The Disaster and Delight of Social Media

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Collin Hansen
In 2009, around 25% of American high school students said they had persistent feelings of sadness, or hopelessness. By 2021, it was up to 44% the highest level of teenage sadness ever recorded. For girls, the number was even higher 57% And what can account for such a dramatic change between 2009 and today? You know, what, what would you what would you see? If you looked out and saw teenagers what would look different? The main thing you’d see is the teens hunched over their smartphones. And these stats come from a recent episode of TGC has recorded podcast, which Sarah coughs Zoster shares the stories of young women being shaped by social media. She talks to you Gen Z about what they think, feel and believe. Now Sarah has also recently edited a book Social sanity and an Insta world that brings biblical and theological perspective to bear on our social media use. Contributors include Melissa Krueger, Jen Wilkin, Ruth Jo Simons, and Laura Winkler. Now Sarah is senior writer for the gospel coalition and co author of the book gospel bound living with resolute hope and an anxious age, from which we also use the title of this podcast. And she lives with her husband and sons outside of Chicago. So joins me on gospel bound to discuss influencers, fasting, and taking advice from strangers. Alright, Sarah, thanks for joining me on gospel bound.

Sarah Zylstra
Thanks for letting me come.

Collin Hansen
What are you seeing Sarah that prompted you to edit this book?

Sarah Zylstra
So, embarrassingly, Colin, I wasn’t seeing anything. I was totally oblivious. But I did go to the gospel coalition’s women COC Women’s Conference in 2020. And I sat down, happened to be at a table full of girls, and one of the girls who was sitting there was Laura Whistler, who is a contributor to the book and who does resin motherhood. And she told me, Sarah, there’s something going on with social media, and you have to write a book about it. Because where she sits at risen motherhood, she can see a lot of young moms, and she was watching the way that they were interacting more and more with social media, and also the ways that they were following and being discipled, by social media in ways that were not the way that their local church would like. And so she was seeing the effect of it from that demographic. And so I said, How about you write a book, Laura, instead of me writing a book? And then we kind of decided, why don’t we all write a book. And so the advantages of that are a, it’s a lot faster if everybody takes the chapter. And we knew, if we were going to write about something like social media, it had to be fast, and then be everyone can contribute it from their area of strength. And so we asked women who are really strong in these different areas to address them.

Collin Hansen
Do you remember Sarah the first time you got a smartphone or first joined Instagram? Do you recall how you felt in those times?

Sarah Zylstra
Um, I never was very good at Instagram. Colin, I honestly never even figured out how to post something. But I do remember getting on Facebook, that was sort of like our drug of choice. I think for women who are my age, I am now 43 years old as of today. And I when I was first getting out, I fell a little bit into this gap of I was just out of college, maybe graduate school age. And so and didn’t have my first baby yet, when when Facebook first came out, so I fell in this little gap. So then when I did get on, it was 2007. And I had a one year old and was probably finally getting along round two, like what is all of this. And it really, for me in those first days was a way for me to I was I was alone at home with my babies. And then I was homeschooling for about five years. And so it was quite isolating. And it was a great way to, you know, have a cup of coffee and reach out in a couple minutes when they were playing or having a nap. And I could feel like someone else was out there. And so I loved it. And also the other big advantages if you are home with toddlers or if you are homeschooling, you have endless photo photogenic opportunities to you. So every day my kids were doing something cute or saying something cute or we were making a project or a craft that looked cute. And so it was kind of the perfect storm that those are my heydays of social media use.

Collin Hansen
You’re not still in your heyday? What changed?

Sarah Zylstra
I got older. I think really what happened what Well, part of it is your your kids get older, you get busier. And I also stepped into this weird place. And I wonder if anybody else can relate to this where I wasn’t quite a private, a private person anymore. It was even before I was at TGC was sort of like when I was teaching like do you be friends with your students? You know, you start having relations that shifts that you’re like, I don’t really know if I want you to see all the pictures of my kids and know my thoughts on this. I’m kind of just posting for my own friends and family and now my circle is bigger. And I started to feel uncomfortable. Like I didn’t know what to do with it. So then I just became a lurker because I didn’t know what to post so I quit altogether.

