headlines, the better, since the commentator can keep more people engages, which, dare I say it, means more money for them!
The current posts (in 2020, but probably still happens) I’ve seen by both right and left sides of the political spectrum about doing away with anyone in their life with opposing convictions is beyond concerning (1 Cor. 5:9-13). If you are looking to increase the brokenness of this society, this is the way to do it. Not everyone is as depraved as they can be, regardless of their beliefs. Atheists can still love their wife and kids. The pagan may still want to have meaningful friends and relationships. Christians actually are real people who serve and work in their communities. A “none” may still struggle with the loss of a loved one, a breakup, or a divorce, and need the counsel of a friend. We need to be able to talk to one another.
We need to explain our foundational commitments about human nature and God, and discuss them openly, and without fear of being shut down or rejected outright. Foundational commitments lead to ethics, which lead to politics. When we can no longer talk to one another, when the mob mentality takes control, it is at that moment that we should all fear. Humanity has been down this road before, and it is not pretty. The current denial of liberalism from the far left and the far right should be seen for what it is: a move towards totalitarianism. Extremes meet in the middle.
9. Finally, social media is inadequate for having in-depth conversations about important matters. I really do want to have conversations about politics and religion, even with those I disagree with. Long pauses, dogpiling, and not being able to read tone inhibit real communication.
It is easy for me to operate in a bubble because I do not like conflict, but I want to be challenged and interact with those from different perspectives to grow. I want to be “salt and light” in the lives of others and be sharpened by friendly, but firm, disagreement. This was my excuse for keeping my accounts years ago, but I found that I reached very few people out of my 1,200+ connections.
I do not draw the verbal sword happily. Yet, I have never met anyone who has changed their opinion or religious beliefs because I have posted or shared something on Facebook, Instagram, or X. Is it worth it?
Are You a Slave?
Why do you doom scroll for hours a day? Entertainment? Boredom? Loneliness?
Don’t make your life a slave to ad revenue. Is 2,500 days of my life devoted to a screen something that I can be thankful for in eternity?“
- So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.
- ~ Psalm 90:12
- “Come, everyone who thirsts,
- come to the waters;
- and he who has no money,
- come, buy and eat!
- Come, buy wine and milk
- without money and without price.
- 2 Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
- and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
- Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,
- and delight yourselves in rich food.
- ~ Isaiah 55:1-2
Again, this is not to say there are not redeemable things on social media. I love seeing different aspects of humanity on social media. I love people. However, when I deleted my social media, I did not miss the distractions, addictiveness, divisiveness, and my own and other’s vainglory. I was able to learn new skills, read books, and pour into the people around me.
I pleaded with my parents to get a Facebook in high school, and it is hard to fathom the time that I have lost between Facebook, X, and Instagram. I do not get those moments back.
- “O Lord, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am! Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath!”
- ~ Psalm 39:4-5
Real Change
Real an lasting change in society doesn't begin with an influencer's mourning routine, it begins with an average person like yourself being faithful to your family, your church, and your local community. Concern yourself about the people in your reach.
Do you want to change the world? Let your wife and children see that change in you. Do you want to influence others? Grab a cup of coffee with one person, discuss the things in their life, and pray for them. Do you want to see the work of God in society? Pray that God would use your daily faithfulness, even if you never see the final outcome.