By Gina Caswell Kelly
Social media is the best and the worst. I think we can all agree with that. Social media is good for reconnecting with long lost classmates and childhood friends. It makes a good way to get information quickly. It is a great place to share pictures and fun times. But… social media can also be the very worst.
I think social media makes us all very brave. We get to hide behind our phones and post our opinions, and how we feel about others’ opinions. We can criticize vehemently those in positions of authority, without knowing all the information. We can criticize people we don’t even know for their opinions. We are given a deluge of information without any way of knowing if it is correct or not. Social media makes us mean and ill-tempered. It makes us lash out in ways we would never use in public. In a word, social media is the worst!
This has been on my mind a lot recently. We have all seen the spirited political opinions voiced on Facebook, X, or Instagram. We see videos that appear to be accurate. We see lots of information in quotation marks, so we assume it is correct. The truth of the matter is that we don’t know what is truth and what is not, on social media. We don’t know which side of the fence to come down on in a two sided argument, because we don’t know what the truth is. In a “he said – she said” type discussion, people often forget the side that is not mentioned. The truth!
I have been thinking a lot lately about how we handled disagreements before social media. We did not drag 62 uninvolved people into the discussion. We didn’t purchase billboards or television time to be sure that everyone knew our opinion. No! We discussed it with whoever was involved and came to a decision that was, more or less agreeable to both sides. Then we let it go. End of story. Man I miss those days.
Satan is active in social media. He prompts us and urges us to voice our opinion, knowing full well we do not have all the facts. He laughs and rubs his hands together as he sees conversation growing heated. He loves when he sees friends become enemies over something that is, in the big picture, pretty insignificant. And we just keep playing along.
My daddy would say, “Brethren, these things ought not be!” God wants us to come to Him in prayer with whatever is on our minds. He does not want us dragging the world into our conflict. He wants to handle our conflict. He knew this road was in front of us and He has a plan.
It is time for us to turn off our phones when we have issues. We need to turn to God instead, and give it all to Him to handle and then we need to trust that He will handle it. We are to pray about everything and then let it go. Open your hands and give it all to God. Get off social media and give the problem to God. It will make a difference!
