Sometime last year I stopped scrolling. I’m never going back. My growing up years were completely free of devices. Reading took up all my free time. That’s a sort of freedom many have never experienced nor ever will. I remember asking my teens what an app & text was. When publishing began for me back in 2009, I invested in my novels which came with the expectation I would build a social media platform. Since then socials have fallen in & out of favor w/ me & me them. I used to love posting on IG but not so much now. FB is where I spend most of my time w/ my readers but I wasn’t fond of it for a long time. I never used Twitter until it became X. Once I had half a million followers on Pinterest in its heyday & then woke up one morning to find I had half that. Now I’m down to less than 50k. Numbers & followers & posts aren’t real life. Time is a gift. I will be held accountable for how I use my hours/minutes/seconds. And I don’t want it spent on social media.
A beloved Bible passage is 1 Thessalonians 4
“… to aspire to live quietly, & to mind your own affairs, & to work with your hands …”
Recently I came across this devotional from one of my favorite authors, Paul David Tripp. I highly recommend his devotional books. This is from Everyday Gospel:
“For many of us, social media dictates how we spend our time, & it dominates how we act, react, & respond to others. Social media is the place where you go not to live quietly. The power of social media is that it gives you a voice-& it rewards loud voices. It encourages you to weigh in & to make your presence & opinion known. Social media encourages you to live loudly, & it rewards you if you do.
You do not go to social media to mind your own affairs. No, social media encourages you to to mind other people’s business. It rewards you for sticking your nose into things that have nothing to do with you … It gives you the false impression that you are a part of something, when in reality your involvement is just a bunch of keyboard clicks.
Two things result when we fail to live quietly & to stay out of others’ affairs. First, if your attention is dominated by the business of others, then you are not investing time in examining your own heart & life, in confessing what has been revealed, in seeking God’s forgiveness, & in surrendering yourself once more to him. This harms your spiritual growth & worship. Second, the time you invest in social media takes you away from developing & using the gifts God has given you, & employing them in the work he has given you.