Ep. 149 || “Mom, stop looking at your phone!” Transcript
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Emily: Welcome back to another episode of Risen Motherhood. I'm Emily Jensen here with my sister in law Laura Wifler.
Laura: Hi friends!
Emily: I felt like I needed to reintroduce us with our full names because it's a new year. It's 2020 I don't know, maybe we need to restate our names again.
Laura: That's right. If you guys are new here we want to welcome you back to a fresh season of Risen Motherhood. It's always fun at the beginning of a year to set new things in place, and do new fun things. We have a whole season of awesome stuff planned for you guys, so we hope you'll stick around. We'll be running the show every week through May.
Emily: Yes, and real quick, in case again, if you're a little bit newer here, welcome.Also if you want to know how we are undergirding our thinking, how we are processing through topics, and the structure and the thinking behind what we do, you might want to check out the book that we wrote. It released September 3, 2019, a few months back. It's just called Risen Motherhood, Gospel Hope For Everyday Moments. In that book, we really talk about the framework of the gospel and how it impacts and changes the way that we think about everything in our lives.
Laura: Yes, so if you want to grow in this skill, or do what we're doing here today, we encourage you to check out that book. It's available anywhere books are sold: Amazon, Barnes and Noble...
Emily: Christianbook.com
Laura: Yep, Christianbook.com, and head to risenmotherhood.com/book and you will find all the info. All that you can ever want. All right. Speaking of tech, I'm excited about today's show.
Emily: Yes. Okay, let's talk about social media. As we wanted to jump into the topic of social media, we want to zoom back a little bit and say, why would we address this topic? It feels like—”are we sure we want to go there?” It really goes back to our heart at Risen Motherhood. Laura and I do this week in and week out because we want to help moms, as we are also preaching to ourselves. Helping ourselves to be faithful in this big job we have of caring for our children faithfully, passing along the gospel to them. It's the main goal of our ministry and all the content we put out, and that is our heartbeat and what we try to do in every show.
Laura: Right. As you guys know, one of our main vehicles for getting the message out is using social media. It's using digital content, using phones, computers, all those things. Talking about that today does feel a little bit like, “Are we going to shoot ourselves in the foot?” [laughter] We are excited to tackle it, and I know Emily referenced this, but we're both users of social media. We both really enjoy being on it. We find it as a great spot for making friends. We have lots of real friends that are purely online friends. We've never met them in real life, but they have become sweet relationships to us—very real relationships to us. We also find ideas for writing, new resources. I love finding home design and like decor ideas on the internet.
Emily: I like finding recipes there sometimes.
Laura: Yes. Me too. I love those cooking videos. I think I've shared my love for those before, but I just love watching those fast-action cooking videos, forever and always.
Emily: Yes, and it's always fun to keep up with, like, grandparents or like nieces and nephews.
Laura: Family and friends.
Emily: Family and friends. Like sometimes when my kids are with my parents, or in-laws like, I'm not totally sure what they're doing, but then I'll see a picture pop up on social media. It's like, they're out and about.
Laura: Your parents are really good about posting!
Emily: Yes, they are!Anyways, we just want to say upfront that Laura and I both use social media, and we have found great benefit there.
Laura: Yes, in the new year, a lot of you guys are probably thinking a little bit about your social media habits. Emily and I have had so many conversations about social media. It's just a very big reality in her and I's life, and we assume many, if not all of you guys are thinking about this. Actually, we came across a recent study from 2019, that said that the average person spends over two and a half hours a day on social media. This equates to actually seven years' worth of time over the course of an average lifespan! Which is just mind-blowing that you would spend seven years of your life on social media! That's crazy!
Emily: It is mindblowing. When we hear two and a half hours, the reality is most of us don't realize that we're doing that because it's pockets throughout the day. It's five minutes here.Ten minutes there, 20 minutes there. When you're looking at your phone and you're scrolling, it can go by so fast. Like, I have one of those limit things on my phone which we'll talk about later, that will say, “I want 15 more minutes.” I'll feel like, “Wait, where did that 15 minutes go? I was just scrolling for a couple of minutes!” If our ministry goal is to help moms understand and apply God's word and the truth of the gospel to everyday life, then at some point, we have to talk about these stats. The fact that moms are spending potentially an average of two and a half hours a day just on social media—e have to start asking questions about that.
Like, is this helping us? Is this helping us look to Christ and be faithful? Is this adding positively to our lives? Is it serving us or are we serving it? Are we using it with thankfulness or freedom or have we become enslaved to it and addicted? We really have to ask those questions. Because it is such a significant thing for our generation.
