6. We are seeing greater polarization and anger.
On 2020 election night I sat with my daughters in front of the television as news poured in about the results. We toggled back and forth between channels and I asked them to guess which candidate each channel wanted to win. They guessed correctly each time. I said, “Imagine if you never knew other channels or viewpoints existed. Would you start to think people who don’t think the same as you are idiots? Would it make you angry if people don’t see things the way you do because you would assume that they have the same information you do?” With the algorithms designed to keep us online, social media has brought people deeper and deeper down one viewpoint and made many people more and more angry. Some don’t even realize they are only seeing information tailored to keep them online – information others are not seeing because the algorithms are giving those people a completely different set of information. And on all sides anger and frustration can be pulled the surface of lives because anger and frustration keep people on the platforms. If something is instigating the opposite of the fruit of the Spirit in our lives, we should deeply evaluate it.
7. The development years are critical.
I initially pursued my doctorate because I wanted to train future youth pastors. My doctorate is in education and leadership, so early in my studies I read literature surrounding the development of teenagers: morally, psychosocially, and cognitively. My main takeaway was “wow, these years are super important for teenagers to develop a sense of who they are, to learn how to learn, and to develop a moral compass.” We have decades of research into how adolescents develop and we only have a few years of research into how social media is impacting adolescent development. In essence we are in the midst of a giant experiment and I don’t want my daughters to be the lab rats.
8. We can always add a phone. Harder to take one away.
When I get a haircut, the barber often does not cut my hairs as short as I would like. So, I ask for more to be taken off. The response is typically the same, “It is easy to take more off. I can’t add hair back though.” The opposite is true with a phone. It is easy to give a phone. It will be, I assume, much harder to take one away.
This article originally appeared here, and is used by permission.