Collin Hansen
Well, what have you learned? Let’s just say this, what have you learned from leaving social media?

Sarah Zylstra
Yeah. Um, so I left social media in March. And it was as part of doing the scrolling alone, podcast, I came flat up against my own self that I couldn’t recognize, in the honest and vulnerable words of Gen Z girls, smart girls at Berkeley, who loved the Lord, who were explaining to me why they, they knew social media was a problem. And they were honestly explaining to me why they didn’t leave. And it was things like the I have pictures on there of myself that I like, or, you know, that’s kind of where, you know, how would I get all those followers back, if I left, you know, those people are following me. And those she even said to me, like, I know, these are superficial reasons. But And yet, this is why stay and she was right. And that was why I was seeing too. And once I could see it, kind of in black and white as like, that’s not a, that’s not good. And so I quit all of my social medias. This is from my own personal experience. Since then, I have noticed improvements in probably four different areas. One of them is in my time, your smartphone will tell you how much time you spend on social media. But it’s really far more than that. Because you you’re thinking as you go through your life. Oh, could I take that picture? Could that go on social media? Oh, did my kid just say something? Was that cute enough that I could How would I phrase that if I put that up on Instagram? Or Oh, I wonder if so and so posted something on Facebook yet about her trip. And then after you post something you spent a long time thinking about the reactions people might have to it and going back to check reactions to it. And you’re also thinking about what other people posted? Oh, did Colin, say that? Oh, did did Megan, just I wonder where she went? Or like you’re just Oh, or I’ll talk to my husband about like, hey, what do you think about this controversial thing. So it’s, it’s like running in the back of your mind constantly. So even though I didn’t get I wasn’t checking that much.

Sarah Zylstra
And so I didn’t get that much actual. Looking at it time back, I felt like I got hours back. Just a brain time back just of being able to pay attention to my life, which is the second big area where I noticed a difference is my ability to pay attention to my own life, my ability to be in actually interested in conversations I’m having with my kids my ability to read more pages at once before stopping to check social media, my ability to think through Oh, you know, what’s going to happen in our schedule this next coming week? Or, you know, how do we, if we have an issue with our kid, how are we going to wrestle through that, and instead of escaping once things get hard, I’m just able to pay better attention. And my brain can think through how to handle whatever’s in front of me much better than I was able to before, which makes me less anxious, which is probably the third area of I’m less anxious about my own life, I’m less anxious about what other people are posting, I just feel happier and more settled than I did before. Which probably, which leads to the fourth thing, which is I feel like I have more energy than I have before. It’s a little bit exhausting to constantly kind of be running that engine in the back of your head all the time thinking about maintaining and creating and growing a whole virtual world, in addition to your whole physical world.

Collin Hansen
Wow, that was well organized.

Sarah Zylstra
I wrote notes

Collin Hansen
You did mention some of how this has changed you as a parent, in being able to pay attention to those conversations, other ways that it’s changed you as a parent,

Sarah Zylstra
I think the biggest thing is I’m not looking at them of like, Oh, could I put what they just said on social media? Could I change that funny thing into, you know, like, not I don’t think it’s abusive or anything, but I’m not looking at them and trying to form them into a social media meme. Or a cute thing or, or you know, even something that honors them if they win an award. I’m not trying to think about how I’m gonna put it and social media.

Collin Hansen
Were you a Big Mom, blog reader?

Sarah Zylstra
I read some.

Collin Hansen
okay. I mean, this sounds like you know, Mom blogs predated social media. And they’ve dramatically changed and diminished and a lot of ways because of social media. You know, for example, my kids younger than yours, seven, four, and one. Mom blogging, posting to social media is very different when your kids don’t have a say in it, than when their teenage boys which probably should tell me something about what about my own practices now, but just sometimes living that public life, that you and I are actually both public figures. I mean, we teach we write books, we do podcasts and stuff like that. So we do have Have a public life to a certain extent. But for most of the people listening to this, they don’t necessarily have those opportunities. But social media make all of us public. In that sense. I’m just wondering what we could learn from those mom bloggers, because it’s not necessarily gone well for them as the kids grew up.

Sarah Zylstra
No, that’s definitely true. There’s definitely oversharing. And that has come. I mean, that’s hard. You can even just think about your own life. Would you want your mom posting about all the things that you said and felt and funny things that you said the whole time you were growing up? I mean, there’s a there’s a vulnerability to children that parents are, you know, ostensibly protecting as they can be safe with us and do dumb stuff with us. And we won’t tell the whole world about it. Except when we do. Yeah.

Collin Hansen
Hmm. All right. I wasn’t expecting conviction on this. Sorry. What are the particular pitfalls for women on social media? Because it’s interesting, you didn’t write you didn’t record your podcast for about men. And there are no male contributors to your book. Why focus on women?

Sarah Zylstra
Yeah, I honestly think women’s experience on social media is different. I mean, we do know Studies show more women have a social media account, they spend more time there, they check more often. But I think the bigger difference than that is the way they interact with it. So a woman on social media is there to connect.

Sarah Zylstra
She’s there to connect with friends and family. We know this because we did a gospel coalition survey where we asked 1500 Women of our own TGC women or a TGC adjacent women, people who come to our conferences and are on our email list, Hey, why are you there and 90% said, to connect with friends and family, and I think for men, it’s more transactional, there may be there to connect with each other, but probably not to build a friendship maybe to make a professional connection, maybe to build a friendship, to engage with ideas to argue about like different policies or thoughts on things. It’s just a little bit more transactional than women who are looking for connection and relationship. And so that’s why since the experience was so different, we felt like if we needed to tailor it to one gender or another.

Collin Hansen
Now, Laura Wifler wrote something interesting. In social sanity, she said this, when you spend time on social media changes how you shop, what you eat, who you vote for, where you give money, how you exercise, how you educate your kids, what books you read, and what you talk about at the dinner table. It affects how you run your business, how you make love to your husband, how you worship God, social media will shape what’s important to you, what’s worthy of your time, what you believe in what you love. I know that quote stood out to both of us from the book, it seems a little over the top, but it’s not just wondering, is there is there anything else that’s this pervasive or in our lives? Or can we compare this to any other invention or technology from history?

Sarah Zylstra
You know, I was thinking about this yesterday. And I know some people have compared even the internet to the printing press. And then one guy was like, not even that it’s more like language. But I honestly think like, even when you’re saying those words, it doesn’t sound like printing press or language. Colin, it sounds like Christianity sounds like religion. So it sounds like religion. Yeah. There’s nothing else that shapes your whole life like religion.

Collin Hansen
So more or less, it’s its culture. And culture is historically an offshoot of Christianity, the notion of culture, it’s got inescapably religious dimensions to it in its origins. And so very clearly social media is pervasively culture, creating, shaping, it is an entire world that you can live in. I thought the same thing. I mean, I don’t know where you and I must have saw this saw the same thing about it’s not like the printing press. It’s like language itself. But as I was reading this quote, I thought, no, it’s actually it sounds like a religion. Because what else would the book how you educate?

Collin Hansen
What books you read, how you make love to your heart, I mean, all these things are dictated. I mean, I’ve been wondering a lot lately, about the things that we think are a challenge to our faith, are less important than the things that we often take for granted that make faith seem so implausible, and impossible, or unnecessary. And it makes me think that social media is one of those things that simply makes religion seem unnecessary or impossible, because the way it connects us to the transcendent notion of human connectivity are transcending our place, our time, our circumstances, our knowledge, the way it brings us out of ourselves to give us a sense that we we can see everything that We can understand everything. But it’s a mirage. Because it’s it I mean, well, maybe I’m setting you up for this one but like, why is it a mirage?

Sarah Zylstra
So I love everything you’re saying it makes it like Jen Wilkin writes about this in her chapter on identity and how social media makes us a promise a lot like the promise Eve heard, which was you can be like God, you can know everything you can be friends with everyone you can know, you know, you, you can know what’s happening in a totally different country or two totally different time. And you can know that stuff basically, instantaneously. You can scroll through your newsfeed and see all everything that’s happening. But of course, it doesn’t. We it’s, it’s, it makes us anxious. And this is kind of where it connects into, we see the same thing. When we get this promise from the news industry, you we will know everything that is happening all over the place immediately. But that doesn’t we’re not built for that we’re not limitless. I can’t work intimately in every situation across the globe, for the good of the people who are there and for the glory of God, only God does that. So I’m not meant to be I’m limited. I’m purposefully limited. So when a limited, being tries to be limitless, it makes that person anxious. And that is what we see.

