I don’t know about you, but I am completely burned out on social media. This isn’t just some—I-need-a-7-day-fast-from-it situation. This is a rock-bottom burnout from the rat race of growing my Instagram followers, trying to send the most pithy tweet, posting the most beautiful image and making myself sound important on LinkedIn.
I guess I shouldn’t have said that I don’t know about you. New statistics released recently show that overall social media usage went down in 2018. I think there are many people like me who feel tired of the process of posting and sharing and liking and retweeting. But what are we supposed to do? Social media plays a vital role in our lives, connecting us with loved ones and opportunities and ways to expand our small world into something more.
3 THINGS TO REMEMBER
1. God Made Us for Community.
God created us to live in community. But did he create us for social media community? I’m not sure we have the answer to that question yet. Keep in mind that, while social media has been around for more than two decades in some form, it is still a relatively new concept to humankind.
For most of human history we have had to communicate face-to-face with verbal and non-verbal communication tools. The idea that we can think something, type a few letters and send a message to the world is still in the category of “we are figuring it out” as far as humanity is concerned.
The main thing you should always remember when facing social media burnout is that God made us for community. If you are feeling tired of social media it is probably your soul longing for true community—something that can be found through church, a small group of friends, former classmates, family, etc.
Recommendation: Take a pause from posting and viewing social media to intentionally get together with a small group of people. Throw a dinner party or host your small group from church or lead a small Bible study at a coffee shop.
2. God Made Us for Intimate Connection With Him.
God made us to have a deep connection with him. Have we let social media eat up all of our spiritual time? Have we allowed scrolling through Instagram to become more important than spending vital time talking to our Creator? I don’t want to pull the ultimate spiritual card here but I think it is more true than we’d like to think: We spend more time on Facebook than we spend thinking of the things of God. And there is one thing, throughout the Bible, that God communicates crystal clear: He will not allow us to place other gods before him. Our God is jealous for us. He wants us to have an intimate connection to him that happens daily, hourly, by the minute.
Recommendation: Set some time limits on your phone to help you break out of the funk of social media burnout. If you only give yourself one hour per day on social media you can spend a few more hours reading God’s Word, praying for clarity and wisdom, and discipling others.
3. God Made Us for Eternity.
God made us for the long term, not the short. Social media is so short-term. It is defined by the here and now. It is pretty much the opposite of what God’s vantage point is: eternity. God wants us to spend eternity with him and the rest of the saints.
Part of the reason, I believe, we are burned out on social media is because our soul yearns for eternity. We don’t want to live in a social media world with instant gratification and devastation. We want to walk beside our Creator with a confidence and security and joy.
Recommendation: Spend 15 minutes every day thinking about what eternity might be like. Think on the things that God’s Word promises. Think about the things that you hope for and ask God to bring you a great joy as you think about eternity.
This article originally appeared on Thinke.org.