Internet Archives

What you should know about the addiction aspect of pornography

Addiction can manifest in many forms. Individuals can find themselves addicted to chemical substances, in addition to processes and behaviors. Process addictions, such as a pornography addiction, are equally as damaging to the brain as substance-related addiction, and therefore can lead to significant impact on one’s mental health.

The Bible’s teaching on sexuality and the inherent dignity of all people should lead us to declare that pornography is a moral scourge, with spiritual consequences for all of those involved. But as we seek to serve those affected by it, research has provided us an opportunity to also understand the physical realities pornography inflicts upon a person.

Today, more than half of the global population has access to the internet. While the growth of access to the internet can be viewed as something positive in general, it can also be viewed as something negative, or harmful. The ability to access internet pornography is now easy and anonymous and has opened the door for a serious health crisis. Pornography has even been referred to as the “new drug” to fight in the world of addictions.

Pornography: What, when and where

Sexual material on the internet can take a variety of forms ranging from educational information about sexual practices to real-time, virtual sex shows. It is difficult to define but many scholars agree that at the most basic level, pornography is any sexually arousing material used as a sexual outlet. ¹Grubbs, J. B., Kraus, S. W., & Perry, S. L. (2019). Self-reported addiction to pornography in a nationally representative sample: The roles of use habits, religiousness, and moral incongruence. Journal of Behavioral Addictions. 8, 88–93. https://doi.org/10.1556/2006.7.2018.134

Pornographic material can include:

sexually explicit photographs in magazines,
movies,
internet images or online audio,
webcam footage,
computer-generated pornography,
and sexually explicit pictures texted via mobile devices (Giordano, 2021).

With the emergence of virtual reality (VR) came the arrival of VR porn, which creates unique experiences from two-dimensional pornography. ²Elsey, J. W. B., van Andel, K., Kater, R. B., Reints, I. M., & Spiering, M. (2019). The impact of virtual reality versus 2D pornography on sexual arousal and presence. Computers in Human Behavior. 97, 35–43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2019.02.031

And pornography can be classified as softcore, hardcore, and illegal/deviant. ³Doring, N. M. (2009). The internet’s impact on sexuality: A critical review of 15 years of research. Computers in Human Behavior. 25, 1089–1101. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2009.04.003

The pornography industry is estimated to make approximately 16.9 billion dollars each year, and their product is primarily viewed on the internet. ⁴Pornography facts and statistics: The recovery village. (2021, February 25). Retrieved December 1, 2022, from https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/process-addiction/porn-addiction/related/pornography-statistics/

How is pornography being accessed? Data from PornHub Insights—part of the largest online pornography company in the world—revealed that 86% of the site’s traffic comes from mobile devices. Moreover, using smartphones to access free pornography online is the most common means of viewing pornographic material. ⁵Herbenick, D., Fu, T. C., Wright, P., Paul, B., Gradus, R., Bauer, J., & Jones, R. (2020). Diverse sexual behaviors and pornogprahy use: Findings from a nationally representative probability survey of Americans aged 18 to 60 years. Journal of Sexual Medicine. 17, 623–633. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsxm.2020.01.013 & Ma CM, Shek DT. Consumption of pornographic materials in early adolescents in Hong Kong. J Pediatr Adolesc Gynecol. 2013 Jun;26(3 Suppl):S18-25. doi: 10.1016/j.jpag.2013.03.011. PMID: 23683822.Therefore, pornographic material can be accessed anytime, anywhere, via smartphones.

How porn affects the person and the brain

Easy access to the cyber pornography industry is an emerging health crisis. Individuals who struggle with addictive disorders may find themselves:

engaging in addictive behaviors more frequently over time,
may spend an increased amount of time seeking the behavior,
may experience increased desires to engage in the behavior,
may also experience an inability to decrease their engagement.

Addiction is considered a progressive disorder, which, over time, may begin to cause negative implications on one’s psychological, physical, and interpersonal aspects of life.

Pornography can literally rewire the brain. Viewing pornography begins to change the brain long before one may meet the criteria to be considered a compulsive viewer.

Sex is a naturally rewarding activity, activating the release of several neurotransmitters such as dopamine during sexual arousal and endogenous opioids during sexual consummation. ⁶Doidge, N. (2007). The brain that changes itself: Stories of personal triumph from the frontiers of brain science. Penguin Group. Dopamine is a chemical released in the brain that makes one feel good, causing individuals to search and seek a pleasurable reward. The viewing of pornography engages the reward circuit in the brain each time viewers click for new content. And research supports the conclusion that continued pornography use can lead to neuroplastic change,⁷ ibid. & Hilton, D. L. (2013). Pornography addiction- A supranormal stimulus considered in the context of neuroplasticity. Socioaffective Neuroscience and Psychology, 3, 20767. https://doi.org/10.3402/snp.v3i0.20767 particularly in the arousal template. ⁸Carnes, P. J. (2001). Cybersex, courtship, and escalating arousal: Factors in addictive sexual desire. Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity. 8, 25–78. https://doi.org/10.1080/10720/60127560 & Carnes, P., Delmonico, D. L., & Griffin, E. (2007). In the shadows of the net: Breaking free of compulsive online sexual behavior (2nd ed.). Hazelden.

The sensations experienced when the reward (the material) is obtained (through a click), begin to fire together, causing neurons in the limbic system to rewire together. The limbic system supports long-term memory, behaviors, and emotions while ultimately storing the content viewed on internet pornography for the brain to retrieve again if wanted later.

Those who are “addicted” to pornography may view greater amounts and times of pornography. Recognizing that the use is hindering functioning in other areas of life, yet feeling as though one is unable to refrain and or stop viewing the material is common. When pornography begins to “hijack” the brain, viewers may find that their viewing of content poses physical and social risks.

A 2014 survey reported that 63% of men and 36% of women have engaged in watching pornography at work. ⁹Hesch, J. (2018, June 30). 2014 survey: Find out how many employees are watching porn on company time. Retrieved December 1, 2022, from https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/2014-survey-find-out-how-many-employees-are-watching-porn-on-company-time-271854721.html Pornography viewing is also linked to relationship and sexual problems. In almost 60 studies, the outcome showed that pornography viewing reduced relationships and sexual satisfaction (Your Brain On Porn, 2021).

A study conducted in Sweden in 2013 explored the impact that pornography viewing has on the brain. Using a 3-T Scanner for images of participants’ brains, researchers found that pornography viewing frequently had a significant impact on the gray matter within the brain. It was evident in the scans when patients’ brains were activating pornography material, which supports neurons anticipating a reward. Due to the anticipation, additional striatal neurons ¹⁰The striatum contains neuronal activity related to movements, rewards and the conjunction of both movement and reward. Striatal neurons show activity related to the preparation, initiation and execution of movements (Hollerman et al., 2000) are fired in hopes of a greater reward, causing an increase in gray matter.¹¹ Kühn, S., & Gallinat, J. (2014). Brain structure and functional connectivity associated with pornography consumption. JAMA Psychiatry, 71(7), 827. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2014.93

The stimulation from the pornography viewing is known to stimulate other areas of the brain causing an increase in the dysfunction of the circuit which can lead to drug seeking, and negative behavioral changes. Past studies for internet addiction (IA) have also shown changes in the brain including but not limited to decrease pre-frontal cortical thickness and decreases in function. The prefrontal cortex is a multifaceted region of the brain that controls one’s ability to learn new rules, exhibit executive functioning, and decipher amongst conflicts such as good and bad, present consequence and future consequences.

Types of pornography viewers

The three main types of pornography viewers include: recreational, highly distressed non-compulsive viewers, and compulsive viewers.

