Jesus called out to them, “Come, follow me, and I will show you how to fish for people!”
Mark 1:17
At the height of my social media experience, I was following different 930 people on Instagram, including many I had never met in person.
In those days, I sat at the perfect intersection of :
- having great pictures to share and
- following people with great pictures to share.
Following 930 others
Nothing I followed was inherently bad; it was a mixture of professionals in my field, Christian “influencers,” ninja warrior athletes, and people with cute kids. There were also a handful of businesses mixed in, churches, accounts that post cool art, and some one-offs like an account for adults interested in learning ballet.
My feed was filled with hand lettered Bible verses, encouraging stories, and happy people. Yet, the nature of social media brought some complexities into my connections with the 930 people I followed. The first was an issue of relationship and the second was an issue of fame.
Relationship
The most peculiar aspect of my social media was that I had a lot of information about 930 people without any real relationship with most of them.
This created a pseudo-closeness that didn’t stop with strangers; it extended to people I knew in real life. For example, I could recount the life story of someone I wouldn’t even say hello to if I ran into them in the grocery store. I liked their pictures, but there was a certain social distance between us that made no improvement to our offline interactions.
In other words, Facebook would notify me of the birthdays of people I wouldn’t call to say “happy birthday” to.
And Instagram would show me the stories of people who were just stories to me.
Snapchat would give me a glimpse at a person’s face, without an opportunity to care about their heart.
YouTube would allow me to see a person’s world, but never engage with it.
Fame
Another peculiar aspect of having 930 connections, especially given the lack of relationship, was that average people started to look a little famous.
Being a social media “influencer” comes with a formula: Make all of your pictures very orange. Be shallowly vulnerable, but not hopeless, desperate, or hysterical. Leverage cute babies. Keep posting so they’re always engaged.
The more I saw this, the more I felt compelled to imitate it and to join the race of posting the best content and reaching for more likes. Because, let’s face it, likes can make anyone feel a little famous.
Yet, these words from the song The Internet from rapper and signer Jon Bellion are chilling: “Life became dangerous the day we all became famous.”
Following Jesus
So, in summary, following 930 people on Instagram resulted in odd relationships and a weird craving for fame, plus a little bit of concern over the dangers all of that might produce.
As a follower of Christ, I’ve struggled with how to navigate this reality that wasn’t around when the Bible was written. Even without a “social media Bible,” the Jesus who told his disciples “Come, follow me” also offered some principles that can help us discern how to follow one another on social media in a more healthy, sustainable way.
Rules overwhelm me, so some of my favorite places in the Bible are where Jesus sums up how to live concisely. One such place is in Mark 12:28 when Jesus is asked “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
The greatest commandment, offered here in two parts, is a perfect guide for determining who to follow on social media.
Jesus replied, “The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.”
Mark 12:29–31
First, quoting Deuteronomy 6:4–5, Jesus commands we love God and do so with all that we have and all that we are, to the greatest capacity.
Next, he adds “Love your neighbor as yourself,” quoting Leviticus 19:18.
Love the Lord your God
The command Jesus gives his followers to love the Lord our God extends to all areas of life, including social media.
The human heart was created to make God famous, not just to people, but to all of heaven. In Ephesians 3, Paul tells that God’s mysterious plan of salvation has intended results beyond what we can be captured in a photo or a post.
God’s purpose in all this was to use the church to display his wisdom in its rich variety to all the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was his eternal plan, which he carried out through Christ Jesus our Lord.
Ephesians 3:10–11
In other words, everything is all about God. Therefore, social media should be about God too.
Social media is a place of worship. Our posts can be used to worship ourselves, others, or God. Even our posts “about God” can be self-worshiping and misdirected when left in the hands of our sinful nature.
The command to love the Lord my God prompts me to answer a couple questions about my social media habits: Does my social media, both in what I post and what I follow reflect love for God? How does each account I follow encourage me to deepen my love for Christ?
Love your neighbor as yourself
Jesus’ words about loving our neighbor also apply to social media. Even the people we follow who live across oceans and continents are still our neighbors.
While Jesus never directly defined the word “neighbor,” when asked he answered with the Parable of the Good Samaritan, which always left me with the question “Who isn’t my neighbor?” It seems that Jesus knew the asker of the question wanted to exempt someone from “neighbor” status.
The man wanted to justify his actions, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
Luke 10:29
Webster’s 1828 dictionary is as broad as to define “neighbor” as “A fellow being.”
That includes “influencers.” It also includes non-famous people, famous people, the intern working behind the scenes to make a social media calendar for your favorite company, and the baby who will grow up to find that her mom used her picture in a paid partnership post or #ad.
One who loves his or her neighbor on social media is one who is sure that social media is not devouring the neighbor’s time, love for God, or life. Loving a neighbor goes beyond consuming what he or she produces online.
The command to love my neighbor prompts me to answer a couple questions about my social media habits: Does my social media, both in what I post and what I follow reflect love for others? How does each account I follow encourage me to deepen my love for others?
Unfollowing
For me, using the principles of the Bible and asking myself tough questions about the accounts I followed helped me realize where I needed to make some changes. In addition to the above questions, I also asked myself these:
- Are any of the accounts I’m following subjecting me to “free” advertising?
- Are any of the accounts I’m following putting young children in a position where they “feel famous”?
- Does this person follow me back or is there no evidence of personal relationship?
In the end, there were many accounts I needed to stop following. I gave them up slowly. I cut 100, then 450. There was a loss in not knowing what was happening in my “influencers” lives at first. It felt like losing a friend, yet the lack of relationship meant that feeling was one-sided.
After some time, I felt less pressure seek to social media fame. And more freedom to simply live. More peace. More understanding of who God is and what worship is. More opportunities to ask people about their lives instead of assuming it’s all out on the internet.
Next Steps
Hey there! I know social media is a super saturated topic to talk about and that there’s a lot of advice floating around on how to navigate it. Here are some suggestions that might help:
- Using my questions as a guide, do an audit of your social media. Are you making anyone other than God look famous?
- Make corrections so that you can be confident that what you’re seeing is good for you and what you’re sharing is good for others. Be sure to “Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.” (Proverbs 4:23)
- Stop the demand for “influencer” type content by making sure those you follow aren’t caught in a trap of trying to feel famous. Part of loving your neighbor as yourself is also making sure their heart is guarded. You can even share this post with someone who needs it to help.