Laura: Yes, so we want to start off with just asking you a question that might seem basic, but we might be also delivering something that you never thought about before. The question is:is social media really as neutral or benign as we think it is?” I think most of us would say, “Social media, in and of itself is really just benign.” That's how often Emily and I think about it. That it's neither good nor bad. It's just this modern tool, gives us information. It's just like the radio or the TV or whatever.
In many ways, we think that is really, really true. Because when we get on Instagram, or Facebook or whatever on social media, no one's trying to make us do really bad things generally. Instead you're using it in a way of, "Hey, let's post pictures of my kids. I'm going to post my meal, what I'm doing, a trip that I've taken, stuff like that."
I think that as Emily and I have done a lot more research, we're both growing more and more—e're both thinking more about the idea, I guess, of seeing that the creators of social media don't necessarily mean it for it to be this total neutral influence in our lives. They actually really want us to use it all of the time. Use it a lot. They want it to gain a lot of ground in our lives to impact our purchasing decisions, our beliefs, our attitudes, our actions.
I think that this is something that just needs to be talked about. We want to bring it to the surface today, talk about what is really behind social media. And not just social media, like all apps on our phones. Maybe we should use a broader term here of “apps.”
Emily: Yes, and one thing that's helped me think about this is just the fact that these are businesses. A business has a goal, and an end and the true customer of social media is really the advertisers. The moms with the profiles who are posting pictures of their kids are not the customers. We are the users of that and they--
Laura: Actually we’re what's being sold.
Emily: Yes. Being sold.
Laura: Like we're being sold in the end to the advertisers. Keep going.
Emily: No, that's so good. What that means is, is that the creators of social media and the true customers of social media—I don't want to put motives on them—but they don't care if we spend a ton of time on our phone. They actually want us to stay on social media. They want us to click on things. They want us to buy things. They want us to get sucked in. We're going to talk a little bit more about what that looks like. But that was just a really helpful realization to me, that actually, the people behind this app want me to spend a ton of time on here.
Laura: That's right. Emily and I recently read this book called How to Break Up With Your Phone by Catherine Price. We'll link it in the show notes. It's not a Christian resource, but it is fascinating. She calls this engagement—she refers to as the “currency of attention.” As Emily was saying, basically, social media apps are after more and more of your attention, because then they can turn around and they can sell it. They can make a revenue, they can make profit from the advertisers. What they want you to do is, instead of living life, they want you to pick up your phone and get on it, and be interactive with it.
This is where some of the research just gets crazy. We would encourage you, I think we'll link a few things to show notes, but there are lots of books about this now. More and more research is being done. We're not going to be able to cover the gamut or explain everything, but I think that it's important to just see that a lot of these things, social media apps, or just any interactive app, they're designed with a purpose of addicting you. This is where things get a little bit crazy.
Emily: [chuckles] Yes, it is interesting. Basically, the way it works is that apps are designed to give you a hit of dopamine. Dopamine is a brain chemical that does a lot of things, but mostly it makes us feel excited and happy. It's like a little reward in our brain. They have designed the apps in such a way that gives us a dopamine hit at just the right time that makes us feel addicted to it. It makes us want to keep coming back. There's another thing that happens on social media called “intermittent reward.” That is like, “I don't know what I'm going to find when I check my apps.”. Sometimes I'm going to find messages, sometimes I'm not. Sometimes I'm going to find likes, sometimes I'm not. That “not knowing” actually causes us to check constantly. It's something our brain is wired to do. Speaking of brain wiring there is something in app design called “brain hacking.” Basically there are interviews and research that shows that social media creators have actually teamed up with neuroscientists to understand how they can rewire our brains and our habits so that we will want to spend more time on the apps. They are like actually on the offensive trying to figure out how they can make us do this more.
Laura: Yes. We want to be clear here too like they're probably very nice people on the other end.
Emily: Yes, totally.
Laura: They're probably entirely un-evil.
Emily: It's a business.
Laura: It's a business, and it doesn't mean that they're wrong to try to do their job, to try to get us to use our phones more. We don't want to say that or have that be the main point. The point here is that in general these apps are being created to addict you, with that purpose of trying to get you to use them more and more. And actually, as you use them—ot just an app, but your phone entirely—your brain is actually changing. There are very, very real studies out there that show that the chemistry and the makeup of your brain is changing. Actually a lot of studies are showing now that it's also linked to increasing mental illness.