Recreational: One study indicates that 75.5% of recreational viewers of pornography reported that on average they watched just under 30 minutes of pornography a week.¹² Vaillancourt-Morel, M., Blais-Lecours, S., Labadie, C., Bergeron, S., Sabourin, S., & Godbout, N. (2017). Response to editorial comment: “profiles of cyberpornography use and sexual well-being in adults”. The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 14(1), 87. doi:10.1016/j.jsxm.2016.11.320 Recreational viewers self-report that the viewing of the cyberpornography does not cause distress, and it feels enjoyable. Users in this category report their lifestyle functioning has not be changed due to viewing the material, and it has not negatively impacted their relationship or sex life.

Highly distressed non-compulsive: The second classification is called a highly distressed non-compulsive viewer. Nearly 13% of pornography viewers belong in this category of use. These viewers average 17 minutes a week but view the use as disturbing. ¹³Ibid. It is reported that use of pornography amongst this group was initiated to increase self-esteem and provide a soothing experience.

Compulsive: The third category is an unhealthy attachment to pornography called compulsive pornography viewers account for approximately 12% of viewers, and the majority of those in this category are men. Those viewers in this category watch nearly 4.5 times the minutes of pornography each week than recreational viewers, and 7 times more than highly distressed non-compulsive viewers. Viewers in this category report giving up previous pleasure resources in their life to consume viewing more pornography, and many reported that they were unable to stop viewing pornography. ¹⁴Ibid.

Helping those with porn addictions

It is necessary to support those who are struggling with pornography, especially those classified as compulsive, thus experiencing an addiction to pornography. Currently 35% of downloads from the internet are pornographic. ¹⁵Pornography facts and statistics: The recovery village. (2021, February 25). Retrieved December 1, 2022, from https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/process-addiction/porn-addiction/related/pornography-statistics/ Pornography can lower self-esteem and create many negative physical, psychological, interpersonal, and spiritual consequences for individuals. It is important that individuals have access to a safe space where they can talk about their struggles and seek help.

The impact that pornography has had on our culture and its people cannot be overstated. Every family and every congregation will experience its destructive consequences. The Church must be aware of this threat and its impact, proclaim the forgiveness of Christ, and provide resources to assist affected individuals in their journey to repentance, health, and wholeness.

If you or someone in your life is addicted to pornography, please visit or talk with a trusted pastor and a local mental health provider.

1
Grubbs, J. B., Kraus, S. W., & Perry, S. L. (2019). Self-reported addiction to pornography in a nationally representative sample: The roles of use habits, religiousness, and moral incongruence. Journal of Behavioral Addictions. 8, 88–93. https://doi.org/10.1556/2006.7.2018.134
2
Elsey, J. W. B., van Andel, K., Kater, R. B., Reints, I. M., & Spiering, M. (2019). The impact of virtual reality versus 2D pornography on sexual arousal and presence. Computers in Human Behavior. 97, 35–43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2019.02.031
3
Doring, N. M. (2009). The internet’s impact on sexuality: A critical review of 15 years of research. Computers in Human Behavior. 25, 1089–1101. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2009.04.003
4
Pornography facts and statistics: The recovery village. (2021, February 25). Retrieved December 1, 2022, from https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/process-addiction/porn-addiction/related/pornography-statistics/
5
Herbenick, D., Fu, T. C., Wright, P., Paul, B., Gradus, R., Bauer, J., & Jones, R. (2020). Diverse sexual behaviors and pornogprahy use: Findings from a nationally representative probability survey of Americans aged 18 to 60 years. Journal of Sexual Medicine. 17, 623–633. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsxm.2020.01.013 & Ma CM, Shek DT. Consumption of pornographic materials in early adolescents in Hong Kong. J Pediatr Adolesc Gynecol. 2013 Jun;26(3 Suppl):S18-25. doi: 10.1016/j.jpag.2013.03.011. PMID: 23683822.
6
Doidge, N. (2007). The brain that changes itself: Stories of personal triumph from the frontiers of brain science. Penguin Group.
7
ibid. & Hilton, D. L. (2013). Pornography addiction- A supranormal stimulus considered in the context of neuroplasticity. Socioaffective Neuroscience and Psychology, 3, 20767. https://doi.org/10.3402/snp.v3i0.20767
8
Carnes, P. J. (2001). Cybersex, courtship, and escalating arousal: Factors in addictive sexual desire. Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity. 8, 25–78. https://doi.org/10.1080/10720/60127560 & Carnes, P., Delmonico, D. L., & Griffin, E. (2007). In the shadows of the net: Breaking free of compulsive online sexual behavior (2nd ed.). Hazelden.
9
Hesch, J. (2018, June 30). 2014 survey: Find out how many employees are watching porn on company time. Retrieved December 1, 2022, from https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/2014-survey-find-out-how-many-employees-are-watching-porn-on-company-time-271854721.html
10
The striatum contains neuronal activity related to movements, rewards and the conjunction of both movement and reward. Striatal neurons show activity related to the preparation, initiation and execution of movements (Hollerman et al., 2000)
11
Kühn, S., & Gallinat, J. (2014). Brain structure and functional connectivity associated with pornography consumption. JAMA Psychiatry, 71(7), 827. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2014.93
12
Vaillancourt-Morel, M., Blais-Lecours, S., Labadie, C., Bergeron, S., Sabourin, S., & Godbout, N. (2017). Response to editorial comment: “profiles of cyberpornography use and sexual well-being in adults”. The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 14(1), 87. doi:10.1016/j.jsxm.2016.11.320
13
Ibid.
14
Ibid.
15
Pornography facts and statistics: The recovery village. (2021, February 25). Retrieved December 1, 2022, from https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/process-addiction/porn-addiction/related/pornography-statistics/

Two ways to make digital activism better

By Lindsay Nicolet / Jan 10

According to Pew Research Center, 80% of Americans say social media platforms are effective for raising public awareness about political or social issues, and over half have also been civically engaged on social media in recent years. Social media can be a powerful tool when harnessed with wisdom as we seek to influence change and address grave issues of injustice throughout our world.

But for all of the positive change that these tools can help facilitate, one of the temptations in this age of social media is to believe that digital activism is all that is needed to address real-world issues. Digital activism can quickly become a substitute for true and lasting change because we buy into the lie that simply participating in an online campaign is enough.

Here are two ways to think about social change and move beyond raising awareness of these issues online.

Raising awareness is good, but action is better

Marking our hands with an X to raise awareness about sex trafficking around the world or changing our social media avatars to show support for a cause can be a helpful way to let others know about issues that may fly under the radar of our daily experiences. With all of the busyness and constant distractions of life, digital activism can be an important tool in the age of social media.

But as our teenagers and families participate in these online movements, we need to stop and examine our motivations for participating. It is tempting to post, share, or like things in order to be seen as the type of person that is socially involved but then fail to actually address these issues in the real world.

Social media can quickly become a way to show the world a version of ourselves that we want them to see rather than seeking true and lasting change through a concerted effort in our communities. Talking or showing support for an issue is one thing, but acting is a whole other level of engagement.

Look for ways to partner with others

One of the blessings of social media is the ability to connect with others, but these online connections can become shallow or superficial. It is more important than ever to move those connections offline and engage with others face-to-face. You may feel called to get involved with important issues like abortion, sex trafficking, or racial injustice, but true change usually happens in real-life relationships with others.

There are countless reputable and gospel-centered organizations that you can partner with in your community to help move the needle on these important issues. You can give resources, volunteer time, and and participate in community events that allow you to put feet to the online support.

God calls his people to be the hands and feet of Christ in a broken and sin-torn world. May God find his Church actively engaging the world around us, caring for the least of these, and championing human dignity for all, instead of thinking that performative online activity is enough.

4 social media shifts the church should know about

By Marie Delph / Dec 7

The internet is changing again. And that is bad news for the churches that are already lagging behind on social media platforms. But it also creates an opportunity to leapfrog the era that is going by the wayside and start engaging a medium that has drastically influenced our culture (and our pews) more than we ever imagined.

