A race without winners

Our culture has created a new addiction, and it affects our young people in ways that they're not even aware of.

I'm not referring to drugs. Or alcohol. Or pornography. Or gambling. Or sex. Or even shopping or video games. Although every one of those represents addictive behaviors that are having a detrimental effect on our society. 

I'm talking about the need to get people to LIKE our posts on social media. Sean Parker, part of the team who launched Facebook back in 2004 claims they spent a significant amount of time trying to figure out to consume as much of the time and attention of those who would be using Facebook as possible. Their solution was what is called a "social-validation feedback loop". In simple terms when you have social media and see that friends have posted things that you and others have liked you WANT to post something for your friends and followers to see as well. And when they 'like' it you WANT to post something else. And so on. http://www.newsweek.com/russia-facebook-trump-sean-parker-707964

It's easy to see how posting one thing on Monday morning could lead to posting another that afternoon, and two things on Tuesday, and five things on Wednesday, and soon you no longer have things to post about off the top of your head so you search for things to post about....a trip to the post office, what you had for lunch, what your favorite kind of soup is, and on and on. Before long you've lost count of how much you post and you don't even realize that the more you post the more people 'like' what you post, and that leads you wanting to post more and more and.....well you know where it leads. 

Personally I don't think there's anything wrong with using social media to feel better about life. Just this morning I saw a story about a family that reunited with a beloved pet after more than a week because people sharing the story on social media helped the people who found the dog locate her owners. Hard to find something to not like about that. I'm able to stay in touch with family and former students through social media in a way that mere phone calls wouldn't allow. I can see pictures of their children, pets, homes, vacations, cars, and lives and am able to be a part of what's happening in their life from far away. That's a great blessing.

However.

I am disgusted with seeing so many teenagers who are so completely needy for their peers to call them 'pretty' or 'hot' (out of respect for every English teacher I've ever had I can't spell it as 'hawt'!) that they post an almost nonstop stream of selfies, often with manufactured smiles and holding the phone at an angle to make them look thinner than they really are. And can I be completely incorrect politically? It's teen girls who do this. Our female young people are so desperate for people to 'like' and 'love' and provide positive comments on their photos that they spend more time focusing on getting their next picture posted than they do on paying attention to the people they're with in real life. 

I've seen teens take over 100 (this is NOT an exaggeration) selfies in a matter of minutes trying to find the one with a perfect angle and light and smile and hair and background to post. And then 12 hours later they delete it and repost it a few hours later, hoping this time it will garner more attention. 

And you know what kinds of pictures of young females garner the most attention? Yes you do. The kind you'd least want strangers seeing of your children. But to them the chance to trade a bit of morality or self esteem for a few dozen more people liking and sharing their pictures is worth it. 

A story that's in the current news cycle involves a YouTube celebrity who posted a video of a suicide victim, all in the quest for more 'likes' and great popularity. 

Many of our teens on social media have already rewired their emotional and social selves in order to maintain pleasure from the computer they carry in their pocket. 

And our children that haven't started using social media yet? If we don't start a conversation about how destructive social media is they will be even more lost than we can imagine. 

They're racing each other towards the most 'likes'. And the winner gets so addicted that they wake up and reach for their phone first thing.  

Dear parents

Hey parents!

Do me a favor and read this. It's from the heart and many of you need this.

The lack of your presence on Instagram is hurting your teens.

As someone heavily invested in the lives of teenagers (it's odd that a day goes by that I'm not with a group of students in some capacity) I love social media.

I don't have to ask teens what movies or music or fashion or tv they're into. They happily share all of this on social media. I know their favorite foods, books, which classes they're taking, how much homework they have, who's 'Lit' and who's not lit (unlit? un-lit? de-lit? nonlit? uncool? square?) and I know things that I sometimes wish I didn't about their lives.

