For a couple of years now every month my school issues a “Warrior Challenge.” There have been many different things such as reading a non-fiction book, finding ways to show love to a neighbor, sending four letters of Thanksgiving, and more. One month a couple years ago our challenge involved a fast. We had to fast from something for the entire month. I made a “super” challenge to my middle school and high school students and encouraged them to fast from social media. I will not put up a challenge that I will not take myself, and so, I gave up all forms of social media. No twitter, no instagram, and the hardest for me…no Facebook.
I honestly knew this would be a challenge, but I had NO IDEA the hold that social media had on me. I had to physically move the icons from the normal position on my phone to a fourth page so that I wouldn’t just hit an icon out of habit. The first morning I woke up and what did I do? I hit my home button and immediately scrolled to where my Facebook icon would have been located. I got to the bus stop and what did I want to do? Scroll through Facebook to get my update of the world since I had gone to sleep and also to let the world know how awesome I was three years ago via Timehop. I have now realized what an IDOL social media had become.
Dear children, keep away from anything that might take God’s place in your hearts.”
1 John 5:21 NLT
I love how the NLT states this verse. “Anything that might take God’s place in your hearts.” Yes, unfortunately I realized through this fast and many fasts since the hold that social media had on my heart. There are many things I have learned from times I have fasted from social media:
- Social media can make me really UNSOCIAL. Facebook had become my way of sharing all good news, current happenings, and upcoming events in my life. I would post and then maybe interact with those who were “commenting” on my photos or statuses. The first day that I removed myself from social media initially I found out that I had been nominated for an award. What did I have to do? I actually had to CALL my mom and share the good news with her. What? I had to make a phone call? Or how many times are we in a group of people and instead of enjoying the company of those around us, we are looking at other people on social media? We become unsocial to those closest to us.
- Social media had become a filler. What did I do when I was bored? Scrolled through social media. What did I do when I had a moment? Scrolled through social media…even though I had just scrolled through about 10 seconds before and NOTHING had changed. I never gave myself an opportunity to be still. Why can’t I hear God more in my life? Because I never have moments of stillness. Why do I not truly see what my kids are doing? Because I’m holding a phone. I never had to think or reflect or just slow down because I always had filler.
- Social media was my number one news source. This really was one of the harder areas. What is going on around my hometown? I felt like I had no clue. I wanted to keep up with the current basketball scores and couldn’t use my twitter feed. What did I have to do? I had to actually listen to a broadcast. I actually had to READ the paper! I actually had to google and search news feeds and I actually had to have conversations with people so they could fill me in. Social media is not a valid source many times and it had become my only source of news information and town gossip.
- Social media became a source of pride in my life. Many times, the reason I post things are so that I can be noticed. It’s funny that during this initial time of fasting from social media I had a lot of good things to post, and God kept me humble. While social media can be great to keep up with others, if I am only using it to get an “atta girl” all the time then my motives are not in check.
Social media has some great perks. I have used it to keep in touch with many of my old friends. I have used it as a source to learn of potential prayer requests for others having situations in their lives. I use it A LOT in my job to collect photos and update about the happenings of my school. I use it to post blogs such as this, hoping that it can help others. However, I must be aware that anything that can take God’s place in my heart can become an idol. Who knew that something that claimed to be “Social” could make me so “unsocial?”
