What Was Missing Until Social Media Was Gone
“I wish I could do that.”
More times than not, that’s the response I receive when people find out that I’m not on social media. Then they continue to give me their reasons for why they cannot delete their own accounts. Even recently someone who actively uses it said, “I love finding out that others don’t do social media! I absolutely love it!” It is my perception that most have a love-hate relationship with it—yet they must love it more than they hate it, because they justify why they continue to use it.
That was me, up until three years ago when I deactivated my social media accounts. Leading up to that decision, I had been contemplating it for quite a while. I even wrote out a list of pros (my loves) and cons (my hates); not surprisingly, the cons list was glaringly three times longer than the pros list. However, I evaluated the love-hate relationship, weighed the costs and benefits, and believed the pros carried enough positive weight to keep it up.
Until I finally got through my thick head what the Spirit had been trying to tell me for years—that the negative impact of social media had been increasingly destroying my heart and mind and far outweighed anything good I was giving or receiving through it. So I pulled the plug. Or more accurately—I deactivated, deleted, and disappeared.
And I’ve never been more joyful or more at peace. I feared I would miss it, but within weeks, I felt a heavy burden lift off of me that I didn’t even know was there until it was gone. I felt lighter. It was as if someone had cut off shackles, and I was finally free to run. To really live. Not behind a screen, but experiencing reality right in front of me each day.
I began to live out the real “me”—the one that God created me to be. Not a “me” that was trying to please, promote, keep up, and share, all the while rating how I was doing in life compared to everyone else.
Don’t dismiss me yet, because I’m not here to bash social media, demand that you get off of it, and spew about its evils. (Tempting, but I promise I won’t. Lol)
I’m here to share my personal testimony of the effects of social media on my heart, mind, and life. And who knows, maybe you’ll be convicted like I was of the hold it had on me, find the courage and resolve to delete those apps, or set better physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual boundaries around your use of it.
With most things in life, social media is not evil; it’s our motives, desires, and actions toward it that can be either good or evil. I persisted in staying on for as long as I did because of the good things and blessings that came from it. My personal pros for continuing to use social media were the following:
Keeping up with family and friends’ lives
Sharing my life with people who care about my family and me
Asking for prayer (We were tremendously blessed by all the prayer warriors who prayed for us when we lost Seth and Roi, and when Reagan was fighting for his life as a newborn.)
Following accounts that shared my passion for health, nutrition, and recipes
Ministries I was a part of and followed for updates, prayer requests, praises, needs, etc.
Current news updates
Promoting my book and blog
Many of these reasons are valid and probably why most people use it! However, I realized quickly that I could live quite effectively without using social media as the means. Obstacles had to be overcome—I reworked how I received and shared information, while other things I had to let go of and trust to the Lord. Keep scrolling to read how I specifically overcame those barriers and the truths I learned throughout the process.
»I effectively killed my author platform on social media. The question I wrestled with was, “How would I share my blog and book (and possible future books) with people?” This was a genuine concern, but I had to let it go. The Spirit was pulling back layers of my heart to reveal the dangers lurking within me that could lead to my downfall as an author and blogger with a social media presence. He told me that now was not the time for it, and I’m thankful I heeded His prompting. Stay tuned for my next blog post where I will go into more depth on this topic.
»Email subscriptions are still a very efficient way to receive information and updates! Gen Z is not using email as much as the previous generations, but they are actually missing out. According to the research I’ve read while learning how to promote my book and blog, email subscriptions are actually the #1 source for reaching people.
And not only a mass amount of people—people who really care and want to hear what that person or business has to say or offer. The audience is “deeper”—more engaging and loyal, rather than “shallow” doom scrollers passing by. Therefore, I made sure to subscribe to the newsletters and blogs of those I really wanted to stay up-to-date with.
If you want current news from a Christian, yet politically-unbiased perspective, I recently subscribed to The Pour Over! Check them out. You receive only a few emails each week that are short and to the point, while also providing a biblical worldview on how to respond and pray.
»The consequence I thought would be the hardest part of deleting social media was no longer knowing about my family and friends’ lives. Would I struggle even more with FOMO? What if I missed something really important or don’t know how to pray for someone? However, what I realized after a time of being ignorant about people’s lives was, paradoxically, enlightening.
Initially, it was common for family and friends to ask me, “Did you see on Facebook…” or “Did you read that so-and-so…” At first, it bothered me when I replied, “No, I did not see or know about that, because I’m not on anymore.” I became annoyed when someone would divulge news about people very close to me that I didn’t know about! I felt embarrassed for being uninformed. I get it—this is our culture and how we easily share about our lives. It’s not my family and friends' fault that I’m not receiving life updates like the vast majority of people.