I also hate social media because it's a front row seat to a war being waged between the way things should be and the way they are. And I'm at the point where I want to delete my social media when I see teenagers trying to navigate this battle without a parental co-pilot. Because their hard wired need to fit in and please their friends and make a mark on the world and become an individual often leaves them making choices that are not wise.

They know their parents and grandparents are on Facebook so they're often not completely real on that platform.

**Time travel with me to The Mall (any mall) in the mid 80s. Now imagine your parents and grandparents and their friends hanging out there. Would you have modified your behavior or conversation?**

But fewer of you are on Instagram. Even fewer on Snapchat.

POP QUIZ. WHAT'S IT CALLED WHEN TEENS HAVE TWO OR MORE SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS? Because it's super common to have one that their family can see (pics taken with friends at a football game!) and one that only their friends can see (pics taken with friends that would cause parents to go on a cell phone smashing purge!).

Most teens I know make pretty good choices. But even if your teen isn't drinking alcohol shouldn't you know if the party they're at is filled with underage drinking? Even if your teen makes good choices while driving shouldn't you know if they're spending time with someone whose social media feed is filled with pictures and videos of them routinely doing things in cars that would make The Dukes of Hazzard nervous? And we all know how many predators are routinely arrested after having posed as a teenager online and befriended and then destroyed or ended the life of a teenager.

Do you know how much of your teen's life story is online? Any picture posted at a school event will tell anyone on the planet the name of their school. Which means if they can get to that physical address they can be standing right next to your child. And they can learn the names of your child and all of their friends. And what grade they're in. And where they work. When they have practice. When they leave the house in the morning. And if your child is posting things online that you don't know about A MONSTER COULD KNOW MORE THAN YOU DO ABOUT A SITUATION WHERE YOUR TEEN IS PARTICULARLY VULNERABLE.

But outside of the realm of monsters and physical dangers shouldn't you know what your teenagers are posting on social media? And what they're saying about friends posts? And what's being said by others about their posts?

A common thing I hear from parents is "I'm glad my teenage years aren't documented on the internet." I am too!

But shouldn't that realization make you more aware of the future repercussions of what our children are posting? What are future employers, dates, in-laws, or their own children going to think when a momentary lapse in judgement becomes a permanent memorial to bad judgement? (I had a recent conversation with a teenage girl who is completely embarrassed because she posted a picture she didn't mean to....but she feels like she can't take it down because IT'S GOTTEN MORE 'LIKES' THAN ANYTHING ELSE SHE'S POSTED. It breaks my heart to try to imagine her parenting her own someday children when they see this picture).

So what can you do?

• GET ON INSTAGRAM AND GET ON SNAPCHAT AND LEARN HOW TO USE THEM.

• Unsure how? MESSAGE ME and I can teach you.
• Want to see if your child has multiple accounts? MESSAGE ME and I can show you how to do that too.
• Want to have a conversation with your teen about ANY of this but don't know where to start? MESSAGE ME and I'll share some resources with you that will get you on the right track.
• Unsure about teen drinking? Porn use? Sexting? Inappropriate selfies? Smoking? How your teen might be using a proxy server to look at stuff that a parental controls should be keeping them from accessing? MESSAGE ME.
• Have a handle on this stuff with your teens? MESSAGE ME....BECAUSE I KNOW SOME OF YOU ARE PARENTING YOUR CHILDREN SUCCESSFULLY IN THIS AREA AND I NEED YOUR HELP AND WANT TO HEAR YOUR STORY.
  

I'm on staff at Fresh Start Fellowship, but my heart is help all teenagers, all parents, and all families. I don't care where you go to church. Starting in January I'm going to be hosting some parent meetings every month where we can talk about this stuff and MORE. It's not about recruiting you to join a church. It's not about selling you a book. Or books. It's not about telling you WHAT to do.

It's about us all sharing WHAT WE KNOW and helping each other make our families better!

Reality vs. Anti-Social Media

I think it's safe to say not one person, ever, has decided to switch political parties because someone called them stupid online.