Mental illness is majorly on the rise, and numerous studies have started to show that phones have a negative impact on our health, our sleep activity, and the of course, mental health as I mentioned.
I think that these are very real things to understand. For me, I've read a lot of books about not using my phone, lessening my phone usage. I was saying to Emily just the other day, that a lot of those things are great. Of course, I want to be more present with my family, of course, I want to pray more instead of being on social media. But when I started to understand how my brain is actually changing with more and more use on my phone it was the first time for me that I felt like, "This is a little more scary than what I thought."
I don't want that to happen! I's changing how much we can focus on things, what our attention span is—hat for me was very motivating, realizing that I want to be able to focus on a task, and I want to be able to have a good attention span towards something. I want to be able to think clearly. Realizing the effects of what this type of technology is having on my brain has been probably the number one thing that's made me want to change my habits.
Emily: Exactly, and in a broader context of the conversation that we're having today, a lot of us are saying, "We want to be able to focus on the calling and the task God has given us, and we want to be able to work hard on it. We want to be able to serve well and we want to be able to love well." When we are distracted, when we can't focus and we're struggling and our brain is being rewired in this way, it can make it more challenging for us to love others well and fulfill our calling. That's the main reason why we are concerned about this.
Laura: The other day a couple of weeks ago I went to a mall for the first time in many years. My husband and I took my children and my children were like, "Mom, what is this place?" I was like, "Oh yes, you probably haven't been to a mall before." [laughter] I don't think our kids know what a mall is really. They were amazed! It was so funny because after we got done, a couple of hours of shopping (we had some returns to do of things I had ordered—online of course.‚ After we got in the car I said to Mike, "I just feel so gross because I feel like I just wanted everything in the mall." I just wanted to buy all these things.
I found all these new things that I never knew I wanted, never knew I needed, and suddenly all I could do was just feel all these feelings of needing, needing, needing to buy things. It was interesting because I had been to a mall before, I understand how malls work, but I think because I had spent so many years away from a mall, for the first time I realized what it's actually like in there. There are often not many windows, everything is pushing you to buy things, from the models to the salespeople, to the signs flashing about the sales they're having, and the great deals that you can get, to having food available and bathrooms—and you never need to leave.
I started to realize, "Oh my goodness, everything in here is designed to make me purchase things." That's very much how social media is. I think when we go in there we don't notice it because we're all so used to it. We're not surprised anymore, we don't feel the feelings, but social media is designed to say, "Click this, go here, keep scrolling."
Emily: "FOMO, fear of missing out. Look at what your friends are doing."
Laura: Exactly. It's totally designed in a way to create these feelings. When you enter a mall you shouldn't be surprised if you want to purchase something. Of course, that's probably going to happen‚if you enter a mall you're going to want something. Same with social media, we should not be surprised if we feel jealous or envy or FOMO on social media because that's in many ways, what it's designed to do.
Everything is pointing to that, so I think when we take some steps away from social media and start to view it as it really is, we can’t go in thinking, "Okay, this is not going to affect me at all," but instead in some ways be prepared for battle. Be prepared to fight the fact that you're going to want to buy something.
Emily: Yes. To sum that up—I love that analogy Laura—I think what we're trying to say is social media is not the source of our sin, but it is certainly an environment that just nurtures it and it says, "Yes, come here. Act on that," or "Use me to numb your sad emotions with the hits of dopamine," or "Escape the pressure in your everyday lives."So, the question, “Is it neutral?” We think it's risky. We think that it can be helpful but that it has risks. Then if that's true we want to ask, “How are we anticipating and protecting against the temptations that we are going to face on social media?” Because sin makes promises to us.It says—It doesn't care if you spend your life to try to get something. It is trying to suck you in and it doesn't care if you follow God. Your flesh wants you to chase whatever you think you can find at the end of that. We think that social media can be that way, which means we need to take active steps to mitigate the risks and to protect our hearts.
Laura: All right. There are two main questions that we would encourage all of you guys to ask. We're asking these things ourselves. The first is frequency, how much time are we spending looking at and posting on social media? When are we doing this? Are we happy with how much we're doing it? Is this the example that you want to set for your kids?
These are things you've probably heard before, but these are very valid and good questions to ask: “How often are you engaging with social media? Taking a good hard look and asking what are you consuming and posting when you're on social media? What are you filling your heart, your mind, your soul with?
