Photo by Becca Tapert on Unsplash
*I’m gonna preface this by saying that everyone is entitled to their own opinion. This is just mine. And I am aware that I don’t know everything. haha. These are just thoughts that I am having on this topic.
You know what I think one of Satan’s greatest tools is… trying to get us to forget our agency. WE HAVE THE POWER TO CHOOSE! Feelings don’t just happen to us. A big thing that seems to be going around in the internet world right now is that social media is damaging us. (*disclaimer, I’m not talking about outright unwholesome and morally degrading posts… I’m talking about regular, everyday people posting on social media).
While I do agree that limiting social media time is good for us in multiple ways – we shouldn’t use it as an emotional buffer; we should spending more time with face to face interaction and strengthening in person relationships; there are better uses of our time (not always, but often), etc.
Using social media as an emotional buffer isn’t good for us. The distraction may seem nice and helps to dull the pain of our negative emotions, but it also dulls positive emotions. Buffering also suppresses our negative emotions which leads to more depression and reactive negative behavior.
I think that the other couple of reasons that I pointed out for limiting our social media time are pretty self explanatory.
What I want to point out though is that social media doesn’t have the power to damage us. WE GIVE IT THE POWER when we give up OUR OWN power. No one on social media can MAKE you feel a certain way. They can’t make you feel bad. They can’t even make you feel good. They just can’t.
What we feel is based in how we are thinking. And if we are feeling bad, then we are thinking bad. And rather than go blame the other person’s social media account for our problems and how we are feeling, we should use that bad feeling (that was triggered by our thoughts) as an invitation and warning sign that we need to go look inside our hearts.
Are we feeling bad because we’re feeling jealous? Are we feeling bad because we’re feeling shame? Are we feeling bad because we’re feeling lonely? Etc.
If jealousy is the culprit – then guess what, it’s time for us to do some work on loving others and rejoicing with them that do rejoice (Romans 12:15).
If shame is the culprit – then guess what, it’s time for us to do some work on coming to know our Divine worth and recognizing when Satan tries to take that worth away.
If loneliness is the culprit – then guess what, it’s time to get out of our comfort zones and step out and serve others and make connections with people.
Stop giving away your power. That’s exactly what Satan wants us to do. He wants to make us think that we’re not responsible for our feelings. He wants us to think that they just happen to us. He wants to think that we don’t have the control – because he wants to take over the control. Don’t let him.
