Dear Believer, What is Social Media Doing to You?

Phillip’s Tale

I work with the media team in church. I have a lot of followers on all my social media platforms. That gives me so much joy, my sphere of influence is big and growing. I am unsure though of what social media is doing to my heart.
Whenever I wake up in the night or earlier than usual prior to now, I would take time to pray, study my bible or just really sit in silence. These days, once I open my eyes, I just reach out for my phone, checking who has DM’ed me, how many new followers on my different accounts. Before you know it, I’d have spent two hours just on my phone and then I’d rush through my devotion in like 15 minutes with a really noisy mind.

Mercy’s Tale

I am big on literature: fiction, non-fiction, poetry. I subscribed to a blog by a really wonderful writer. This wonderful writer was big on romance and his stories were mostly short and erotic. After reading the first piece, at first I was thrilled by the brilliance of the writing but those erotic pages had formed scenes in my head and they kept replaying. I knew something was off in my heart but my love for reading and lust kept driving me to read me. I kept imagining and imagining until one day my hands found a way to bring to reality the evil I read of. I never thought I’d fall into masturbation.
Now, I’m a mess. I don’t even know how to trace back my steps.

Tade’s Tale

Noticed how many ladies flock around a fine boy that loves the Lord? Even those ladies that don’t quite love the Lord? Well, as a chilled Jesus boy, this was my case on social media. However for some of these ladies, their bio/display pictures bear images of them exposing their bodies. I never saw this as anything until I saw myself craving my old way of life. And why not? At any given time on my timeline, feeds, you’d find corrupting pictures and unwholesome content. The moment I noticed this, I started to unfollow and in some cases block these accounts. My friends thought it was me being extreme. I told them my heart was of primary concern.

Ade’s tale

I had some delay getting married. I didn’t get married till my mid-thirties.
During that time of waiting, I became so addicted to social media, especially Instagram and Twitter. I always saw beautiful pictures and captions my mates who had gotten married and some who even had kids. At a point, I fell into deep depression. I got to speak with an older woman at church and as we conversed, she told me comparing my life with others I see on social media contributed to it.
I didn’t fully get her point till I stumbled upon a friend of mine who was having the time of her life. Stories she told me didn’t look like that at all. At a point, She said, “I wish I was single, like you.”
I almost lost it. This was someone I was dying to become. It was then I understood what my therapist told me:

Do not compare your whole life situation to other people’s highlights on social media and judge yourself. Your journey is yours really. Understand that.

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For some people, they don’t know how but they just find themselves meddling with issues they had been done with when they gave their lives to the Lord or some entirely new ones. Some others are able to trace it to some activities online.

Whatever the case may be, we cannot afford to be ignorant concerning the wiles and plot of Satan. We cannot afford to just follow any person or allow any person follow us. Choose purity over the number of followers you have.

It is not pride or over-sabi, it’s heeding to instruction. The bible says to flee from every appearance of evil. Evil communication corrupts. Guarding your heart is firstly your responsibility, not your pastor’s or cell leader’s. It is your responsibility.

Also, many have idolized social media and they don’t even know.

Maybe I should share my own tale at this point…

So y’all know how when you put up a picture on social media, the likes and comments make you feel really good. I noticed some time ago that I started to crave this attention. I might be late to church o but if I have not taken that fire fire selfie that I’d upload after service, lai lai, I’m not going in yet. I could keep refreshing to see if that guy or babe has seen my selfie. If they had and didn’t comment, I’d feel funny. I had gradually started to seek validation outside my true identity.

My tale is similar to Phillip’s, I could spend hours on Instagram and recently twitter but to do a bible study for one hour, I’ll just be falling asleep anyhow. Then I knew I needed divine intervention. These things are not trivial, they count. Nothing else should define you but God. You only need His validation really. Also, your journey is your journey not another’s, enjoy the process.

The fact that you only post your best selfies and nobody gets to know of your low times should make you understand social media contains only partial truth. You can’t judge yourself by such a fickle factor. A good fraction of it is even staged and faked. So stop comparing yourself to social media celebrities. Trust your process.

The amazing thing is this – the Holy Spirit would always prompt you. I have lost count of many times when I am going through a site or an account and the Holy Spirit tells me to stop reading and unfollow. I don’t argue, I unfollow immediately. Or when I’ve typed out areply and the Holy Spirit is like: “Wipe, wipe, wipe it all away…” lol, and I do just that. So we have a guide in the person of the Holy Spirit.

Read Next: What Your Social Media Sharing Culture Says About You