#TheSocialMediaProblem

When I first came across this picture on twitter I laughed and wanted to go get a donut. I then thought to myself... "I should re-tweet this"

It is amazing to me the shift in culture over the past 5-10 years. What did we do before Facebook, Twitter, Youtube (input any social media here)... Now there are advantages to all of these forms of social medial but I think that they have made us more self centered.

Does anyone really care that I just ate a donut? Why do we feel the need to tell people what we are doing every second of every day? Do we just want to make it easier for people to stalk us? Because it would not be hard, just follow the statuses.

“Just got home”

“About to shower!”

“My dog chewed my sandals while I was in the shower!!!”

“Still wet from the shower. ‘bout to eat. Yummmmm!”

“This chicken tastes funny”

I came Walt Mueller's blog talking about this same picture and he wrote;

"Does anyone who grew up pre-social media remember a time when before, during, or after doing anything/everything in the course of a day you would pause, step outside, and shout out what you were doing at the top of your lungs? Or you would go to the neighbor's house, knock on the door, and announce what you were doing, had done, or were about to do? No, of course not. We would have thought there was something very, very wrong with people like that! "-Walt Mueller

So the question remains, is social medial a problem?

YES.

We have become too concerned with updating and commenting that we are no longer living. We are glued to our phones 24/7. Never was this more apparent then at the Super Bowl party at my house this past weekend. There were 20+ High School and Middle School students hanging out watching the game and everyone had their phone out and was either on Facebook or Twitter throughout the night (myself included). Not to mention that most of the things which were shared were for the people in the room, but we wanted more people to see what was going on. We want to feel important and liked. We want re-tweets, likes, comments and to start new #trends. This is how we feel validated. Too some extent we think our self worth is determined by our friend list or how many people are following us.

We have made life into a Facebook timeline and a Twitter feed. I am not suggesting that social media has made us this way rather that it has revealed a deep seeded problem which has been lying just beneath the surface of our culture for a long, long time. The answer is not to stop all forms of social media, nor is it WWJF or WWJT (What Would Jesus Facebook/Tweet).

We need to rethink how we use social media and how social media uses us.

How can this bring glory to GOD not us.