Why Aren’t Pastors Teaching About Social Media?

“Social media is a wonderful thing – IF you have the knowledge and skills to control it. Say what you like, but most people don’t have those skills and we’re seeing the deterioration happening in our culture every day.” - Cooke

See also… The Resistance: Only Parents Can Challenge the Digital Empire

Discussion

Just this past February, I preached from Titus 3:1-8. My sermon was entitled, “Godly Living in an Ungodly Culture.” When I covered verses 2 and 3, I spent some time discussing the social media habits of believers and unbelievers and how they should be markedly different.

Every age has had its bete noires of life. Back around the turn of the century, it was pulp fiction (Horatio Alger, but without the literary genius). Twenty or thirty years later, it was comic books, then radio, then television, then video games, and now it’s the Internet. Also implicated are cigarettes, candy, and of course harder drugs.

In all of these cases, what’s at stake is that the “dangerous new thing” is something that gives a quick, easy reward and thus becomes habit forming. Some people say it’s a “dopamine hit”. I don’t know enough about the science to “prove” that, but at a certain point, the antidote is to simply watch those around you and make sure that they’re doing something that takes a little more effort and gives the “long term satisfaction” instead of the easy dopamine hit.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.