By the late 2000s, churches had figured out they needed websites and sermon podcasts. Fast-forward to the mid-2010s, and most saw the need for Facebook pages and Instagram accounts. But pastors can’t be experts in everything. So perhaps it’s no surprise that most churches failed to understand how these tools worked, and how they could maximize their potential to spread the gospel.

Even megachurches with budgets large enough to accommodate full-time social media personnel followed models focused primarily on creating influencers —a strategy exacerbating the celebrity scandal problem causing public crisis after public crisis.

On top of that, pastors across the country have seen their churches, and sometimes even families, torn apart by conspiracy theories and political vitriol on Facebook and Instagram. Young people are deconstructing their faith online to the aplomb of digital followers. They’ve even created a new kind of celebrity on TikTok: the Christian deconstructor. Given all these problems, you can’t blame church leaders for taking the soft-luddite position, using social media sparingly.

But here’s the good news: the era of having to do everything is (thankfully) coming to an end. This means that churches can strategically assess their goals for online mediums and social media and focus on the one thing they believe they can do well. Is your goal reaching new people? Re-engaging dechurched people? Becoming a resource church? Providing digital discipleship for your congregation? Disseminating information about upcoming church events? Your answer to this will dictate the route you decide to go. But before you make that decision, you should consider four major shifts happening on the social internet:

From social-media-as-Newspaper to social-media-as-television station

The first wave of social media was text and photo-driven, much like newspapers. Pastors and institutional leaders had the writing skills necessary to engage in this format.

But now the internet is making a wholesale shift to video, specifically short-form video, requiring production skills more common in television stations than church offices. Video requires proficiency in lighting, audio, composition, and editing. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg: you also need to understand the tactics that work best on each platform. Unfortunately, hiring costs put this kind of endeavor beyond the bounds of what an average church can afford.

Even leaders with these skillsets quickly discover that the time, energy, and equipment outstrip what their schedule and operations budget can afford. Forced to pick between short-form videos and caring for the people that attend your church, many church leaders choose the clear biblical mandate: care for the local flock.

Should leaders also make the shift to video to meet the times? The answer is: it depends. If your church or institution has the funds and people skilled in video production and marketing, then absolutely. Try to break the celebrity model by measuring success in new ways. Rather than focusing on vanity metrics like followers and views, focus on quality and in-person conversion rate (i.e., of the new people we connect with, how many arrive in-person at church in the next year?).

If you lack the resources (and the majority of churches lack the resources), you should not invest in half-baked, short-term video projects that cannot be sustained over time. Video will quickly deplete resources you could more effectively deploy elsewhere.

A shift from geography-driven to geographically neutral

Social media used to be able to do two things at once: reach locally and reach globally. You could do either depending on your goals. But with TikTok’s Discovery algorithm and Meta changing their algorithm to also be discovery-first to compete with TikTok, that is no longer true. Social media is becoming a global-reach-only system. The days of organically reaching the people in your immediate area are coming to a close. The exception is if you have the resources to pay for ads in a geographic location, but be ready to put far more of your budget into that than previous years.

So how do you do local ministry online? Email. There is no space more intimate on the internet than the email inbox. Churches, who often already have large lists of email addresses spread across excel spreadsheets, need to lean into this asset. The beauty of email contacts is that you own them, and no platform or changes in algorithms can take them from you. Services like Mailchimp, ConvertKit, and even Substack make email newsletters extraordinarily easy.

Double down on your efforts to grow your email list. Regularly encourage your people to read the emails. These are useful opportunities for ministering to the church’s specific season and also inviting people into in-person discipleship and community opportunities. However, email is not a one-size-fits-all silver bullet to your communication strategy. Study the best practices for good email communication, and consider using additional communication tools (such as Slack or Circle) to strengthen your communication without sending out too many emails.

It’s also important to empower leaders in your church (small group leaders, Bible study leaders, and whoever else) to communicate vital church information so people can participate in the life of your church. One church divided a ministry team’s contacts into groups based on involvement. They began to invite disconnected people to specially designed events. The results were tremendous—hundreds of people who simply stopped going to church reappeared.

A shift from brand to influencer

Brands are losing their influence on social media. Influencers are not only the future, they are the “now” of the internet. If you spend the majority of your time on Facebook and Instagram, you may not see it yet. But on platforms like TikTok, this is abundantly clear.

Most people will see a church’s online presence the same way they see brands. They aren’t personal. They are self-serving, focusing primarily on pushing out church events and information, not helping or engaging the social media consumer. People are going to look for and care about your church online less and less. They don’t go to the internet to find a brand, they go to the internet to find a person.

At this point, you’re probably feeling a bit sick. Seriously? You want us to be influencers? We get it. The word “influencer” has many unhelpful connotations that we want to reject. But there is one good thing about it: it’s personal. God didn’t come to us as an abstraction or a brand. He came to us as a person and it is other persons who are his ambassadors, or representatives, in the world according to Paul (2 Cor. 5:20). While Christians should reject the celebrity aspect of “influencer,” they may do well to embrace the personal aspect. The truth is that the internet is a mission field, and we need digital missionaries who create content for specific niches to reach people with the gospel.

What would it look like to support people in your church who already have a developing online presence? Could you resource them with community, pastoral discernment, and maybe even some equipment or ad dollars as your budget allows so they can reach people more effectively than a church account ever could? What does this look like for you as a leader? How can you become a more personal, engaging presence online for the people you shepherd?

A shift from information to identity

Social media was once primarily about making and maintaining relationships with others. With the shift to short-form video and Discovery algorithms, social media has become primarily a performance platform for people to express their individual identities. Of course, this becomes a discipleship problem when people are more interested in performing an identity than being conformed to Christ. Worse still, the solipsism (the view that self is all that can be known to exist) that develops online can easily bleed into real-life relationships that impact the church.

But the risk is not merely for creators. You may never make a TikTok, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t shaped by it. It’s not unusual to see people mimicking the speech patterns, personalities, and values of influencers. Put another way: some will perform an identity on social media, and some will receive an identity from social media.

Chris Bail wrote in Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing,

“We are addicted to social media not because it provides us with flashy eye candy or endless distractions, but because it helps us do something we humans are hardwired to do: present different versions of ourselves, observe what other people think of them, and revise our identities accordingly. But instead of a giant mirror that we can use to see our entire society, social media is more like a prism that refracts our identities—leaving us with a distorted understanding of each other, and ourselves.”

Tribalism (and trolling, its shared ritual) is the immediate fruit of these “distorted understandings of each other and ourselves.” We do not use social media as a tool for discovering truth; we use social media as a tool for understanding ourselves, finding people we think are “like us,” and banding together with those tribes we believe we belong to. This dynamic is at play whether you are an active content creator, a passive content consumer, or somewhere in between.

It does not mean people have stopped using social media for information, but they seek that information through shared identities first and reliable sources of a fact-finding second.

Not only is it harder to find reliable information, but it’s also even harder to find reliable information without going through someone who communicates from a tribalistic frame of mind. Institutions are no longer the sole gatekeepers of truth; tribes have become powerful gatekeepers of their own, and good media literacy discipleship must emphasize how to see that dynamic and correct for it—both in how to get information, but also in how we see ourselves.

We need robust discipleship around our use of social media. This includes media literacy (how we are being formed by media and algorithms) as well as admonishment to engage others with the fruit of the Spirit both online and offline. Training our congregants to use social media well includes teaching, but modeling and displaying the fruit of the Spirit online is even more important. As Paul once told believers in Corinth to “be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Cor 11:1), pastors must model the digital wisdom and fruit of the Spirit they hope to see in their congregants. Through their personal example, pastors can help form their people into the image of Christ, and not into the image of partisan tribalists.