Yet when I responded, “No, I didn’t see that on Facebook because I’m not on anymore,” one person said, “Well, that’s how I find everything out.” The comment was true, and in their defense, rather innocent. However, as I thought about that statement, it occurred to me that desiring to know everything about everyone sounds very similar to trying to be like God, doesn’t it? He is omniscient; we are not. Only He can and will know everything.
My eyes were opened to how my striving to keep up with everyone on my feed was disguised as idolatry. It’s prideful—a desire for control, for power. The more I know about people, the more I…what, really? What does it do or give me?
{Full transparency, I had made a commitment to pray for everyone I saw on my feed. That’s how I was going to justify knowing all the things. Yeah, that didn’t last long as I mindlessly scrolled and easily became distracted.}
I will tell you what striving to stay up-to-date did—the knowledge of everyone (the good, the bad, and the ugly) became a burden I was never meant to carry. Knowledge does have power—but not the power we were created for. Adam and Eve believed the lie that God was holding out on them, and therefore, their pursuit of the knowledge of good and evil led to their downfall, and why we are even in this sin-cursed mess to begin with!
Our all-knowing God is the one who “upholds the universe by the word of His power” (Hebrews 1:3, ESV). It’s not my responsibility to hold it all in my mind. We are to primarily cast our cares, burdens, and anxieties on the Lord for Him to carry, not on a social media post for others to carry.
Further, my inventory of people’s lives left me with nothing but pride. I could boast that I was part of the crowd, that I could speak intelligently on what’s current, and that I wasn’t left out of the conversation. My well-informed words about people (a.k.a. riding the slippery slope of gossip, yes?) held power.
The Spirit continued to expose the lies I believed regarding a lack of knowledge about everyone and everything that was justifying my social media presence. Being uninformed does not indicate a lack of compassion; I am not inferior, nor am I missing out. Instead, the Spirit brought to light how the absence of information is the pathway to what is true and real outside the realm of social media.
The massive amount of information taking space in my head prevented me from holding space for what really mattered. It’s hard to put into words the drastic difference in my mental capacity. It’s comparable to doing a really good purge of your home—you can walk around without bumping into things or moving them out of the way. You can breathe. You find things that you didn’t know were there under all the junk. You have more space to do what you really want to do, rather than take care of the stuff you don’t even care about!
These last three years, I have had an incredible amount of mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual space that was immediately vacant when I cut the cords of social media. Previously, I was clueless to the extent of the superficial, mindless, brain-rotting, distracting information filling me up. And yes, I’m even including all the great, praise-worthy news of my friends’ and followers’ posts.
It’s similar to the saying, “You don’t realize what you had until it’s gone.” Except I didn’t realize what I was missing, until social media was gone. What an irony—missing out on information is the means to not missing out—on what’s real, eternal, most important, and the calling God has specifically for me.
Let me explain further by using a visual I was taught by a biblical counselor. Draw a small circle in the middle of a page—that is God. Draw a circle around it—that’s your spouse and children. Draw another circle around that—that’s your extended family and close friends. Draw another circle—that’s the Body of Christ, specifically your local church where you attend and serve. Draw another circle—that’s the rest of the world you may be acquainted with.
Now, you tell me where social media is most often located? The very last circle that is farthest away from the inner circle. Yet, what do we find ourselves greatly occupied with, trying to reach, keep up-to-date with, spend too much mental, emotional, and physical time on, etc.? Yep.
After doing an internet search, this circle has many names - Influence, Boundaries, Intimacy - and differs slightly, depending on secular or biblical worldview.
Then what happens when there is a vacuum in that space? Time and energy are spent on the inner circles—the ones Scripture commands us to love and serve first and foremost. That was the exact result in my life after cutting off that last circle.
Starting outward and moving inward through my personal circles, the lack of social media forced me to be more intentional with the people in my day-to-day life—my church family, extended family, and close friends. If I wanted to know about someone, I had to reach out to them through text or voice messaging, meet them for coffee, or invite them over to my home. I didn’t use social media anymore as an excuse to “know” them better. (Which let’s be honest, we think we “know” people that we “follow” when nothing could be further from the truth.) My lack of social media presence also showed me who my authentic friends were—they continued to reach out to me after I disappeared.
Instead of doom-scrolling through my social media feeds, I scroll through my text message threads. If someone has my number, that means they are most likely in my day-to-day life or at least have a more intimate relationship with me than anyone and everyone accessing me through direct messaging. As I scroll through, I ask myself:
“Who needs prayer and an encouraging word right now?”