However it remains a strange time for our culture right now.

So much of our lives aren't being lived in reality anymore, but they're being played out on social media. 

This is a great letdown because none of us have a reality that stacks up to social media.  

Now I don't exaggerate my life on social media, but I do strive to keep it positive. Not because I want people to think I'm perfect (just spend some time with me), but because I think there's enough negativity online. I make an effort to only share things that are fun or funny or encouraging online. I have no desire to share my worst moments with the entire internet. *not that I have a lot of 'worst' moments. Earlier this summer I shared that I had been let go from a ministry position that I loved. But even in the midst of that negative event I worked awful hard to not overshare my confusion and hurt. Lots of people showed up in my life to pray with Shannon and I face to face, and even more reached out in the form of phone calls and messages to lift us up and encourage us. And all of that helped in a huge way. It made it easy to share something funny on Facebook. My heart genuinely breaks for people who don't have PEOPLE to share with like that.*

In fact very few of us have a life that measures up to what we post on social media. Most of you don't look like the selfies you post. Most of you don't really live the Bible verses, inspirational quotes, positive memes, or motivational sayings you share daily. 

Sometimes that's because we just want to keep our pain private (or in a tight circle of family and friends) and be a positive person in public. But all too often it's because we feel the need to conform to the culture we see.

Having spent so much time with teenagers I can attest to the power that peers have to override wise decisions with an almost addiction to fitting in. And this scares me because those people often turn into adults who surrender their ability to choose to what the people next to them are doing.

And we love to see people make bad choices with us. We somehow suspect that our sin won't count if it's watered down with an entire group chasing that sin.

Look at the online backlash that Yvonne Orji is facing after confessing that at the age of 33 she's still a virgin and is saving herself for marriage. The social media claws came out. It's almost like people are angry that she's making a moral choice that they're not.

So what do we do? How do we cope? My best advice would be to unplug. Uninstall those apps on your phone and just go to those sites and log in if you NEED to. Set aside some time each day to catch up with family and friends online, and stop checking in constantly.

What if you spent an entire week and didn't share things that other people had written or didn't share/forward pictures or memes that someone else created? What if just once a day you WROTE what you wanted to post and then logged off?

What if you took all those minutes and invest them in reading your Bible? Or talking to your mother? Or doing pushups? Or drawing a picture?   

What I HATE

It seems that hate is in the news a lot this week. 

People hate racists. People hate statues. People hate the President. People hate people who hate the President. People hate people who don't hate the President. People hate people who don't publically declare their hatred for racists on social media (if you're relying on social media exclusively to show you what sort of character your friends possess you might not know them as well as you should). 

So I thought I'd chime in and share with all of my readers (both of them) what I hate.

Here we go:

I hate when I gather up laundry and take the hand towels out of the bathrooms. Not once in my life have I ever remembered to put a clean towel in its place. I end up standing at the sink with freshly washed but dripping wet hands.

I hate that my phone rings only when I've just sat down to eat. 

I hate the ads in front of YouTube videos. 

I hate that I've never made a shopping list and remembered to bring it to the store with me.

I hate that that biggest reason I have for going to the store will be represented by the one item that I forgot to buy.

I hate that our dog can sleep through a dream that causes her to bark, especially since it nearly gives me heart failure at 230am. 

I hate that the people most likely to text during a movie always decide to sit in front of me. 

I hate that whenever I confess to my wife that I can't find something she can locate it in 8 seconds. 

I hate that so many people in our country care more about statues coming down than they do about children living without enough food, clothes, or shelter.

I hate that the less likely a news item is to be true the more it's shared, retweeted, retold, and referenced as fact. 

I hate remembering trash day after I've already left the house.

I hate paying for cable and then spending the entire night watching reruns of stuff I own on DVD. 

I hate that my grandmother died before I gave my life to Christ.

I hate papercuts.