Spiritual formation in a digital age

Pastors, if you are reading this and wonder “what should I do with my church’s social media presence?”, the best thing to do right now is to watch and experiment. Pay attention to these shifts in the social media industry, and wait to see what lasting impacts they have in your community. The social media world is in the midst of a very volatile shake-up, and now is not the time to make a reactionary, sweeping change when more change is likely on the horizon.

This is an opportunity for the church to regroup, take things more seriously this time around, and work to get in front of the change instead of lagging behind it. Now that we all know the formidable foe that the algorithm is in our spiritual lives, we can develop the tools and strategies to guard our hearts and prepare our minds as we work to follow Jesus in an increasingly digital age.

What is the social internet doing to us?

By Marie Delph / Mar 30

“I’m here to tell you that the water is poisoned.” These are the jolting words that open Chris Martin’s new book, Terms of Service: The Real Cost of Social Media. The water he’s referring to is the social internet, a term he uses to describe not just social media but the entire internet. And like a fish in water, totally at home in its environment, the social internet “has become so woven into all of our lives that we don’t even notice it anymore.” What’s more, we often can’t see that the waters we’re swimming in have been poisoned.

And that is Martin’s stated goal, “not to tell [readers] to delete our social media accounts . . . but to help [us] see that the water is toxic . . . to help [us] recognize that social media is changing the way [we] think, feel, and live . . . and largely in negative ways.” In Terms of Service, Martin sets out to shine a big, bright spotlight on the noxious environment we’re swimming in and then to shine that light on a better way forward.

As a content marketing editor at Moody Publishers and a social media, marketing, and communications consultant, Martin has spent years advising some of the foremost Christian leaders and authors on digital content strategy, and is, therefore, qualified to speak authoritatively about the social internet’s toxicity. As a Christian, he is uniquely equipped to shepherd readers away from those toxic waters, and to the living water that Jesus offers those who come to him. For readers, the question is: will we continue swimming with the toxic tide of the social internet, or will we paddle against the current, refusing to be malformed by its poison?

What have we gotten ourselves into?

In the first section of the book, Martin provides a brief overview of the internet’s history and evolution, from its earliest prototype as a government project in the late 1960s to its virtual omnipresence today. In a matter of about 60 years, the social internet has evolved from a primitive project to a pervasive and, Martin argues, “inescapable” reality. He says, “We may be able to log off the social internet, delete our accounts, and never participate, but we can never escape its influence.” And then he follows that statement with a piercing question: “What is it doing to us?”

One of the critical pieces that we tend to misunderstand, and which Martin spotlights, is that the social internet is not a neutral tool. Well-intentioned though we may be, we fundamentally misunderstand the way the internet and specifically social media works when we assume otherwise. “The social internet is designed to be addictive,” he says. “It is not a neutral tool humans discovered and decided to use nonstop on their own.” Instead, “Since the start, and especially in the more recent iterations, the social internet has been designed with the intent to get people addicted.” In the early days, our forays into the internet began primarily as a quest for anonymity, a means of exploration, and a source of community. But now, it’s an addiction. And, Martin argues, it’s not entirely our fault.

“Our addiction to the social internet is ours to overcome, but it isn’t totally our fault. The social internet is designed with addiction in mind. The systems are designed to enslave our eyes. We’ve been set up. We’re being played” (emphasis added). Borrowing the language used by Sean Parker, former president of Facebook and founder of Napster, our brains have been “hacked.” The platforms where we spend so many hours of our lives have been designed with algorithms that exploit the human brain, leading to all kinds of ill effects, which Martin explores in the next section.

The social internet is “an invention that was originally designed to serve us but which we have come to serve. We are servants of the social internet. It governs our days and poisons our lives more than we recognize.” What have we gotten ourselves into?

Malformed discipleship

In the second section of the book, Martin highlights five ways the social internet is shaping us, though the list is most certainly longer. From the ways we view and treat others to the way we view and behave ourselves, this “digital discipleship” is not so much shaping us as it is misshaping us; not forming us, but deforming us. Make no mistake, the social internet “is making its mark on us.”

If Christian discipleship is the process by which Jesus makes us more like himself, more truly human, then the social internet disciples us — and don’t be fooled, it is discipling us — with another end in mind. It is doing the opposite, unraveling our humanity bit by bit (and byte by byte). And, as Martin argues, it is doing so in at least five distinct ways. The social internet shapes us to “believe attention assigns value,” to “trade our privacy for expression,” to “pursue affirmation instead of truth,” to “demonize people we dislike,” and to “destroy people we demonize.” And as devastating as these are to our becoming more like Christ, they are symptoms of a deeper sickness.

Our addiction is virtually indisputable. As with any addiction, we are dependent — enslaved, even — on the thing we desire. And this addiction, widespread as it is, has produced and exacerbated a four-fold effect that is deforming us both individually and corporately. It is forming us to become more polarized, gullible, unhappy, and anxious. And, if I can add to Martin’s list, bored. We are addicted to the toxic water we’re swimming in, and the effects are overwhelming.

Undoing our digital discipleship

In a stark description, Martin says, “The social internet is brilliant and obscene. It sharpens the mind and dulls it. It brings nations together and tears them apart. It perpetuates, reveals, and attempts to repair injustice. It is an untamed beast upon which we can only hope to ride but never quite tame.” But if this “brilliant and obscene” tool is a bell that cannot be “unringed” and “a Pandora’s box that, now open, will never be closed,” then how can we possibly expect to undo the damage that Martin describes? How can we “de-toxify” the environment in which we now live? Thankfully, Martin doesn’t leave us guessing. He gives us a sample of six practices that can help put us on firmer ground moving forward: studying history, admiring creation, valuing silence, pursuing humility, establishing accountability, and building friendships.

At the core of each of these suggested practices, to some degree, is the implicit encouragement to retreat for a time from the digital ether we’re constantly staring into. Instead of peering into the pixilated displays that occupy our pockets, Martin encourages us to look elsewhere — back in history, up at creation, inward in silence, down in humility, and around in accountability and friendship — nearly anywhere but the digital twilight zone we’re immersed in.

While the social internet is here to stay, undoing our digital discipleship will require a strategic retreat from its active use with some regularity; a sort of reimmersion into this God-made, material world. To reframe Martin’s earlier statement: though our addiction to the social internet “isn’t totally our fault, it is ours to overcome.”

A most consequential decision

Despite all the caution that Martin suggests when it comes to our engagement with the social internet, it’s not all fire and brimstone. There is plenty of good that can and does come from the social internet. Thus, his goal is, again, not to convince readers to delete our social media accounts altogether. Instead, he aims to help us see. And, having read the book, we can’t unsee what Martin has shined his light on. So, a question looms: now, what?

What we do with what we’ve seen in Terms of Service is entirely up to us. But a decision is imminent: will we respond with the caution Martin encourages, or will we keep swimming as if the water isn’t poisoned? For the people of God, the decision seems clear. If the discipleship we undergo at the hands of the social internet unravels our humanity, as I’ve said, and Christian discipleship restores our humanity, then we would do well to empty our hands of our phones from time to time so we can “take up our cross and follow [Jesus],” which is the essence of true discipleship (Matt. 16:24).

Martin’s predictions for the future of the social internet aren’t exactly optimistic. He forecasts more of what we’re experiencing right now; mental health issues, polarization, and even war. But it doesn’t have to be this way! And for Christians, we have an opportunity to show our peers, many of whom are hypnotized by the social internet, a way out of these toxic waters. But it’ll require an intentional, daily decision on our part — a decision that echoes from our elder brother Joshua: “choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve,” whether the gods of Facebook or the gods of Twitter. “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Josh. 24:15).