“Oh, I need to follow up with her and ask her how that ________ went!?”
“Who can we have over for dinner next week or get together for a play date?”
“I haven’t talked to her for a while, I’ll see how she’s doing and what she needs prayer for.”
Rather than carrying burdens for people I was never meant to carry (a person from high school, college, or another season of life; the friend of a friend; or someone I have no frequent interaction with), I am more available to “carry one another’s burdens” (Galatians 6:2) for those God has divinely put in my life right now by taking their burdens to Him through intercessory prayer and physically helping them with their needs because of our closer relationship and proximity.
While prayer is powerful and sometimes all we can do, we are also commanded to act and serve. Most of the time, we sit at home scrolling through people’s very real trials, and yet we don’t get up to actually do something to help. I can’t serve that “friend” who lives states away and needs someone to come over while she’s eight months pregnant and her kids are puking.
Maybe you think I’m taking this a little too far, but ask yourself, how does that impact your mental and emotional load? You can’t physically help that friend and can only hope that someone close by can step up, but you are left with a burden you weren’t meant to carry, because it should belong to those who are in her more intimate circles.
Or worse, we’ve become desensitized to suffering because we are too inundated with it, that all we do is click the love button or cry-face button, comment with “I’m praying,” or for some, feel compelled to offer all the tips on how to fix the problem, when the poor mama just needs to take a nap! And then we keep. on. scrolling. by.
Eek—now that makes me think about the priest and the Levite who kept walking by the injured, helpless man. With social media though, sometimes we legit have an excuse—we can’t physically help. Which proves my point—in many cases, it’s not supposed to be your Samaritan duty because God has placed other people in closer proximity to meet that need. Everyone on your feed is not the answer to “Who is my neighbor?” that Jesus had in mind.
Your options are to continue adding it to your already overloaded, overwhelmed, anxious mind or continue…scrolling? Hear what I’m not saying, as my pastor often says. We should intercede for others in prayer, even while living across the country or the world. But I personally am an empathetic person and absorb people’s pain very easily. The Lord revealed to me that it is not my responsibility to absorb everyone’s pain, but focus on those in my more intimate circles.
I think deep down we all understand that “Friends” or “Followers” on social media are not what God had in mind for relationships and may actually be hindering meaningful, impactful relationships. When social media is taken away, you find those deep friendships. You are like Jesus with His few close friends rather than “friends” to the masses. In fact, I was lonelier with social media than I have been without it. It’s all a façade. I don’t think I need to explain further—we’ve all heard the statistics. And if not, go ask the “all-knowing” AI how excessive social media usage is associated with depression, anxiety, and suicide.
Next, as I move inward on the circle, it should be obvious—I am more present with my kids. No longer do I hear the frustrating sighs of my daughter, “Can you please get off your phone?” or her piercing words, “You’re always on your phone.” I’m ashamed because it’s true. But I’m grateful, because these past few years, I have enjoyed my children more than ever before. I look them in the eye and see them for who they are through the eyes of Jesus—not in comparison to my friends’ children. I listen, really listen when they talk to me. I finally believe that the greatest influence I can have is on my children, more than any “influence” I can have on social media.
Brett and I also made the decision to take down any personal pictures of the kids or me on his public pages. He now only uses his social media platforms for his acting and filmmaking career. Let’s just say…it got weird at times. And he’s not even an A-list celebrity. People are intrusive, stalkerish, and convinced that they know you just because they watch your movies or follow your pages or read your blog. (I recently learned there is a term for this—parasocial relationships—and it’s very icky.) Therefore, we have the conviction not to share much about our personal lives. For those not in our day-to-day life (inner circles), we don’t owe anyone anything.
Lastly, but most importantly, erasing that last circle from my life had a tremendous spiritual impact. It was replaced with more of the Spirit. I pray more. I seek Him more. I’m in His Word more. And the result of filling my mind and heart with more of the Spirit has been hearing Him speak to me increasingly and consistently over these past three years.
Instantaneously the other voices were silenced: “Do this.” “No, do this!” “Be this.” “Have you tried this?” “Oh, look at her!” “You should…” “Why aren’t you…?” On and on the voices would loop, ruminate, shout, and vie for my attention. And when the voices were gone, they were GONE! Just. Like. That.
Those voices were crowding out the voice of the Lord Almighty. I suppressed Him because I thought that the good—my pros list—of using social media outweighed the bad. Until He said, “Enough!,” and shouted above the noise to reveal the idols of my heart that I was worshiping through social media.
In the next post, I’ll share my cons list—and why I eventually realized social media wasn’t merely distracting me. It was slowly destroying me from the inside out.
