God, Satan, and the Overuse of Social Media: Part 1

 

    If you just open your eyes, and take a non-biased look at society, you will notice that, as I have said before, people live in the artificial, digital realm more than reality. And I will prove it to you.

    First off, I am going to show you a few Bible verses to illustrate my point.

 1 Samuel 16:7                                                                                                                                            "But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the LORD does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."

 2 Corinthians 10:7                                                                                                                                     "Do you look at things according to the outward appearance? If anyone is convinced in himself that he is Christ’s, let him again consider this in himself, that just as he is Christ’s, even so we are Christ’s."

    Do you see a theme here? The Lord does not judge people by the outward appearance, but what is in the heart. In our first verse, the context is Samuel reviewing the sons of Jesse to see which is fit to be king. If the review was done on looks alone then young David would have been left out. But what happened? David became king of Israel. Now, how does this apply? Well, it does because social media is, let’s face it, a beauty pageant and a popularity show. And this has been proven. Meet Sadaf Nasiri, a blogger on pearsons.com. She says in her aptly titled post, “The Illusions of Social Media”: 

    "The pressures of being suitable for society’s norms are already high enough, but social media just increases this pressure as it pushes people to believe that they must be the best or at least present themselves as the best."

    Very true. What you see on social media is a projection of the deepest, most desperate desires of our hearts, namely, to be accepted by others. So, in order to be accepted, social media users mold themselves into an image very unlike the person they are. I personally find this very disconcerting. I want to see people the way they are; broken vessels, slowly being repaired by the Great Potter Himself. I am going to quote from an article entitled “Social Media vs. Reality: Engaging the Digital World as a Christian” By Grace College.edu: 

    “For anyone that has spent any amount of time scrolling through social media, it is no secret that it can foster a sense of discontentment, insecurity, or even depression. When we see others accomplishing more than us, it can breed low self-esteem or even a lack of self-worth. We have an opportunity to rejoice in the good happening among our friends and peers, but if we stack their glossy world on social media vs. reality as we know it, discouragement can follow. The real challenge comes when we become envious of everything our friends appear to be doing. We compare their online world with our offline world, and we often feel we don’t measure up. Of course, we forget that we ourselves will only post the bright spots of our day, so we find ourselves comparing the best of our friend’s lives to the worst of our own. No wonder the majority of Facebook users tend to have lower self-esteem. We need to be reminded that our friends are likely comparing their struggles to our bright spots as well.” 

So, in conclusion, don't let the social media craze own you. Take charge and win the fight for your soul.