I hate trying to figure out how to load the dishwasher, since my wife has explained it to me 14,000 times, and I've done it wrong 14,000 times. 

I hate that we more easily interact with the world through a filter of what we hate instead of what we love.

I hate reality tv.

I hate big hairy spiders. I hate the little ones too.

I hate trying put furniture together with those silly directions they give you. 

I hate calling any customer service hotline. 

Fear, Love, and Loss

I write. A lot. Fiction for children and for young adults. And movie and TV reviews, but nothing too contemporary. If you're a fan of an old TV show though there's a chance you might have read one of my reviews of it. 

And a popular writing exercise is to find a random question and start writing the answer. It's a way of getting words flowing and getting your brain out of its own way.

And I don't share much of the personal stuff I write because I mostly use social media to be positive and share stuff that encourages me or makes me laugh. 

Even when I feel like the world is falling apart, I'm not too likely to mention that on Twitter or Facebook. The idea of several people feeling sad or sorry for me isn't comforting.

Of course in my real life I have a handful of people that I can share anything with, and I often do lean on them in that way. And I'm surrounded by people who will pray for me at any time. 

So having gotten that disclaimer out of the way, let me tackle the three questions that I often go back to get my brain out of second gear. 

I will answer them honestly, and beyond that, all bets are off.

1. What are you afraid of?  2. What do you love?  3. What have you lost?
And I'm answering these questions for ME for TODAY for RIGHT NOW. I could answer any one of these tomorrow and have an entirely different answer. So don't take these to the bank :D. 

What are you afraid of?

I'm afraid of our culture. Not in a way that makes me want to hide under my bed. At least not mostly.

But I'm afraid about how obsessed we seem to be with things that don't matter. We sit in restaurants and stare at social media instead of across the table at whoever we're with. We get so caught up in whatever cause seems to be the media's chosen distraction of the moment. (Mid-August of 2017 it's confederate statues, and I'd be hard pressed to believe that those statues are the biggest thing going on in the life of 99% of the folks losing their minds about them on Twitter or Facebook). We spend more time thinking about what other people think of us than what God thinks. We get less sleep and exercise than we need so we can devote time to things that don't give us anything healthy back.  

I'm also afraid that I've missed chances I'll never get back to share God's love with people. To tell them how much I appreciate their presence in my life. To apologize to people that I'm not even aware I hurt. And to forgive those who have hurt me. 

What do you love?

I love God. I love my Bible. I love to sit on our back porch while it storms. I love playing with our dog. I love cheeseburgers. I love making new friends. I love sitting with a friend and solving all the problems of the world over a cup of coffee. I love early morning walks with my headphones plugged into Pandora. I love getting out of bed in the morning waiting to see what God's going to do today.

Specifically I love the woman I married. I have never once felt like I wasn't good enough for her (although I most likely am not!), and I've never once felt like she's regretted choosing to spend her life with me (and we all know I've handed her several chances to do just that). 

What have you lost?

Time. I'll never again have yesterday, to avoid mistakes and the mismanagement of my time, or to say the things I was afraid to, or to unsay the things that hurt people.

This summer I lost a job I wasn't ready to say goodbye to, and with that I lost several relationships that were important to my wife and I. It's hard to hurt when one of the things that's hurting you is an inability to spend time with those you would reflexively run to when life is hurting.

I've lost patience with people who are so focused on how things should be that they're refusing to acknowledge how things really are. (I think of this mostly in a ministry setting. While it's true that things are getting worse in the 'real world', time spent whining about the fact that we're not living in Mayberry anymore isn't helping us live where we are RIGHT NOW.)

 

The Day Before Big Stuf!

In just a few short hours we'll be leaving for Big Stuf.

If you're going to follow along this week I'll be happy to post a few prayer requests each day, along with some praises/reports of what we're doing, and depending upon wi-fi perhaps even some pictures.

In the meantime pray for safe travels in the morning, and for a great time fellowship on the drive up!