14 questions for Christians to ask about their social media engagement

By Marie Delph / Feb 18

Earlier this week, a bipartisan group of senators introduced a bill to protect children from the potentially harmful impacts of social media. The Kids Online Safety Act of 2022 includes five major elements:

Social media companies would be required to provide privacy options, the ability to disable addictive features and allow users to opt-out of recommendations like pages or other videos to “like.” It would also make the strongest privacy protections the default.

The bill would give parents tools to track time spent in the app, limit purchases, and help to address addictive usage.

It would require social media companies to prevent and mitigate harm to minors, including self-harm, suicide, eating disorders, substance abuse, sexual exploitation, and unlawful products for minors like alcohol.

Social media companies would be required to give kids’ data to academic and private researchers. The scientists would use that data to do more research on what harms children on social media and how to prevent that harm.

Social media companies would be required to use a third party to perform independent reviews to quantify the risk to minors, compliance with the law, and whether the company is “taking meaningful steps to prevent those harms.”

Whether the bill will be something Christians should support remains to be seen. But as Dr. Dave Anderson, a clinical psychologist at the Child Mind Institute, told ABC News, it’s an attempt to apply what social science research has taught us about the potential harms of social media. “I think politicians are taking what we know from the science and saying, ‘How do we build in these safeguards?’”, says Anderson.

Questions for evaluation

While it’s important to build safeguards on social media for our children, every Christian adult should also consider what guardrails they are putting up for themselves. Listed below are 14 questions for self-reflection that we can ask ourselves about our social media engagement.

1. The time use question: In 2020, the average adult spent three hours a day on social media. Do we spend more daily time on social media than we do on spiritual practices, such as prayer and Bible reading?

2. The best use question: Even if the time we spend on social media is not out of proportion to other activities, we should still consider how we want to spend our days. Is our social media usage an example of following the command in Ephesians 5:16 to make the “best use of the time”?

3. The bubble question: Social media allows us to choose who we interact with, allowing us the ability to create the online equivalent of gated communities. What types of interactions are you missing out on by engaging only within your social media bubble?

4. The corrupt company question: In light of question 3, what kind of bubble are you creating? Who are you surrounding yourself with online? Bad company — even disguised with Christian language — that will corrupt (1 Cor. 15:33)? Or good company that will build up?

5. The looking with lust question: The predominance of personal photos on social media can allow us to get an intimate glimpse not only into people’s lives but often of people’s bodies. What precautions are we taking to prevent ourselves from looking with lust on the images we see in private (Matt. 5:28)?

6. The one another question: Throughout Scripture there are more than 50 “one another” commands that apply to our fellow believers (for example, the commands to “encourage one another and build up one another” in 1 Thessalonians 5:11). How are you using social media to fulfill those commands?

7. The probability of cancellation question: Cancel culture refers to the modern practice of withdrawing support for someone (i.e., “canceling them”) after they have done or said something considered objectionable or offensive. What are the chances that you could be “canceled” for something you post on social media?

8. The loving your enemy question: Jesus commands us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us (Matt. 5:43). Do we use our social media accounts to identify the “enemies” we need to pray for?

9. The foolish controversies question: In Titus 3:9, Paul tells us to avoid foolish controversies because they are unprofitable and useless. Does our social media usage increase the likelihood that we will engage in such foolish controversies?

10. The eulogy question: Imagine that if at your funeral someone who despises you was able to give a eulogy that consisted of them reading 10 items you posted on social media. Would you have any concerns or fear of embarrassment if that were to happen?

11. The anonymity question: Many people on social media (especially on platforms like Twitter) choose to remain anonymous. But Jesus says “there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open” (Luke 8:17). If you have an anonymous account, would you be ashamed if your identity was revealed? (Alternative question: Should we be engaging with those who choose to hide their identity while attacking those whose identities are known?)

12. The unwholesome talk question: Paul commands us by saying, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen” (Eph. 4:29). Do we use social media to engage in unwholesome talk?

13. The true and noble question: Additionally, Paul says, “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things” (Phil. 4:8). Does our social media usage help us to think about what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy?

14. The glory of God question: Paul also says, whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:13). Can we honestly say that all that we do on social media is glorifying God?

Why Christians can be content with a quiet life in a social media world

By Marie Delph / Jan 13

One of the great promises of social media is its implicit pledge to make its users well-known. Friends and followers, likes and retweets all whisper to us that we are being seen and known. And as our digital audience grows, we feel affirmed, important, influential, and maybe even powerful. It can be intoxicating, and social media companies know it.

Christians often find ourselves in serious pursuit of more online followers and influence. Sometimes, it’s because we are rightly seeking to embrace the call to spread the gospel that’s been entrusted to us. Yet, the very nature of social media means users are encouraged to increase their notoriety. And while this may create a unique opportunity for us to share the gospel, it also presents us with a dangerous temptation that Jesus warns us to avoid — “practicing our righteousness before others to be seen by them” (Matt. 6:1).

So, while God may be calling some believers to use social media platforms for the sake of the gospel, what if the way of faithfulness for most of us is more akin to serving in obscurity? In a culture that seeks notoriety at all costs, one of the most important ambitions that some of us can choose to adopt is to embrace a quiet life, where we serve and share the gospel with those around us and recognize that our God-given desire to be seen and known will only be fully met by Christ himself.

Practicing our righteousness to be seen by others

Why do we sometimes do the things we do on social media? It’s a basic question that we often fail to ask ourselves. Our feeds can frequently turn into kitschy Christian tropes, self-aggrandizing photos of our religious activity, and faux humility that spotlights just how earnest and spiritual we are. And, why? It’s because social media is one giant marketplace that makes it easy and “normal” for us to show off without even realizing it.

What’s so addictive about our public displays of righteousness, as Jesus tells us, is that they promise and produce a reward that our flesh loves. Public displays of our piety — like Jesus’ examples in the Sermon on the Mount of praying and fasting or a punchy, well-timed religious quote meant to “own” one of our detractors — undoubtedly gain the applause of our followers through likes and retweets, giving us the dopamine hit that we’ve grown so addicted to.

In giving ourselves over to this use of social media, we have contented ourselves with and even preferred the reward that comes not from the Father but from our crowd of followers. “Truly,” Jesus says to us, “they have received their reward” (Matt. 6:2).

Gain followers, lose your soul

One of the interesting things about social media is that, regardless of which platform is being used, it has become our culture’s most prominent stage for acting out its most prized virtue: self-expression. It’s where we go to express ourselves and rally others to our cause. But following Jesus is not chiefly about expressing ourselves, as much as our culture may recoil at the thought. Instead it’s about denying ourselves (Matt. 16:24). It’s not about adding to some ever-growing list of followers, but about following Jesus with a cross on our back.

Jesus assures us that he will return one day “with his angels in the glory of his Father,” and when he does, he says, “he will repay each person according to what he has done” (Matt. 16:27). At his coming, will we be those who have “gained the world” of social media, having forfeited our souls in the process, or will we be those who value self-denial above self-expression?

Your Father who sees in secret

Social media, though it can certainly be used for good, is often the trumpet blast that Jesus condemns in his sermon (Matt. 6:2), the loud invitation for onlookers to clap their hands with “likes” and shout their approval with “retweets” at the righteousness that we have publicized for them. But Jesus tells us, “Beware.” And not because our desire for reward is inherently bad, but because we’re settling for a lesser reward!

We do not have to practice our righteousness before others to be seen and rewarded. Our Father sees our acts of faithfulness, and he will reward us. He sees when we give and pray and fast in secret (Matt. 6:2, 6, 17). And he sees when we read his Word without posting a photo on Instagram, when we share a meal with a brother or sister without tagging them and announcing it on Facebook, and when we refrain from disparaging an image-bearer on Twitter. Even if no one else ever sees these “acts of righteousness,” our Father sees in secret, and he will reward us.

