In a very short period of time, social media has become one of the dominant forces in our age. Who does not have a social media account of some kind? Your Grandmother knows how to use Facebook and teens use and switch social media platforms the way they choose fashions, rapidly. Every social media platform, however, is a trade-off. We use them to connect with friends and to communicate but the social media platforms are using us at the same time. They are ostensibly “free” but that is because we, the users, are the content. We are being marketed by the social media platforms to advertisers. Our information is collected and sold. The ability of the BigSocMedia companies to track our movements, interests, and communications would astound the average user.
Further, social media changes people. It is designed to be addictive. It is designed to set people at each other, to create controversy, to generate traffic and thus advertising revenue for the BigSocMedia platforms. It is also changing the nature of mass communication. There have always been chokepoints, i.e., places where a message could edited or filtered out but there were as many chokepoints as there were outlets. Now, all outlets are filtered by a few BigSocMedia platforms, essentially giving a small army of mostly young people an enormous degree of control over what messages may or may not be sent to the masses.
Thus it is essential that Christians think through their use of and dependence upon social media. We need to use it thoughtfully and with the full awareness of what it does to do as we use it. It is also worth reconsidering whether the trade offs are (e.g., the illusion of influence—”Look at all my TikTok followers!”—is worth it. Read more»
Looks like you are conflicted about this topic and should look at your own use of social media. You have a Twitter link on your page. Have you looked at Gab? What you say about social media sites is not true of Gab or its founder Andrew Torba.
Michael,
I am conflicted. The very medium itself, regardless of political orientation, is problematic. It’s not as if, with the correct orientation, those fundamental problems go away. Every “free” platform is selling the eyes (and sometimes more), as it were, of the user. I tried Parler but I have not used Gab. Even some of my friends on the Trumpier end of the spectrum, who’ve tried it, haven’t been very been very encouraging.
You aren’t finding a lot of QAnon or racist Alt-Right stuff there?
I don’t see the medium ( presuming you mean social media) as problematic. A knife can cut your steak or stab somebody’s liver. In the right hands the medium can be used to further Christ’s Kingdom. I was in the PCA for twenty three years, OPC for six, now BPC for two. I have been a deacon for ten years. I have been reading Rushdoony and friends for over thirty years. I’m a reformed, postmillennial, six day creation Christian. I regularly read Heidelblog and have for years. I don’t always agree with but appreciate your work.
In the social media scene I stopped dealing with Facebook over a year ago due to its anti-Christian censorship and its business model of using every scrap of salable information to fund its “free” service. I never was on Twitter but the same objection would apply. I don’t fund those I consider enemies of the Kingdom. I was on Parler for two days before they were dumped by their host provider. I got on Gab and quickly decided that I could support this flavor of social media. The story is one of the little guy against the crowned heads of the media. Andrew Torba, the founder is a fairly new Christian but by his own admission is Reformed. You can wait in the bushes with a big lunch and see if Zuckerberg or Jack Dorsey (now Parag Agrawal) will do that. Gab has a free and a paid membership. I pay since Gab is not anti-Christian and has generally the same attitude to Kingdom building as I do. I don’t use a pseudonym but my own name and the officials can come after me at any time. I post on a fair amount of political issues but also many theological posts. I am in several music groups and a Reformed Presuppositional group.
I am not a Trumper and I am neither a Demican or a Republicrat. QAnon? In a year I may have seen a few of those posts. Alt-Right? You have to define that as the MSM calls everything alt-right. Conspiracy theories? Some conspiracies are the truth and some are theories. Same comment on racist posts. On Gab, you use your own judgment instead of some leftist deciding for you. In sum, Gab is a free speech platform and will not take down any comment that is legal. Some posts are not my cup of tea so I don’t read them.
In Christ,
Mike Leake