Social media is an enormously powerful force in our world. So one of the questions that tugs at my heart is this: how can social media be beautiful?
Because, right now, it often isn’t. For instance, recently The New York Times reported on a huge study of social media. Check out these two highlights:
Analyzing survey responses of more than 84,000 people of all ages in Britain, the researchers identified two distinct periods of adolescence when heavy use of social media spurred lower ratings of “life satisfaction”: first around puberty — ages 11 to 13 for girls, and 14 to 15 for boys — and then again for both sexes around age 19.
Dr. Jensen pointed out that the study also found a link in the opposite direction: For all ages, participants who felt bad about their lives wound up spending more time on social media a year later. This suggests that for some people the technology may be a coping mechanism rather than the cause of their gloom.
As Derek Thompson comments on this trend at The Atlantic, he writes:
The Internet exposes teenagers not only to supportive friendships but also to bullying, threats, despairing conversations about mental health, and a slurry of unsolvable global problems—a carnival of negativity. Social media places in every teen’s pocket a quantified battle royal for scarce popularity that can displace hours of sleep and makes many teens, especially girls, feel worse about their body and life.
Amidst all the gloom on social media, I also look for signs of hope.
What are some creative ways we can engage on social media that make the world better?
In a fascinating article on how devastating it is to lose at Wordle, the journalist Heather Schwedel interviews one participant who shares his losses online:
Eric Allix Rogers, a 36-year-old who works at a nonprofit in Chicago and is a multiple-time Wordle loser, said he believes in sharing his losses online for almost philosophical reasons: “It violates that expectation of curating an image of success and perfection on social media, the posting your Ls.”
I have no idea what Eric believes - or doesn’t believe - but I think he’s onto a practice that fits the Christian habits. As Christians, we are habituated to confessing our sins, a keen acknowledgment of our failures.
Or as we read the gospels, where we are offered models for discipleship, we see the embarrassing mistakes and failures of the key disciples intentionally recorded for us. The message? Making mistakes is part of life - and part of following Jesus.
So it feels quite compatible for us to notice that while most people try to curate “an image of success and perfection” online, we will break the mold by sharing our failures and losses.
How freeing would it be for those following us online to seek us volunteering our blemishes and shortcomings?
What other practices do you see that redeem social media?