Lead a quiet life

Paul’s words to the Thessalonians are worthy of our consideration in a culture that has made an idol of celebrity and self-expression: “aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs” (1 Thess. 4:11). Our society rewards those who are loud and bombastic; those who are pugnacious, insolent, and “omnicompetent”; and those who parade their righteousness around for all to see. But God calls us to embrace something different — a life of self-denial; a life of unheralded, unseen acts of faithfulness; and a life content with obscurity.

As St. Augustine and others have said, all of life is lived coram Deo, before the face of God. Therefore, we don’t have to fear that our effort to follow in the way of Jesus will go unnoticed, even if our peers never acknowledge it. And we don’t have to worry that the cups of cold water we give in Jesus’ name (Matt.10:42) or our hidden day-to-day faithfulness will go unrecognized, even when there are no “likes” or “favorites” to reward us. We can be content with praying behind closed doors (Matt. 6:6), giving anonymously (Matt. 6:3), serving and sharing the gospel with those around us, and quelling the impulse to practice our righteousness before our audience of social media followers because we are waiting for a better reward.

May we be countercultural — happy to live a quiet life, hungering and thirsting for the righteousness that doesn’t need to be performed before others, and finding our joy and satisfaction in the approval of God alone.

3 words that will shape digital culture for good and cultivate virtue in the public square

By Marie Delph / Nov 9

It happens like clockwork. Often within a few moments of breaking news or some other major event happening in our culture, we see one of the most damaging effects of social media and digital culture. Our feeds are immediately filled with “expert” opinions, half-baked ideas, and reactionary takes that routinely fail to account for the reality of the situation and resort to partisan or cultural talking points. In these moments, it seems that everyone we know has a take on what is happening. It’s tempting to join in as we seek to align ourselves with the “right” tribe or group online.

The internet was originally promised to be a major turning point in the pursuit of truth and free expression. We were told that the democratization of information would usher in a new era of freedom and emphasis on truth. The idea is that the truth would naturally rise above the fray given the freedom of information and a common pursuit of truth. But along with this pursuit came an onslaught of fake news, misinformation, and opinions based on feeling and emotion.

In reality, much of the ”news” we hear about today or “expert” commentary is nothing more than content designed to whet our appetites for immediacy, inflame our alliances to group identities, or stir up controversy to influence our behaviors. Social media in some sense breeds behavior in which we project ourselves as omnicompetent. We are constantly being pushed to post about “what’s happening?” on Twitter or to post “what’s on our mind?” on Facebook. We are encouraged and incentivized to post our random musings, unformed thoughts, and reactionary takes for the world to see.

So, how are we to break this vicious cycle of self-promotion and recenter our lives on pursuing wisdom in a digital age? The answer might sound trite and overly simplistic, but I am convinced that three little words can help change a culture: I don’t know.

Information overload

Each and every day, we are bombarded with more information than we could ever hope to process. In our digital first world, it is far too easy to focus on the things right in front of us. Social media naturally breeds an expert culture, where we seek to prove our knowledge, allegiances, and abilities often before we consider the full impact of these decisions. Through our feeds, we fall prey to what Neil Postman referred to as an “and . . . now this” culture, where we are encouraged to quickly move from one thing to the next without any real reflection or sustained evaluation of what we are being exposed to each day.

As writer Alan Jacobs puts it in his recent book, Breaking Bread with the Dead: A Reader’s Guide to a More Tranquil Mind, “navigating daily life in the internet age is a lot like doing battlefield triage.” In this digital age, we are often overwhelmed with the sheer amount of information to process. So, we usually default to shallow engagement and forgo deep reflection on the important things of life.

In conversations about technology and what this level of information access is doing to us as people, we often focus on some of the more prominent effects of technology such as screen time, app limits, and the rise of various psychological effects like the increase of loneliness, isolation, anxiety, and more. While all of these issues are important and should be addressed by the church, one of the most subtle and deleterious effects is how society perceives truth and how this information overload is causing all of us to lose grip on reality. This isn’t an isolated occurrence but has become a cultural practice across political, social, and even religious grounds.

“I don’t know” and epistemic humility

In our digital age, it is easy to falsely believe that we know more or can navigate more than we can actually handle. As we wade through this battlefield of the mind, our sin tempts us to believe that the problems we see in the online world would simply go away if people just believed what we do or would just listen to us. Richard John Neuhaus reminds us in The Naked Public Square, “In principle, we should be suspicious of explanations for other people’s beliefs and behavior when those explanations imply that they would believe and behave as we do, if only they were as mature and enlightened as we are.” In the digital age, cultivating humility and understanding of how deeply embedded sin is in every aspect of our life can help usher in a more righteous pursuit of truth in a divided society.

One of the most countercultural things we can do in the midst of information overload — especially with the constant allure of projecting ourselves as omnicompetent online — is to simply say “I don’t know”. While it may sound trite and doesn’t entail that we cower from speaking truth, it reminds us that we are indeed finite and limited in what we actually know. We simply aren’t designed — nor do we need — to have an opinion or draw an immediate conclusion about the onslaught of information we face each day.

Paul warns young Timothy that “Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions” (1 Tim. 1:6-7). These simple words seem to typify our current age of constant connection and ease of sharing things online with social media, especially for God’s people.

Social media generally yields itself to “vain discussions” where we try to prove ourselves to others and become teachers of others, often without a deep understanding of what we are actually saying or making confident assertions about. Modeling epistemic humility or a responsive awareness of the limits of one’s own knowledge by regularly reminding ourselves and those around us that we do not have all of the answers can help combat the concerning rise of misinformation and conspiracy theories. Not only are we ill-equipped for the task of responding to everything we see online, we simply aren’t created for that type of responsibility. Cultivating epistemic humility can breed a culture of curiosity and intrigue as it encourages sustained study and a culture of learning rather than uninformed opinions passing as facts or knowledge.

Speaking truth with grace in the public square

So when is the last time that you slowed down to evaluate the desires that may motivate your posting, sharing, or clicking online? The evaluation of our online habits shouldn’t be driven by a pursuit of avoiding the dreaded cancel culture, where a single post can ruin someone’s life, or out of a desire to back down instead of speaking truth to power with grace and understanding. With platforms (and society) designed for instantaneous connection and constant sharing, wisdom calls us to step back and seek to examine our souls before engaging online.

Slowing down can allow us time to verify the truth before we share, notice the actual person made in God’s image behind the inflammatory post, and think about why we feel the need to contribute in the first place. We can ask ourselves what we are trying to prove to others or what kind of façade we are seeking to build online. This pause can also help us see what is driving our need to be the one who corrects everyone’s controversial opinions or to show ourselves to be on the “right side” of the latest political controversy.

Of course Christians should engage online. However, when we engage, we should desire for others to know that we are not confident in ourselves but in the One who made us in his likeness (Gen. 1:26-28). Social media can tempt us to think that the things we say and do online are spoken into a void of time and space, disconnected from real life. But behind the avatars and updates are flesh-and-blood human beings with struggles, fears, and desires, just like you and me. Let’s be the ones who prize people over power and truth over position.

3 questions to ask ourselves before posting on social media

By Marie Delph / Nov 2

Love it or hate it, social media has become enmeshed with virtually every aspect of our digital lives. With the advent of the smartphone and smartphone apps, and relatively new services like Facebook Pay and WhatsApp among other, we are becoming more invested in and more dependent on these social platforms and their menu of features.

And despite our familiarity with and constant use of social media, we are still learning how to use each respective platform. Stated differently: we’re still learning how to behave on them. By and large, online dialogue continues to grow increasingly reckless, unkind, and contentious, on the one hand, and infantile, vapid, and self-absorbed on the other.

But since social media is clearly here to stay, it is imperative that the people of God commit ourselves to the wise, charitable, and productive use of these platforms.

Let every person be slow to . . . tweet?

