For the Love of Social Media - Grit & Grace
Many of us feel social media love pretty deeply. Society loves it so much that the average amount of time spent on social media in 2019 was nearly two and a half hours each day. That’s 10% of the day without even factoring in the increase over the past few years.
“The opposite of addiction is not sobriety; the opposite of addiction is connection.” Johann Hari
I first learned about Johann Hari’s famous TED Talk a few months ago while reading Fighting Forward by Hannah Brencher. His experiences with loved ones who were addicts led him to spend years trying to understand drug addiction. Dr. Bruce Alexander’s rat experiments were a huge part of his studies. In these experiments, a rat would be placed in a cage along with two water bottles: one with plain water, and drug water, which was water laced with either heroin or cocaine. Rats would always choose the drug water, which would inevitably lead to addiction and death.
Dr. Alexander wondered if it was the water or the caged experience that caused the rats to move toward addiction, so he switched up the experiment, and Rat Park was born. In Rat Park, rats were placed in the cage along with other rats, and were given social opportunities, cheese, games to play, etc. Some of them tried both of the waters, but the rats didn’t become addicted, and none of them died.
The same is true for our phones.
“I think the same is true for our phones. We would put down our phones more and more if we had the chance to connect, really connect, face-to-face. But that kind of life is work. Good work and worthy work, but work that requires something of us.” Hannah Brencher, Fighting Forward
Hannah goes on to share, “I think we’ve been caught in this vicious cycle of talking about social media and believing in the damage it can cause us but not being active in a new approach. We complain about it, but we indulge in it. We say we’re going to quit it altogether, but we’ve developed addict-like behaviors that keep us from pulling away or striking some balance.”
We’re addicted to social media. Because it’s not an illegal substance, we complain about our addiction, but we keep indulging in it anyway.
Social media isn’t the enemy. It’s a tool that I’ve needed to learn how to use effectively so that it adds value to my life. Even for those of us that use social media for work/business purposes, wisdom is still a must in order to navigate the impact and influence it has on our lives.
Some resources for you.
This isn’t the first time I’ve written about my relationship with social media. In my quest to figure out when it makes sense to press in with friendships and when it’s best to let go, and the best ways to do that, I stumbled across a post from a fellow blogger. She talked about why she unfriended every one of her Facebook friends.
As I mentioned previously, I don’t believe that social media is the bad guy. But a few years ago, I honestly began to question my relationship with certain aspects of it, and how I could use it more intentionally. You can read all about it here and here.
If you feel that social media is a drain on your life instead of adding value, then a bit of a social media detox might be in order. This recent post I wrote for Miami Mom Collective may be helpful. As a tool, we should control our social media usage, and not the other way around.
Your social media love may be at an all-time high, or it’s cooled down to lukewarm indifference. Where do you find yourself on that spectrum these days? Wherever you find yourself, I hope this served as a fresh reminder that social media should benefit your life. I’d love to hear from you – what are some ways that you’ve found effective in enhancing the value that social media provides?
Becky is a Miami native, and has lived here all of her life. Married to her husband for over 20 years, they lead a very active lifestyle along with their three teenagers and Riley, their rescue dog. Becky loves to teach, and has had the awesome privilege of home educating her children for over twelve years. When not teaching academics, Becky loves to equip, encourage, and empower women through the teaching of her group fitness classes. Becky and her husband lead various ministries, and their family loves to serve the community through the countless opportunities provided over the past twenty years+ in their local church. She enjoys filling her "free" time with reading, writing, watching movies, and just spending time with the family. Becky has a passion for living her life with grit and grace, and encouraging others to do the same.
