Social Media: Neither Hero nor Villain

I can admit it: I had a MySpace account. I logged onto it again just for you. My profile photo is from over ten years ago, and I have a friend I don’t remember whose username is pacodapimp. Yikes.

We had no idea what was about to happen to our culture when social media entered the scene. I wonder if the creators of MySpace and Facebook knew. It’s now the way many of us get our news, how we stay connected to people with whom we would have otherwise lost touch, and how some of us enter into political debates. It’s even how many of you found The Glorious Table.

If you polled your friends about what they think about social media, you would likely get mixed responses. Many get discouraged by the unkind discourse that can occur there. But I’d like to submit that, for those of us in Christ, social media can be a holy place.

Skeptical? I think of social media the same way many pastors explain money. Money is just a thing; on its own, it is neither good nor evil. If we use it for the good of the kingdom, it becomes holy in the hands of the disciple. If we make it an idol in our lives, however, it becomes a problem.

The same is true of social media. While no verses in the Bible are about social media, we do find one famous, often-misquoted verse about money: “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil” (1 Timothy 6:10 NIV). We can substitute social media for money, and the truth is the same.

As the analogy to money implies, social media can be beautiful as well as an idol or hurtful place. I let go of my MySpace account long ago. It’s just not cool, y’all. But I’ve been on Facebook for about ten years, and I joined Instagram and Twitter several years back. One of my favorite Facebook stories is about when I posted that my family was going to be in Red River, New Mexico, for the weekend. One of my colleagues was also there with her grandchildren. We met up after breakfast one morning, and our kids became instant friends as they went on the zip line together. This meetup would never have occurred without social media, and it resulted in a sweet memory for the kids.

I also love using social media as a tool to document my kids’ lives and the cute things they say. I’ve been doing this for a long time, and I use an app called IFTTT to transfer the stories to a Google Sheet. A couple of times a year, I write down all those cute stories in journals I’ll give them someday. Even now, I love reading the stories from when they were little in my annual memories section each morning.

Perhaps one of the most beneficial things I’ve done with social media recently is to join groups that are discussing things I wish to learn. My city and immediate neighborhood are not extremely racially diverse. So while I continue to pursue diverse friendships “in real life,” I’ve joined several groups and followed several respected individuals who are exploring racial reconciliation. I love being able to learn and grow in my thinking in this way.

One criticism of social media is that we’re all just seeing the best part of our friends’ lives, so we can fall easily into comparison and envy. We would do well to remember this and remind ourselves that friends don’t often share the bad parts of their lives on social media, but we all have them. I try to occasionally post some things with the hashtag #keepinitreal. It’s my way of sharing a hard day or an argument with my husband to try to put forth a true and honest depiction of my life. We can create a bit of solidarity through our honesty on social media.

As disciples of Jesus, we can make social media what we want it to be. If we use it with gospel intentionality—to share what God is teaching us, for example—we are honoring Christ. Naturally, the opposite is true as well. If we use it to convince others of our opinion with the absence of a listening and respectful posture, we are damaging the cause for Christ.

We are wise to self-reflect on our use of and dependence on social media. As disciples, we should be looking only to God for our satisfaction. If we find ourselves counting our likes, comparing our likes/comments to others, or holding our breath while waiting to see how others might respond to our post, we should consider whether it has become an idol. I’ve had many friends give up social media for Lent or for periods of time when they recognize it as unhealthy in their lives. I applaud their self-awareness.

Social media is neither the hero nor the villain, but simply a tool in the hands of imperfect humans. We can choose to honor God in how we use it by separating ourselves from those who are consistently unkind or disrespectful. We can ensure everything we post is honoring to Christ. We can check our hearts to ensure it’s not a place where we’re looking for satisfaction, but for genuine connection, edification, and perhaps some simple fun.

Amy Wiebe is a Jesus follower, wife, mom of three, church planter, finance director, and lover of sarcasm and deep conversation with friends. She also loves camping, rafting, skiing, sewing, and having people over. Amy blogs with her husband at fringechurch.com.

Photograph © William Iven, used with permission