The Wonders and Terrors of Social Media

You've felt it, too. In fact, if you are reading this you've acted on it - that urge to respond to some notification, or to pull your phone from your pocket and peer into the looking glass of the world around us. It's powerful. The social effects of generations having access to immediate information and commentary on events happening the world around are still yet to be fully determined.

On the one hand, particularly as a husband and father, I do have an obligation as protector and provider to have some awareness of current events and a duty to position my family in a way that we are responding, as best as possible, with wisdom to the world around us and preparing ourselves for the future. And most of us realize that we are not getting accurate information or data on which to base those decisions from the likes of Fox News or your local newspaper. On the other hand, the siren call of social media has a double-edge, and this edge can cut deep.

If it were not for Musk acquiring X/Twitter in 2022, the world would likely be worse off for it. In a world emerging from the aftermath of Covid, it was clear that control of information was itself a means of control of society. In the best case, if platforms like Twitter remained censored and controlled, the push towards truly decentralized and uncensorable forms of social communication (like Nostr) would have accelerated. In our current timeline, we have time to organically grow and improve these networks. Simultaneously, we must also recognize that, while networks like X bought us some time, every time we log on we are, in some sense, entering enemy territory - or at the very least, no man's land.

As human beings, we are shaped by inputs. Scripture recognizes this when we are commanded to write God's word on our hearts, pray always, fellowship with other believers, attend church, disciple our children, and participate in the sacraments regularly. These are in fact regular every day things that God uses as means of conforming our hearts and sanctifying us. Proverbs furthermore teaches us that we essentially become the sum of our friends - even the people we regularly hang out with have an effect on who we become.

It is no different with social media. Every time we log on, the algorithm is active - studying us, feeding us, shaping us. That post you lingered on? It will show you more like it. The algorithm knows you, perhaps more than you know yourself. And beyond that, it can subtly catechize you. It can show you more of what you expect or want to see of the world, sometimes disproving your biases and sometimes confirming them. It uses our biology and consciousness against us, scratching our itching ears and squeezing dopamine hits from our neurons to keep us scrolling.

That feeling of despair you might have after an extended session on X? It's not accidental. It's manufactured.

Keep all this in mind as you participate in the world around you. It is true that, at least currently, resources like X are probably some of the more helpful tools to understand real-time events as we live through years happening in weeks and seek to have some situational awareness. But always understand that just as a fire can keep you warm and alive on a cold night, it can just as easily burn you alive. Do not wander onto your feed with your guard down, looking for a relaxing time where you can turn off your brain and just soak in the algorithm. That is how we are programmed. Understand what you are doing - you are logging into a digital battlefield. There may be good things to glean or work to be done, but understand what you are handling. In a world where we are exposed to the happenings of a million tragedies, endless controversies, and where much if not most of our feed is composed of not even real human beings but bots (themselves potentially controlled by nefarious actors), we must understand the forces at play.

So step onto the battlefield. But do not mistake it for something else. Your time of restoration and shaping should be intentional and protected and come from spending time in the Word, in prayer, with your family and friends, reading long-form physical media (we used to call them books), voluntary adversity through physical exercise, controlling what kind of food enters our mouths, and all the other regular means God uses in our lives to shape us according to His purposes. Do not let the massive events happening around you control what you have direct jurisdiction over in your life and the lives of your family. As Paul wrote in Romans 12:2: "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect."