Social Sanity Book Club Chapter 8: Choosing to Stay or Go

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Sarah Zylstra
Hello, and welcome back to the social sanity book club. I am Sarah Zeile strap here again, and with me is Emily Jensen, who wrote our eighth chapter on should we leave social media? We are so excited to chat with you a little bit today, Emily?

Emily Jensen
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I’ve been really excited about this project. And it’s a joy to be here.

Sarah Zylstra
Good. Well, we have a lot of questions for you. My first question is, tell me a little bit about when you first got social media, how old were you? What did you get? What was it like,

Emily Jensen
Oh, what did I get? I was a freshman in college in 2004, when Facebook was a thing. And I think when Facebook first started, you had to have like an official college email address to get on. So it was a big deal that I was both at the right stage of life. And in a college where I got this special account. And so that was my first time on social media. And I remember thinking it was just revolutionary that I could stay so connected with all of my friends from high school and see play by play what everybody was off doing. And I think we were kind of the first generation to experience that level of connectivity. But probably the next most significant moment for me was in 2012, I remember being able to download Instagram, I had an Android phone at the time. And I remember like Android phones were a year or two behind iPhone, maybe on having Instagram. And so it felt like this really big deal that I could download Instagram. And it was also the first year that we had a child. And so pretty much all of my motherhood has been lived out on Instagram. So those were two kind of big milestones. For me.

Sarah Zylstra
That’s huge. I feel like you’re the same age as Mark Zuckerberg must be because he was a freshman or sophomore, when he invented Facebook. So you had to do pretty much the same class. Emily, look how your life could have turned out differently. I can’t my

Emily Jensen
life could have gone.

Sarah Zylstra
In your chapter, and I, there’s so many beautiful good things. And I love that you could find those right away and being connected with other people and sharing even your motherhood journey, I’m wondering to what I found being a young mom online is that it felt like I was less isolated, that I could kind of if the kids were down, I could kind of hop on a little bit and see what other people were doing. Maybe post a picture from the morning. It just helped with some of that. Loneliness. Is that did you find that as well?

Emily Jensen
Yeah, absolutely. It helped with loneliness. And I am also just a now I have a natural love for writing and for sharing. And so it provided a really easy at my fingertips outlet at the time, I was also blogging before that. And so it made a lot of sense to overflow some of those thoughts onto Instagram. But I mean, I also loved being able to share, perhaps a more beautiful look at motherhood, you know, sometimes things felt so messy and mundane and repetitive. And so I do think there was an element of Instagram of seeing a bit of the, the beauty or the art or being able to give thanks for a moment that you captured. And I think that’s still to this day, one of my favorite things about Instagram on my I have a personal private account, it’s been able to have this, you know, to chronicle what has happened over the years and to go back and look at those moments. And they are just something to be cherished. And it’s so cool to look at your feet and just see them grow up over time.

Sarah Zylstra
I bet that’s really, that’s really good. Because those moments are so fleeting, right? Like that baby’s sleeping. Two seconds later, she’s awake, or you know, like that cute moment of your kid, older kid reading to your younger kid like oh, look at this sweet moment, but it’s gone in a flash that doesn’t last very long, sort of capture that and remember, like this was a good part. Make just makes that those moments last a little longer.

Emily Jensen
Maybe? Absolutely. I have a few things, a few videos and pictures, especially of my daughter where she’ll say little phrases and I still cherish and think of those now and certainly like I could have just had that video stored on my phone but because I posted it to Instagram and I rewatch it periodically. It just keeps it fresh in your mind. It is so sweet.

Sarah Zylstra
So it’s almost I mean, it’s for other people but it’s for you too. Yeah, Lee to just, you know, almost like a scrapbook or the next version of Creative Memories is is sort of this online. Yeah.

Emily Jensen
It’s a modern scrapbook. That’s a great way to put it

Sarah Zylstra
in Hmm, that’s true. That’s probably the best value because really nobody else is scrolling back through your feed except you.

Emily Jensen
Oh, really not. Maybe my, maybe the grandparents are right up real. Yeah, the grandparents are definitely going back. Because I know my dad, maybe once every couple of weeks will send me a screenshot of something that came up, like, oh, you posted this and 2017 On this day, and he’s really excited that we chronicle this moment of the grandkids live. So that’s cute.

Sarah Zylstra
That’s really good. Can you talk a little bit about how you first noticed that things were not as we’re not a perfect rainbow Utopia over on Instagram?

Emily Jensen
Yeah, you know, I think for me, it was probably something that happened over the course of time, I started to notice these symptoms, and my wife, things like just this low level hum of anxiety that wasn’t really attached to anything I couldn’t really explain. I also was starting to experience more just brain fog or struggling to focus and stay attentive to a task, I noticed that I was losing a little bit of my love for reading, or my ability to read a large long form article or even a book. I just was really struggling with keeping a lot of tasks going at a certain time as well, I would, I would have a lot of things on my to do list. And I would just start to kind of like go from room to room and be like, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Now, I forgot what I supposed to do here. And certainly like all of those things can be attributed to a variety of medical conditions, mental health conditions, that can also just be a result of, of motherhood and having kids that don’t sleep through the night. So I would hate to oversimplify it by just saying, oh, with social media. But I think anytime you notice things in your life that you say, Hey, this is really affecting my quality of life, my ability to engage with people and love people on a daily basis. This doesn’t seem like me. But I also can’t see a clear connection to where it came from. Like kind of made me put up my radars and start to try to find a correlation between these kind of things that I was experiencing or feeling and what might be causing that. And over the course of a year, I had two or three moments that I won’t go into detail on where I saw those symptoms really spike with a high kind of anxiety, catalyst moment on social media. And it made me wonder, hey, if I can feel this way, or react this way off of a moment, perhaps this is causing kind of a low level hum of these types of symptoms all the time. And at that time, as well, this was three or four years ago, I was also still sleeping with my phone in my bedroom. And so oftentimes social media was the last thing I was consuming before I went to bed. And the first thing that I was consuming, right when I woke up in the morning. And I was already also experiencing just conviction about that. And knowing that really wasn’t the best way for me to be honoring the Lord with my mind and my heart and just my devotion for the day or that wasn’t the best way for me to close out my day. So that’s probably coupled with that as well. And then also around that time, I started to take a take breaks from social media. And I remember my very first month long break that I took from social media really solidified the connections between some of the symptoms that I was experiencing, and social media specifically as a cause because I felt so different at the end of that month. I was just shocked. And I went, Okay, there is a there’s a correlation here that perhaps social media has, I’ve been consuming it in such a way that’s really affecting my daily life.

Sarah Zylstra
That’s amazing. I love how you put that together because I experienced those same things. And I just was like, I just must be like a lazy dumb person who can’t remember what she came in here for and like can’t read an article, like I didn’t put together as quickly as you did, like, oh, there’s something there’s another connection here because it Yeah, hard to draw that directly. You don’t. It would be weird. Like why am I forgetting things just because I look at Instagram that doesn’t really line up.

Emily Jensen
Yeah, what I think to about I think it was about five years ago now there started to be more research coming out about the effects of social media. So I will say around that time I was starting to do reading on the effects. And I was starting to put two and two together in my life as well, particularly as we’re thinking about the generation that is in high school, early college now reading about some of the significant mental health implications of people who are spending seven plus hours a day on social media, and realizing Ooh, at a lower level, I think I’m experiencing some of those things. And there’s more and more of that research coming out every year.

Sarah Zylstra
Yeah, that’s super interesting. Yeah, I love that. We did a survey at TGC, where we emailed a whole bunch of women who were on our email list, and 65% of them said, they sometimes wished that they could quit, and 70% of them. So seven out of 10, women have quit social media, either permanently or temporarily, most temporarily. Most are back on within a couple of months, or even a couple of days. I what I’m wondering is after that first month, and you saw those changes in yourself, why didn’t you just stay off forever? And also, why if 65% of women want to quit? Why don’t we just quit? Why is it so hard for us to quit?

Emily Jensen
Oh, it’s such a good question. I think when it comes to this, it’s been helpful for me to think about social media, much like many other types of technology that we have in our lives. So if you were to shift this question to TV, for instance, of, hey, some of us we take time away from our TVs, but it’s just really hard and not super feasible or realistic in today’s culture, for many people to say, I will get rid of my TV, and I will never, ever have a TV ever again. Like it’s just, it’s just part of our lives. And it’s very, very difficult to live and 2022. Without any type of television, your house, you can do it, you’re free to do it, and maybe good to do it. But that’s just probably not realistic for many of us. And I really think that social media is hitting the point again, particularly for those who are teenagers and in their 20s. Now that it is a it is intertwined with every single facet of their life, their friendships, their relationships, their culture, the way they’re getting information and news. And so I think it is understandable, I wouldn’t want women to beat themselves up too much over the fact that they want to come back because it is a huge part of life and culture. And so I think the question is just to your point to analyze for each person, why did we have to come back, because for some people, and probably a lot of people like we don’t actually need to quit forever, we just need to reset our habits. And sometimes getting away from the technology, the social media for a period of time, allows us to hit that reset button and think what wasn’t working about what I was doing? And how can I continue to use this thing, in a way that glorifies God in a way that is helpful in my life and not in a way that is a hindrance. So we just need that space. I think for other people coming back has to do with different seasons of life where you have different circumstances, different levels of maturity. I know I’ve even experienced this in, I remember when the pandemic hit, and I took my regular annual month long break. And that actually ended up becoming a short year break for me. Because what had changed in my life was not only my tolerance for all of the crazy that was happening on social media, but also like, my kids were virtual schooling. I mean, you everybody knows all the things that happened. And in that season, I just didn’t have space for social media. But then a year later, my circumstances changed. Most of my kids went back to school in person, you know, things have kind of calmed down, I’ve gotten a better handle on my daily life routines. And I felt like okay, I have space to engage this again, or I see a new and a different purpose for it. So I think it’s really normal in life, that over the course of time, we use things differently in different seasons. There’s very few set it and forget it decisions that we make. And social media is like that, like it can change year to year based on what’s going on in our lives. So again, I think if somebody takes a break, and then they come back, it could also just be an evidence of something that shifted in their circumstances. But then I do think for sure that there are those of us who take a break from social media and come back because of it’s very real addictive qualities, because of a sense of escape, or identity, or purpose that is found there, that, you know, it can feel like, Hey, I don’t have this in other areas of my life. But when I’m online, I see tangible likes, I see comments, I can engage, I can feel less lonely, sort of, maybe deep down, you don’t feel less lonely. But in the moment, you might feel less lonely. Or perhaps there is an online identity that’s happening there that you don’t experience in real life. I have a voice here. And I don’t feel like I have a voice in my, my real life. And I think that that is a very real poll that’s difficult to detach from if we’ve not dealt with what some of our heart issues are.

Sarah Zylstra
Yeah, or even my real life is boring. Yeah. Right. Like my real life is dishes and laundry and work and online. It’s like people are going on vacation, or I can look at somebody’s funny meme, or it’s just more entertaining. Just something, I guess that goes along with the escape. So you have done a lot of social media fast. And one thing I wondered was, does it does your self discipline muscles grow? Like every time you jump jump off? Is it easier to jump off the next time? Or is that kind of the same hardness every time you do a social media fast?

Emily Jensen
Yes, and no, I think it gets easier in the sense that over time, as I’ve thought more about this topic and seeing what effect it has in my life, I’m more aware of that. And I also feel more motivated to mitigate those effects. And to not get lazy with social media. And probably a way that I would think about it is, for instance, we go to Florida on a semi frequent basis, and our kids play in the ocean a fair amount. And it has taken them time to realize that whenever you go on to the ocean, there’s always like a current that is pulling you a certain direction. And so they may start out playing in the waves, like right across from mom and dad where we can see them, but without any effort. They’re always getting pulled, you know, in the direction that the current is going. And it’s been really interesting, as we’ve taught them that over time, like does the current of the ocean ever, like get easier to resist? No, not necessarily. But as they’ve gotten older, they become more aware that the current is there. And now they can kind of like, Oh, I see that I’m getting further away from mom and dad, okay, and then they swim back, or now they see that. And so I think some of it is an awareness that social medias pull, I’m not sure it gets a lot weaker or easier. But we become more aware of it, and we become quicker to make those adjustments. Or another way to look at it is we can also find ways to tether ourselves to something that is stronger than the current. You know, same kind of analogy. Another picture is like to have daddy hold you in the ocean. Like, I don’t know how he does it. But daddy doesn’t seem to go with the current as easily. As you know, the 70 pound child does that’s getting carried off. And so if they play with daddy in the ocean, and he’s holding on to them, well, they don’t get swept away as easily. And so I just think that’s a little picture of our Christian faith and saying, I’ve we, the more we are tethered to the Lord, the more we’re tethered to the Word of God, the more that we are like rooting our start to our day and our time and our affections in Christ, I do think we’re able to keep our bearings a little bit easier when it comes to the tug and pull of social media on our lives.

Sarah Zylstra
I love that I love both of those word pictures, I think that’s really good. One way, one really practical way to do that is to create some, maybe probably the best time to do this would be when you’re taking a social media break. But to sort of think through like, Why do I Why am I on here? What’s my mission on here and make a statement. And I know that sounds like a mission statement for social media almost sounds like too fancy and formal for something so casual and fun as Instagram. And yet, like I really think it can be a tether for us, right? Like, oh, like something to come back to. Because we don’t really have instructions in Scripture as to how exactly to behave ourselves on social media or why we should be there or if we shouldn’t be there at all. You talk a little bit about this in your chapter. But can you tell share with us like Do you have your own social media mission statement? And how did you think that through if you do,

Emily Jensen
yeah, I do think it can be really helpful. And frankly, we just don’t have the amount of time. Yet in terms of like how long social media has been around for us to have some more universally accepted forms of conduct like in Christianity, I mean, a lot of us would say, hey, we know how to handle TV or Netflix or movies over the radio. Like, that’s not a big topic of conversation, I’m guessing it was at one point when that technology came out of how a Christian is going to handle a radio in their household. And so I think over time, as we live with different technologies, we get more familiar with that, where there kind of is a more of a universal versal understanding of some ways to use the technology. But in the meantime, for us individually, or specifically, it can be really helpful to know what’s my why for being here. And that’s going to tell me what I’m going to do. So what basically I’ve done with this is, I work for risen motherhood, and as an organization, we came up with a mission statement. And I think this was really helpful. I would love to see more organizations do this, of just saying, What is the purpose of having social media? What types of things are we going to talk about and share about what types of things are we not going to talk about and share about? How are we going to conduct ourselves and engage in comments, engage with our community? And then what type of boundaries do we have on the communication that happens on our platform? When are we going to step in? When are we not going to step in? If we step in? How do we want to respond to people. So we’ve really thought through all of that, and came up with a statement and a document that helps. Again, before we were in a situation where it was like, we don’t really know what to do in this very moment. And that’s been so helpful. But then for me personally, so I have a private account that I’ve had from 2012 that I’m I have friends, family, people that I have a connection to kind of in real life following me on that account. Okay, and that account, Facebook or Instagram should be on Instagram. So I have this getting into the nitty gritty, I have, I do have a Facebook account. And I do have a Twitter account. But in the last two years, two to three years I have become less I’m not really active on there. So I don’t check it. Hardly ever but I’ve not deactivated my accounts, Instagram, I do have a tick tock too, but I’m trying to understand tick tock, like don’t go follow me on tick tock with zero followers. But I am trying to like kind of understand Tik Tok, I’m on there occasionally. So Instagram would be the main place that I engage. So I have a private account. And that to me, I’ve never written this down. But I wrote it down for this interview, because it’s been in my head, but I’ve never articulated it before. This my mission statement, breaking news, breaking news, this is it for all who ever wondered. It’s to chronicle life, connect with friends and family and publicly delight in God’s good gifts by sharing family milestones. Oh, love that. So I think that, for me has just really been a place that it’s like, like we’ve talked about, this is where I want to go look back and see the babies turn into toddlers, you know, I want to see their school picture that they do every year on the first day of school, we go on vacation, I want the picture of all of us at the beach. And I feel pretty comfortable with that. Although I would say as our kids get older, I post less of them. Because another one of my desires is that I would protect them online and also protect their hearts, because now my nine year old will say are you going to post that to Instagram mom? Or if I do so did that get any likes and comments? It’s like, why are you worried about that, and I’m recognizing that they are starting to pick up on that more. And I don’t want that to be a big part of their lives. So that’s kind of my private account. And then I have this public account that honestly for me over the years has been hard to nail down.

Emily Jensen
Because I do public ministry, I think it’s really important to have kind of this landing space for people that want to engage with my work or keep up with what I’m writing. But I’ve noticed that over the years, social media isn’t the main place that I deliver that content. So most of my content comes out through within motherhood or it comes out through TGC or I have a newsletter. I started a newsletter in the last year and I will say hey, I spend time every month writing a thoughtful note sharing a personal update. You know sharing different links and things that I’m enjoying it so there I’ve got content there. But Instagram is not the main landing place for me for that content. So I am an example of somebody who’s still in the process of developing a mission statement for that, I would love to write one. And about the time I get a handle on it, I always feel like it changes a little bit. Because when I came back from that, you know, almost a year long break, what I decided was, I want to have enough of a presence on Instagram so that people know who I am. And they know what I do. So if they come searching for me, they see like, okay, this person exists. And here’s how I can find her in other places. So twice a week, when I would post one time a week, it would be kind of a quote from something that I’d done somewhere else. And another day of the week, it would just be personal, like a picture of iOS, or something where I live. After doing that, for about six months, I have felt like, you know, I really missed the part of Instagram, that is just more, it’s just more personal. It’s a little bit more fun. There is an element to it, of building a rapport and a relationship with the people who engage with my work or my ministry and just wanting them to feel like they know me a little bit more. But I don’t know what that looks like. Yeah. Stay tuned.

Sarah Zylstra
Next, Next time, we’ll do another breaking news, with a social media account. I think that’s such a hard thing. Well, I think the hard thing, and we talked about this with Ana in her chapter of managing your time, because I can sure go on there with the, with the intent to chronicle my family and to give glory to God. And like, an hour and a half later, I’m just like, oh, well, now I’ve you know, sort of scrolled through and know what people that I don’t really know, in real life are doing. Yeah. Yeah. But I love the idea of just I guess that’s the drift of the current and like, at least having a tether, like something to grab on to like, Oh, what was I doing on here? Oh, that’s right, I at least have this rap that I’m hanging on to that’s helping me with that.

Emily Jensen
And I should have said, I think it’s important to think about whether we’re sitting in the seat of like, I’m creating this content and like, what am I posting? And then like, What is my purpose as a consumer of content, and thinking about yourself in those two different roles. And so for me, my mission as a consumer, oftentimes feels a lot more clear and easy. And I’ve really worked over the last year or so especially, to curate, like, who I’m following and what type of content I’m consuming. Because when I’m on social media, I really do want it to be ham taking in things from friends, family, people or ministries that I really care about, or have a reason to follow. Or I follow actually a lot more practically call accounts that helped me with things in my real life, like recipes, or, you know, decorating or health things like stuff that I’m interested in. And I used to kind of resist following that stuff as like, well, that’s kind of fluffy. I’m like, No, if I’m going to be on here, like I want ideas for food to make for dinner. And I’ve really enjoyed that. And I think that’s helped me feel like that time from a consumers perspective is spent a little bit more effectively or productively.

Sarah Zylstra
Yeah, yeah, that totally makes sense. I love that. One thing that you write about is that quitting does not have to be cold turkey, I think we sometimes have this, we feel like you’re either on all the time on all the places or you’re just off altogether. And like sort of loading somewhere not knowing anything, and completely untethered from everybody else. But one thing you talked about is like it that can look completely different. It can mean you leave a platform, it can mean you leave for a couple of days or a couple of weeks. How do you decide what is the right? Quitting or not quitting for you? Like, how do you decide what would be a warning sign? If you could talk to some women? Like what would be a warning sign? Like, this is some thing that maybe I should quit? Or this is something I should take a break from? Or how do I know what platform to be on? And then how do I get enough self control? To do what you say?

Emily Jensen
Oh, big complex question. I love it. Okay, so I when I think about this, and I think there’s two ways somebody could go, there’s more than two ways, I’m going to share two ways that you could go about it. And one would be to start by making some small, slow, sustainable changes over the course of time. And then make adjustments as you kind of trial and error and make adjustments as you make changes. So one example of that would be start with your time. I feel like time is one of the biggest issue Use with social media and say, Okay, I’m going to leave social media for 12 hours a day, call it eight to eight 8pm to 8am. There you go, you’ve left social media already. That was this is a little bit of a tangent. But like, if I were to say what was one of the most impactful changes I made with social media over all the years, it was getting my phone out of my room. Like, I did that in 2019. And I know like, it’s not feasible for everybody. But you can also delete your apps or turn off your apps put time limits on but having my phone putting it away in the evening, and not checking it again, until the kids are off at school, and I’ve done my quiet time I focus, you know, I’ve given my attention to my family, hugely helpful for me. So if somebody’s like, I want a big impact change to start, it’s gonna feel really weird, but like, do whatever you have to do by an old fashioned alarm clock, I have a digital alarm clock in my room, my husband has this phone. So that’s like my little What do I do in case of an emergency thing that I worry about. But okay, that’s that was a tangent. So that would be an example of like a small change, like, you can set time limits on your app, and then maybe the next week, or the next month, you can go through the list of people that you’re following. And you can say, hey, I’m going to try to remove anybody that is not helpful, or, you know, I don’t even really look at their content anymore. So you could make some changes like that. I think that that’s doable. For me, that has always been a little bit harder, because I think it’s easier to kind of slide in and out of those habits. So I think for somebody who’s naturally really self disciplined, it may not be a big deal to say, Okay, starting this weekend, I’m going to delete the apps from my phone on Friday, and I’m going to read download them on Monday. And that’s going to be my new habit that I’m trying out for a while, which is not being on social media over the weekend. Another approach to this is to say I’m going to take 30 days away from social media pretty much all together. And then during that time, I’m going to try to make some observations and look back and kind of in, in hindsight, with some of that distance. It’s been critically about what platforms were affecting me the most, how they might have been affecting me how my time is freed up now, what types of positive new things I see going on in my life that I have attention and energy for now that I didn’t and then at the end of that, or near the end of that assess, what would it look like to go back into this? Like, what do I want to go back to? And how do I want to enter back into those spaces, and there’s actually really good research that supports being able to make changes in your patterns of behavior, and it taking 20 to 30 days to kind of break those habits and start new ones. And so that’s a really great amount of time. And, and so I would just encourage, if somebody’s saying I really want to overhaul and I really don’t know what to do is to take some space away from it. And even for people who maybe run a business with social media, or post a lot of content or social media and feel like I need to be on social media a lot, there are workarounds, you can plan your content in advance, you can get some help, you can take a break during a time of the year when your business is slower, or your content is slower, or frankly, like lots of creators and businesses are taking breaks down every year for a period of time. And it’s not that strange to just tell your community, hey, I’m, I’m taking three weeks away, or I’m taking four weeks away, it’s the on the other side, you can email me if you need something in the meantime, or you can keep up with my newsletter. We’re whatever that looks like. So I think there’s, there are ways to work around this. But that’s a really great place to start. If someone isn’t sure what to do. I think a lot of clarity can come from just getting getting time away.

Sarah Zylstra
Totally. What if we’re addicted to it? Like how do we you know, if we’re addicted to it, it’s gonna be super hard. How do we break that or start even breaking that addiction?

Emily Jensen
Yeah, that’s a huge question, too. I guess when I think about the question of addiction when I think you have to really know why you’re wanting to quit or get away, you know. I think it has to be kind of bad enough or you have to be motivated enough. To really deep down say, I don’t think this is good for me. I don’t think this is healthy. I don’t think this is I’m not honoring the Lord with my time or I’m experiencing these different things. So I think there’s an element of like, motivation and having a greater or vision or purpose that you’re committed to. And then I also think there’s an element of putting up some barriers for yourself, that makes it harder. So for instance, if I were to say, I don’t want to check social media after, you know, 7pm. But I always have my phone beside me and my app is right there. And I have no limits like it is, it’s, it’s totally just up to my own self discipline to not pick up my phone and do that. But for me, the barrier is, I leave my phone in my kitchen, and I have to get out of my bedroom in my cozy pajamas and walk over to my phone, if I want to check social media, and I’m just not going to do that. Like, I don’t care that much. And by that point, I’m like, Yeah, I’ll just check it in the morning. Another thing is deleting the app off your phone. So again, if you’re wanting to say, hey, I don’t want to check it on the weekend, or I’m going on vacation with my family this week, and I don’t want to check it. I personally couldn’t rely on just my own self control, like I would need to remove the app from my phone. And then if you want to check it, you have to redownload it. Well, that’s kind of a barrier. And usually by that point, you’re like, No, thanks. I’m over it, that wasn’t really what I wanted to do. Another thing you can do is, and I’ve done this at different points with social media usage is I only allow myself to check it on my browser on my computer. So again, like that makes the social media experience a lot less like fun and instantaneous. And it’s just, it’s just not fun to scroll all the time on your computer browser. So it allows me freedom to check it. But I just don’t really like engaging in it that way. And it provides kind of that natural resistance. Or another idea is to, you know, share it with others bring others along the journey with you. I’ve had a couple of friends along the way who I’ve really shared a lot of experiences with them. And we’ve talked about what we’re learning what we’re doing, how it’s affecting us, and they’ve checked in with me to see how it’s going. So you know, it is like sometimes like, Oh, thanks for letting us know when the influencer comes on. And it’s like I’m taking a month long break from social media. But I do think we can kind of announce it to our friends and family and say, Hey, I’m going to take a break from social media, like help hold me accountable to this, ask me how it’s going to ask me what I’m learning. And then that can be a really good part of the process too. But I think those kind of addictive qualities are legitimately hard. But you know, some of that is even developing an affection for other good things in our lives, and growing our appetite for better things, you know, and saying, Hey, in this time that I’m away from social media, it’s not all about like depriving myself of this connection. It’s about investing my time in things that I’ve maybe forgotten how to do, or I forgotten are also wonderfully enjoyable. Things like reading books, or going outside more, or allowing yourself to be bored and make observations like, sometimes I’ll challenge myself when I go to a doctor’s appointment, and I’m sitting in the lobby to do nothing. And I just say, I’m not gonna look at my phone, I’m gonna look around. And it is just amazing what little things I’ll find a thank God for or I’ll find that I start praying, or I’ll start thinking through something in my life.

Emily Jensen
There are just so many different things that you can say, hey, I’m gonna, I’m gonna go meet with four friends for coffee this month, in lieu of social media. Now, all of a sudden, you have these newly developing in, in person relationships, or I know during certain months, when I’ve taken time off social media all sudden, I find myself texting friends more or calling people because you, you want that you’re like, oh, I have to actually like engage relationship in my real life. And that becomes a great thing. And you learn to love something more than you love social media. And for me, that’s been one of the biggest benefits of leaving, is realizing there’s other things in my life that I actually like a lot more than social media that actually fill me up a lot more. And those are the things I want to spend my time on. And so by getting away you develop a love for other things. And I think that’s just really refreshing.

Sarah Zylstra
I love that I think that’s true because I think we when you think about leaving social media, you just think about all you’re gonna miss Yeah, right. Like, oh, I won’t see the announcements. I won’t know the news. I won’t be able to chat with people, with my friends or with people that I you know, see at church or something because they’ll all know the thing that I I don’t know, I won’t be able to share pictures of my kids and get the likes, or they just share life with people. So it feels like you’re giving up a lot to leave. So, and you talked about this in the book too, which I loved was just like, but you’re not thinking about what you’re gaining. Yeah, when you leave, which helps put things in a totally different perspective. Like, I want that I want to be able to read a book and pay attention, I want to be able to invest in my friendships in a, you know, more one on one connection way or Yeah, to be forced to be bored or to, you know, pay attention to what’s happening around you. Those are that’s like, that sounds like a pretty good life.

Emily Jensen
Oh, it is. And I think I’ve just come to appreciate how much God created us to be embodied like for our experience of life to be had in our body, and a real physical existence around us. And I get so freaked out when I think about the metaverse. But even with this little taste of what we have with social media, you realize like when a lot of your experiences are starting to get disconnected from your physical space, like what that does to your, your soul, and your mind and your creativity, and your love for things and your zeal for life. And I don’t know, I’m curious to see as the years go on, and more research comes out if they start to notice that more and more as the correlation between just our mental health and our physical health with how much we’re trying to live like this disembodied life, this is all very philosophical that I’m getting into. You’re getting a peek into my brain and how I think about things. But um, oh, I had another thought about your statements, discipline. Oh, I know, a friend told me this the other day. And I thought it was really helpful. She just kind of set it as an aside comment, but be a problem solver. And I think with social media, when we say hey, we want to leave, but I can’t, because I’m going to miss out on the news. And I don’t know how grandparents are going to see pictures of the kids. And I’m not going to get a notification for my Bible study, or whatever those things are. It was helpful for me to hear this, like, be a problem solver. There are a lot of other ways that we can get information. There really are. We can sign up for newsletters, you can just go check someone’s website, you know, I know when our kids have a snow day at school, I get notifications from, I’m getting texts, I’m getting calls, they’re putting on social media, I’m, you know, like it’s going to get to me, and I’m not worried that I’m I’m not going to miss I’m going to miss that if I’m not on social media. You can let your friends know you can. There’s different ways you can get the news. So I just think it’s helpful for me to think about that when I want to have this all or nothing mindset with social media and say, I’m either on there and I’m fully invested all the time. And I know everything that’s going on, or I’m off and I know nothing and I’m totally out. It’s like, yeah, that’s, you know, there’s a lot of ways to get what you need without being on all the time and, and recognizing to what you were saying, hey, what am I? Like? How am I being impacted by this thinking of something like compassion, fatigue of like, sometimes, being in the know about everything all the time, actually doesn’t serve the people in our real lives to have real needs. Because I was just reading about this in a book recently. And I can’t remember all the specifics, but essentially saying, there is a connection between having too many, like emergency alert type things going on in our minds and this apathetic attitude that we can have. Because we feel like give up, yes, we’re powerless to do anything about all these things. And so I think sometimes when we’re like, Oh, I’m scared of FOMO it’s like actually missing out on some of this information may actually help you in your real life. When there is a genuine need, or your child comes to you and they are sad about something or, you know, there is something that comes up that like needs your your heart to be moved, and for you to say I care and I want to intervene and this is a big deal to have energy for that. And that was one of the things about social media that I noticed was really affecting me a lot is I would read these, you know, Twitter back and forth between two people and just have this emotional stress over the fight that was ensuing online. And it would skew my ability in my real life to engage in people that need to engage with people that needed me, my children or my, you know, my husband or friend that had an issue because I’d like expended all of this emotional energy trying to process this fight that I watched happen. And it depleted my emotional energy for the people that God has put in my, my actual life to take care of, I think those things are important to weigh.