Collin Hansen
Yeah. Oh, man, like the way that we seek relevance turns us irrelevant. The way we seek to be limitless actually makes us captive to our circumstances. Oh, man. A few questions to push back a little bit on you. Shouldn’t we aim to be influencers for the sake of Christ? Wouldn’t that be a good way to shine our light, as Jesus tells us?

Sarah Zylstra
Well, I don’t think anyone should aim to be. I think we’ve got to dig into the words here. But I don’t think you should aim to be an influencer. Because you don’t really want people to be like you, you are a fallen, sinful human being. And you know that if you think about yourself long enough, even if your kid does something, and you’re just like, oh, gosh, I think he gets that from me. Like you don’t want to, you’re not really trying to make people into your own image. Hopefully, if you thought about that for a few minutes, you’d be like, Yeah, you’re right. That’s not, you know, I don’t actually want the world to look exactly like me. I think instead, maybe the question is, should we what we should be aiming to do is to use our influence wisely. So if you already have a platform, you already have an influence with people, then how do you use then, then certainly, the aim would be to use that wisely in a way that points to the Lord. But I don’t think anybody should say, Boy, I hope I can add more followers. That is a trap. Okay. Yeah, that’s a trap you don’t want to get into.

Collin Hansen
So, if you have a platform, and you testify to Christ, that’s one thing if you try to build a platform, so that you can testify to Christ that has a different connotation.

Sarah Zylstra
The trouble with trying to get people to share your stuff and like your stuff and follow you is that you start thinking necessarily how can I get people to share my stuff and like my stuff and follow me and then you think, well, what would they like to hear? And what could I put up that they would like and follow and share? And so now you’re in a trap of I’m not posting what I want to anymore. I’m posting what I hope you will like and that’s quicksand.

Collin Hansen
Not fundamentally different from the decisions politicians need to make or journalists need to make. But now with everyone being an influencer, just completely culturally pervasive. All right, I designed this question to trip you up. Reformed theology extends to every square inch that the Creator God declares mine to paraphrase our friend, long deceased friend Abraham Kuyper, shouldn’t you be engaging social media instead of leaving it?

Sarah Zylstra
I 100% believe that Christians need to be on social media engaging it and shining the light of Christ there. I also 100% believe that most Christians should not be there just because we are you know, Jesus is Lord over every square inch doesn’t mean that we every single Christian change welding to the glory of God or change the post office to the glory of God or change. Iquitos, Peru for the glory of God, like that’s not we don’t all have to do all the things and I think some people probably are specifically called and gifted for ministry on social media and sharing their light there and I think most people are not.

Collin Hansen
Not everyone should be teachers, not everyone should be journalists, you and I know full well. Not everybody should run for office. So they brought her principle of engagement does not necessarily bind all of us. To do that in same way, okay, well,

Sarah Zylstra
Did I pass?

Collin Hansen
I think so. What’s the most redemptive way? You have seen social media be used?

Sarah Zylstra
Yeah. I wish I had more of this. I do. I know there are kids who have come to faith on Tik Tok. And I know there are women whose faith has been deepened by running across TGC articles or desiring God, I know that people’s faith has been challenged, and deepened, and connections have been made to really good gospel preaching churches. And I know this is not just in America, but across the whole globe. I am wondering a little bit about, like TGC, I’ve seen a lot in other countries, the way that the internet has, God has used the internet to bring good theology to almost what we would call theology deserts, where they can run across a sermon from Tim Keller or, or John Piper and just be totally moved by that and whole revivals can kind of spark from building off of a good and careful theology. I, nobody says to me, like, Oh, we found each other on Facebook, but maybe that’s happening too. So I want to hope like there’s there’s space for that as well. And I think there’s also small things to write like, even taking a picture of something good and remembering that good moment, or sharing that or learning something new, even if it’s like, Hey, I don’t know how to make this thing for dinner, or I don’t know how to, you know, fix my lawn mower. I think there’s that thing too. You know, we can learn those things. I guess that’d be more from a YouTube video.