While I am of the (strong) opinion that we should be less engaged on social media than we currently are, the fact is most people spend a significant amount of time on their preferred platform(s) scrolling and posting, tweeting and retweeting. There is no mass social media exodus anywhere on the horizon.

So, if we’re committed to staying, if we’re committed to the continued use of these social platforms, how can we avoid the recklessness and performative self-expression that so often spoils our online dialogue?

Here are three important questions that we should ask ourselves before posting anything online.

Why am I saying this?

Before finally clicking “post” or “tweet,” we should stop ourselves and ask this very simple question: “why?”

Our motives, the why behind what we post or share, matter. And on platforms where contentiousness, conflict, and impulsiveness are rewarded, we are being constantly encouraged to skip this first step of pausing and considering the motives of our heart. Wisdom is being forfeited for clicks.

Why do we post cropped and filtered photos of our quiet time on Instagram? Is it because we want “to be seen” by others like Jesus warns against in his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:1)? Or why do we feel the need to join in with angry online outbursts? Could it be that, instead of “walking by the Spirit,” we’re “carrying out the desires of the flesh” like Paul warned against in his letter to the Galatians (5:16)? If we believe Jesus’ words, that “from the heart comes” all kinds of evil (Matthew 15:19), we would be wise to stop and examine the motives of our heart before posting.

What do I hope to accomplish by saying this?

I’m under no illusion that all our social media interactions should aspire ultimately to change the world. If that is the aim of our online life, we are sure to be severely disappointed. But there should be some intended purpose behind what we choose to share, from our light-hearted posts to those that are evangelistic.

For Christians, we can use a simple rubric to help answer this second question: will this post glorify Christ, or will it glorify me? Will it bring about good, or will it lead to ruin?

Our task as Christians is summed up well by the apostle Paul in his letter to the Corinthians: “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31, emphasis added). For those of us who are active online, does our tweeting and posting accomplish the task that Paul charges us with in this text? Or does it fuel controversy, stoke rage, stir up jealousy and contempt, or, in some other way, produce the chaff described in Psalm 1? Do our online words speak life or death (Proverbs 18:21)?

How can I say this in a way that is truthful, charitable, and productive?

There is no shortage of “fake news,” hateful “hot takes,” and fruitless discussion taking place online these days. But that doesn’t mean that we must take part in any of it. In fact, Christians are those whose “speech” should “always be gracious, seasoned with salt,” the apostle Paul says (Colossians 4:6). What does that mean for the things we post on social media?

This final question is a safeguard that commits us, as much as possible, to craft our social media posts so that they are truthful, loving, and productive, in that they aim to produce good or simply to move a conversation forward in a charitable way. This means that there is no place for “owning” our so-called opponents, for peddling falsities, or engaging in shameful and degrading conversations. To this, with the apostle Paul, we might say: such talk “is not suitable and should not even be heard of among [us]” (Eph. 5:3-4).

If we can’t, in good conscience, answer each of these three questions with sufficiently godly answers, we should be content with saying nothing. But if we can, we should feel free to click “tweet” or “post.”

Blessed is the one

In a very real way, social media can function as the “company of mockers” mentioned in Psalm 1 and can serve as our “walk[ing] in step with the wicked” and “stand[ing] in the way that sinners take” (Psa. 1:1). But it doesn’t have to be this way. And it shouldn’t.

“Blessed is the one,” the psalmist says, “whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night” (Psa. 1:1, 2). May we be the people who delight in “the Lord’s instruction,” who delight in obeying him, and in bringing his law to bear on every motive of our heart and every word that leaves our mouths, whether spoken or posted on social media.

5 habits for cultivating wisdom online

By Marie Delph / Apr 27

The Internet and social media can help us become wise, but only if we approach them with great care and intention. To that end, here are five habits to consider as you evaluate the place of online media in your life.

1. Go with a purpose. Don’t just “surf”!

“Surfing the Net” was one of the early metaphors for what we do online, bringing to mind a sort of leisurely, “we’ll see where these links take me!” approach to riding the Web’s waves. But it is precisely this posture—going online just to stroll (or should I say “scroll”?) around its wide-open spaces—that leads us to fill every spare moment of our lives with insipid social media debates, mildly amusing cat videos, and other online ephemera. It is precisely this unconscious impulse to hop on our phone and just go somewhere that can lead us to dark places: pornography, toxic subcultures, fruitless comment section battles. Sadly, the ease with which we can jump online in our spare moments (whether 30 seconds at a stop light or 90 seconds in the Chick-fil-A drive-thru line) conditions us to eliminate every last shred of unmediated space in our lives—which is a terrible thing for cultivating wisdom.

In his helpful book The Common Rule, Justin Earley suggests our spare moments should not be filled with online wandering, but rather “reserved for staring at walls, which is infinitely more useful.” He also suggests avoiding social media in bed and avoiding unplanned scrolling, which “usually means I’m hungry for something to catch my eye—and plenty of strange, dark, and bizarre things are happy to catch the eye on social media.” The digital wanderer is asking for trouble. Don’t go online without a plan. Go with a purpose, and stay online only as long as you need to.

2. Quality over quantity

Given the glut of options online, and the above point that your online time should be limited only to purposeful activities rather than aimless wandering, it’s important to make the time matter. Consider following Cal Newport’s advice in Digital Minimalism, which he defines as “a philosophy of technology use in which you focus your online time on a small number of carefully selected and optimized activities that strongly support things you value, and then happily miss out on everything else.”

How does one carefully select what to read, watch, listen to, or experience online? First, listen to the recommendations of trusted people in your life. Given the choice between reading an article that just popped into your Twitter feed because an advertiser put it there or reading an article because ten people you trust shared it on Facebook, go with the latter. Check out reviews of books from trusted websites before you decide what to read. Consult the writing of trusted film critics before choosing what to watch. Limit yourself to one podcast or one Netflix show a month, and only the ones enough trustworthy people have recommended. In a world where your time is scarce and everything is vying for your attention, don’t be a passive consumer who clicks on whatever comes your way. Be happy to bypass most of it, trusting that a smaller amount of excellent, curated dishes will be better for your wisdom diet than a vast amount of hit-or-miss, haphazard snacks.

3. Slow down!

Even if you can’t control the speed of things online, you can control your speed. And a slower pace is almost always more conducive to wisdom. Time is a great filter for wisdom: the longer something lasts, the likelier it is to contain value. Don’t spend your time reading the hottest take or the “trending now” video. Instead, wait a bit and read the (usually better) cold takes. Read the Atlantic article from five years ago that people still reference; watch the “classics” of YouTube before the flavor-of-the-week clip. Once the novelty of something wears off, if people are still recommending it, maybe it’s actually worth your time. Don’t fear missing out on most things online. Most of it is missable and will be quickly forgotten. To slow down—until history’s filter gives you reason to pay attention—is to be a wiser consumer online.

The same goes for what you contribute online. Speed is treacherous when it comes to posting your opinion on social media or fanning some rapidly spreading flame. We often jump on an online bandwagon before we realize it has a broken axle. Take time to vet the truth and consider the wisdom of something before you share it, to consider the potential impact of your words before you post. Remember Scripture’s “slow to speak” wisdom.

4. Diversify your exposure

Be intentional about diversifying the voices we listen to. Don’t just read articles from the same bias-confirming sources. Don’t only tune in to the radio shows where your opinions are confirmed. Challenge yourself by actually giving attention to well-articulated versions of the “other side” of arguments. Respect your ideological opponent (and yourself!) by truly seeking to understand the other perspective.

Try to populate your social media feeds with sources representing a variety of perspectives—politically, culturally, geographically, racially, and so forth. Read international takes on your own nation’s news. Listen to podcasts outside your comfort zone. Watch documentaries on streaming sites that provoke you to think deeply (even if not, in the end, differently) about some issue. Take advantage of the Internet’s platforming of voices you might not otherwise have opportunities to hear. One way to love your digital neighbors is to listen to them, even if what they have to say is hard for you to hear. Remember, you don’t have to fully agree with others online in order to glean some truth from their perspectives.

5. Share what’s good!

One of the blessings of the Internet and social media is the ability to easily share what we have personally found helpful, good, true, or beautiful. One of my favorite C. S. Lewis quotes comes from Reflections on the Psalms: “I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation.” Don’t feel guilty about posting online about a movie or book you loved, or sharing a photo on Instagram of your spouse, child, backyard, or something else you found delightful. The public praising of these things is a key part of our enjoyment of them. If you love discovering good music, create playlists on Spotify and share them. If you love taking photos of beautiful architecture, post them on an Instagram account. If you loved a restaurant or stayed at an amazing hotel, share a glowing review online that might lead others to discover it. Use the Internet to turn what you love into something that blesses others, rather than turning what you hate into something that angers others.

What would happen if everyone started to use the Internet more to celebrate the good than to add to the noise with hateful tweets and trigger-happy rants? What would happen if we used our online platforms to praise others rather than for promoting our own views and signaling our own virtue? [And] what if we spent more time online publicly honoring people we do know than publicly shaming people we don’t?

Explainer: Justice Thomas and the possibility of reining in Big Tech

By Marie Delph / Apr 12

Last week was a particularly busy week for the technology industry at the nation’s highest court. First, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Google’s favor in a decadeslong court battle with Oracle over the use of certain software code to build the Android operating system. Oracle claimed that Google’s use of the code violated federal copyright law. Then, the high court released its decision in the case Biden vs. Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. This particular case was ruled moot, and the lower decision was dismissed. The case was originally titled Trump vs. Knight. It was changed with the inauguration of Joseph R. Biden since the case revolved around the question of the president’s ability to block access to the public on a social media platform.

What was the case about?

The original lawsuit was filed back in July 2017 by the Knight First Amendment Institute and seven social media users against President Trump on account that he had blocked these seven individuals on Twitter after they criticized him or his policies. Being blocked by the president meant that these users could no longer see or respond to his posts on the platform. As veteran court reporter Amy Howe wrote, “The plaintiffs alleged that blocking them on Twitter violated the First Amendment, and the district court agreed. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit upheld that ruling.” The lower court ruled that the president’s Twitter account was a public forum and that the government violated the rights of these individuals by blocking access to it.

On Aug. 20, 2020, a petition for a writ of certiorari was filed. The Supreme Court agreed to review the case, but it was also during an election year. In January, the Trump administration filed a brief indicating to “the justices that, although the 2nd Circuit’s decision was worthy of their review, the case would become moot once Joe Biden succeeded Trump as president on Jan. 20.” Amy Howe explains, “Trump had been sued as the president, rather than in his personal capacity, the administration explained, but Biden would not have any control over Trump’s Twitter account.” Then after the attack on the United States Capitol over alleged election fraud, President Trump was permanently suspended from Twitter over the claim that he incited the violence (even though the administration said that this suspension could be overturned, so that fact should not have bearing on the case.) All of these shifting circumstances ultimately led the court to grant the petition for a writ of certiorari, vacate the judgement, and remand the case back to the Second Circuit with instruction to dismiss the case as moot.

What does this case have to do with online content moderation?

On April 5, Justice Clarence Thomas released a concurring opinion alongside the court’s ruling. Justice Thomas explained in detail the court’s deliberations and the reasoning behind the decision to grant the petition for a writ of certiorari. But he went on to connect this case to the larger questions surrounding the immense responsibility and control that certain technology companies have in civic discourse given our public dependence on and the massive size of technology companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, and Google.

Justice Thomas writes, “Today’s digital platforms provide avenues for historically unprecedented amounts of speech, including speech by government actors. Also unprecedented, however, is the concentrated control of so much speech in the hands of a few private parties. We will soon have no choice but to address how our legal doctrines apply to highly concentrated, privately owned information infrastructure such as digital platforms.” He went on to state that the government might have a compelling interest to intervene in this new power dynamic by possibly limiting the right of a private company to exclude. Justice Thomas explained, “If part of the problem is private, concentrated control over online content and platforms available to the public, then part of the solution may be found in doctrines that limit the right of a private company to exclude.” He submitted two possible legal doctrines for consideration, designating social media as “common carriers” or as “public accommodations,” both of which are highly controversial in digital governance debates, especially among legal media scholars.

Justice Thomas argued that the “common carrier” designation has been applied to other industries with considerable market size, such as those in transportation and communication. These industries are given special privileges by the government, but also have restrictions placed on their ability to exclude. “By giving these companies special privileges, governments place them into a category distinct from other companies and closer to some functions, like the postal service, that the State has traditionally undertaken.” This particular argument may overlook the difference between social media as simply a carrier of information, rather than a curator of that information posted by users.

The other designation of “public accommodation” would apply regardless of the relative market size of the companies, given the ongoing scholarly debate about whether market power is a necessary aspect for a company to be considered a common carrier. Justice Thomas wrote that these companies may not “not ‘carry’ freight, passengers, or communications,” but nevertheless they could have their right to exclude curtailed given their public utility. “If the analogy between common carriers and digital platforms is correct, then an answer may arise for dissatisfied platform users who would appreciate not being blocked: laws that restrict the platform’s right to exclude.” While he acknowledges that technology companies do indeed have their own First Amendment rights, he nevertheless argues that these rights may need to be diminished in light of the influence this industry has over our public discourse. This is a complex situation, especially for conservatives who traditionally resist the government’s intrusion into the rights of individuals and corporations.

Overall, Justice Thomas explores each of these options as well as their potential pitfalls throughout the concurrence. He rightly points out that these decisions would need to be enacted by various legislatures, but they also might be under the prerogative of the courts depending on the contours of the cases brought forth. This opinion, while not holding any enforceable action, is significant because a sitting Justice of the Supreme Court is making these types of arguments to reign in the power of the technology industry—an issue that both Democrats and Republican have been pursuing , even if on different ideological grounds.

What does this mean?

Justice Thomas acknowledged the tenuous realities in the current public policy debates over the role that these digital platforms play in our public discourse in light of their immense size and influence, including their ability to moderate user content. He is correct in saying that applying old doctrines to the new challenges of digital platforms is an extremely complicated matter, whether it be on issues of free speech, questions of public accommodation, or the nature of religious expression online.

As legal expert and free speech attorney David French correctly states, “Millions of Americans are deeply concerned about the power and reach of America’s largest tech companies, but their concerns often diverge sharply depending on their partisan affiliation.” French goes on to say, “The two sides are increasingly united in wanting more government regulation. They’re deeply divided as to what those regulations should say.” French, as others have pointed out, is concerned about government intervention in these matters since it may jeopardize the countless First Amendment victories that have been forged in recent years.

While Christians may disagree about the best path forward in these particular debates, we all must acknowledge that we live in a time where religious speech is increasingly seen as at odds with acceptable public discourse and free expression is often hampered in the pursuit of secularism. We need more believers engaged in this discussions who understand that the technology industry must be a major element in a full-orbed public theology. These types of decisions are crucial for the health of our democracy and the future of religion in the digital public square.

Even with the immense complexity of these debates, one thing is abundantly clear: the dignity of our neighbor is at stake around the world. We must keep that truth central to this debate over digital governance, whether here in the United States or abroad under the repressive hand of authoritarian regimes. Though these issues may at times seem just to be about tweets, posts, and even the contours of particular content moderation policies, they must be seen as ways that human beings, created in God’s very image, are able to communicate, express themselves, and do life in an ever-increasing digital society.

Tag: Internet

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Explainer: Justice Thomas and the possibility of reining in Big Tech

What was the case about?

What does this case have to do with online content moderation?

What does this mean?

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