Sarah Zylstra
Oh, I think that’s really good. I mean, just thinking about the limitedness of us, yes, in our emotional energy in our time. You know, even in our decision making, you know, when you’re online, you’re making tons of decisions to click on that door, scroll past that. And we know about decision fatigue, you only get so much energy for making a day. So, you know, I guess what we’re landing is like, use social media very carefully, sort of, sort of match it up to what you want to get out of it. Like if you’re just there to do those couple things. And most of the women in our survey said, this isn’t the main way they connect with their friends and family. So they’re there for the same reasons you are to chronicle what’s going on? Maybe a little bit of connection. But if you didn’t have it, it’s not like you’ve never talked to your mom. Yeah. So there’s, it’s, you know, you’d still have friends. People did this for 1000s of years before social media. Yeah. And so just to kind of match, like, okay, social media gives me a little bit, it gives me a little bit of connection, it gives me a little bit of joy, it gives me a little bit of entertainment. And so then I can give social media a little bit of time, a little bit of energy, a little bit of decision making. Yeah, I just feel like that gets so out of whack. We’re giving so much more to it than we’re getting out of it.

Emily Jensen
Oh, you’re so right. I love that little bit. example that you gave right there. And I think if there’s one thing I would want, Christian women, especially to know is just that there’s freedom, like you can you can walk away from it, you know, it’s okay to quit Twitter, or to quit Facebook, or to delete the app off your phone, like it really is okay. And it’s not going to jeopardize your faithfulness and following the Lord. In fact, it may be good for you to have a season of just focusing on the Lord and asking him how he would want this technology to be a part of your life, and to see how we would redeem it or, like you said, use it for a little bit of helpfulness or a little bit of information or a little bit of connection. But to just keep it in the context of your whole life and your whole mission for life. Because I will just say, for our generation for for me kind of coming into college and then getting social media, it just became this like automatic, yes. And this given that was part of life. And I think just now I’ve noticed women in their late 20s and early 30s going, oh, wait a second, this is really affecting my life. And this has really become a huge part of my life. Is that what I want? Is that what I wanted? Like, or did this just by default, become a big part of my life? And so I think it’s just challenging myself challenging us as women to say, Hey, have we just taken the default route? Have we just gotten pulled by the current a Can we acknowledge we have freedom to make a lot of different choices, and that we want God to lead us in that?

Sarah Zylstra
I love that, Emily, that’s good. Thank you so much for chatting with me today. Thank you so much for writing this chapter. In this book, I wrestled with this all the time, it was definitely one of my favorites of like, ah, when you just said like, it’s okay to quit. Just take a minute. No, really? What if you deleted your accounts? And I was just like, yes. What if you did, like, that just feels like a relief to me. Not to everybody. But to me, it was like, Oh, what a weight that would be taken off. So thank you for helping us process through that.

Emily Jensen
Oh, you’re so welcome. It was a joy. And I’m excited about the whole book. And I really think we need some wisdom right now for how we’re going to live with social media. So thanks for working on the project and putting it together and I’m excited to hear how it’s impacting people.