Collin Hansen
Well, that’s what I was gonna say. I mean, YouTube is a form of social media. But I think we need to be clear that not every platform is the same. And social media is not the same thing as the internet. So there can still be wonderful, amazing things on the internet, but it not be, but tic tac to have its particular challenges or benefits, or Instagram to have its particular temptations, but also its particular benefits to it as well. So yeah, I mean, I don’t think there’s any scenario where we’re going to withdraw in some massive level, massive scale from the internet. But you also have to consider, is it a good thing that you’re, if your kids are just watching YouTube all day? Do you know what they’re watching? YouTube? are they learning how like one of our friends learning how to build rockets? And then going out their backyard and doing that? Or are they watching stuff that has no tangible benefit outside of that medium? Yeah, there’s a lot of content on YouTube that is going to be utterly baffling to an adult. And maybe adults should be more attentive to what’s being watched, and try to encourage them toward healthier pursuits. We certainly would hope for that. So let’s ask the hard parenting question here, then, what’s the right age for giving your child a smartphone?

Sarah Zylstra
I love the way you stay away from controversial questions.

Collin Hansen
Oh, just for you, sir.

Sarah Zylstra
um, I this is this is them? Obviously an impossible question. But I do think there’s a couple things you can think about. And the first thing i i want to say is just because your child has a smartphone, that doesn’t mean that kids cell phone needs to access the internet. It doesn’t mean that kids cell phone needs to access social media. And I know this because we we locked down Noah’s phone pretty carefully. And so phones can be great for a lot of things. But just remember, just because you got your kid a phone doesn’t mean that’s it. It’s not a one time, Juli Lowe said this to me. It’s not a one time decision. It’s a it’s a constant engagement. When you give your phone to your kid, that is the beginning of the decisions you will make about that child on that phone, you’re starting a journey with them. It’s not. It’s not the end. So I think that’s really important. I think also, another good question to ask is not what is permissible, but what is best, right? What’s the best use of my kid’s time right now? What’s the best for his brain development? Probably not blue light at night, probably not, you know, stuff that spasming around and a shortening his attention span, what’s best for his social life. And I mean, that seriously, not lazily. What’s best for my kids social life is other kids in my home. And so that’s me, saying, let’s have some kids over or him when he says it and me saying yes, let’s do it. Like what what is the best? I want the best for him. And so what what does that look like? Rarely does it look like you know, goofing around on my phone.

Collin Hansen
I guess on gospel bound this week has been Sarah Zastrow. You can check out the book that she’s edited new from the gospel coalition, social sanity in an instant world. Also check out the show notes. You can get a link to this episode of TGC has recorded podcast I’m just check out Sarah’s amazing work there. And also go back and check out our previous one escape from Cabo. Maybe Sarah, we should give people a little bit of preview a little preview of what you’re working on now for future episodes of recorded.

Sarah Zylstra
So when we were working through this and seeing how this affected girls, you and I, Colin could see that there’s a little bit of a parallel for boys, and that is video games. There’s many things that run alongside you, you sort of create your own world. And both of these there are influencers and both of these, there’s money to be made. And both activity is a big goal. It looks kind of activity. Yep, exactly. It looks like an easy, fun life. If you get good at this. There’s an empty promise in both of these. And so we’re we’re kind of driving down the road of opening up video games, boys, which opens us up then to a much larger question of the statistics on boys in America are not them thriving. And so how much does this play inside of here? And what’s what’s really going on with boys? And how can we think in a healthy way about manhood? And how do we help.

Collin Hansen
Also, exploring in their universities that are that are using programs to try to help connect people who love video games and try to help disciple them into positive human interaction, stuff like that. So not entirely negative, but hopefully discerning and hopefully illuminating especially to to parents who are looking for help on this or hopefully some some gamers themselves and hopefully some some women and men who spent a lot of time on social media listening to this so you can check out the recorded podcast go check out listen to escape from Cabo, check out episode on called scrolling alone, wonderful episode and then pick up social sanity and Insta world. Sara, thanks for coming man gospel bound.

Sarah Zylstra
Thanks for having me.