Is this content that helps you to love God and to follow him and enjoy his creation or are these things creating discontent and envy and frustration towards the life that God has given you? There's going to be a lot of grey areas within these and Christians are going to make different choices. There's probably boundary lines that we all would say, "That's too far on either side," but within that there are a lot of different choices that a believer can make. Know yourself.
Then also we would encourage you to do a few different things. The first is just set some time limits on apps, have some personal boundaries that you're going to be using.You can do that by——talking to your husband, ask him what he thinks of your social media use. Ask your friends, see what they suggest, what they see you doing, and then get some accountability in that. That would probably be the first and number one thing.
Emily: Another thing is to feel freedom—this is something I've done more, to take breaks from social media. There could be maybe once a week you take a break, and on Saturday or Sunday or whatever, you just delete the apps from your phone. Maybe every few months you take longer breaks, or once a year you take a month off of social media. There's all different types of breaks. If you notice like, "My heart's really struggling right now," guess what? You can delete the apps for a while. Most of us, at least in our personal lives have that freedom to just walk away for a little while if we need to.
Another thing that is helpful is there are—his is maybe a bigger investment—but watches and different devices that we can wear that help us get text message and phone call notifications.
You can see the time, you can control a few things, but you don't necessarily have your phone on your body, so you can't check Instagram, you can't check Facebook.
Laura: I thought that's super helpful one. I don't have a watch like that but I never knew that that would be a benefit because you do think, "I got to get my babysitter updates," or "What if my husband needs me?" so that's a good one.
Emily: Yes. Another thing you can do is just start viewing social media only on your computer browser. I've noticed as I check on my browser it's just a little bit less fun. I see other stuff I need to do too on my computer or I have like limited time at my computer, so there's just some built-in protections there. There's a lot of different options you can do. A verse we just wanted to pull out for this show is 1st Corinthians 6-12 where Paul says, "Everything is permissible for me, but not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible for me but I will not be mastered by anything."
These are the things that we're trying to ask: Have we been mastered by social media? Is it telling us what to do or are we telling it what to do? We are saying, "No, this is how it's going to serve my purposes and it's going to fit into my life so that I can love God and love others. That's really important to evaluate.
Laura: Yes, I think that, and many of us are not great judges of our own use. I was just thinking about myself and I would have said, "I'm not that addicted," then I started doing some hard looks and I was like, "Wow, I think I lean on this a lot more than I thought," when I really started to dig into those things. I just encourage you to be more honest than a quick flashing thought, but instead to take some time to truly reflect on it.
I think that all of this wraps up in us asking the question of, "What's going to matter at the end of our life?" Remember we gave, at the beginning, the two and a half hours most people spend on average for social media? It's a real challenge when you start to think about, "Well what if I've started to give that time to reading the word, to praying, to learning about Christ?" Most that 2.5 hours is broken up into small pieces of time, but what if we spent that time worshiping God, singing a hymn, studying in the catechism, reading the word, listening to an audio bible?
Emily: Go for a walk, read a book to your kids. Engage in a relationship.
Laura: Yes. It's a huge amount of time. Two and a half hours is huge, and we all are saying, "We don't have enough time! We don't have enough time!" I mean, I say this all the time, but I tracked my hours, and I was actually at three hours! That was my average! I'm just going to tell everybody.
[laughter]
Laura: What if I took that three hours back?(And that's not just on social media it's on all phone use, but still.) I think if we want to be truly equipped for the work that God has given us then social media is probably not going to do that. It might give us a little bit of encouragement. We admit Risen Motherhood is on there, we hope that it is valuable and helpful to you and we hope that it does encourage you when you interact with it, but we also think that it doesn't have power towards moving you towards holiness. That is only the work of God and His Spirit as He applies the word of Christ to our hearts.
We want to just encourage you to remember what really matters in all of this and what are you growing towards, what are you moving towards and how is the time that you spend each and every day, the little packets the big chunks of time. How are those things growing you into Christ-likeness and to truly take a good look at that?
Emily: Yes. Again we are not trying to give anybody a big guilt trip. We actually think that it's important that Christians are present on social media and that we are bringing the gospel to as many people as we can influence all over the world whether that's directly, like what we're trying to do or indirectly. You are a business owner who is a Christian, you are just a mom and a friend and somebody who is a Christian that is sharing content that is glorifying Christ in the way that you speak in the way that you're showing self-control.
I even think we can be an incredible example for the world of, "Wow, there's somebody who's on social media who's using it but it looks like she's still joyful and peaceful and it's not in control of her life." It's good. Christians being on social media can be really, really good. This is always a great time, the new year, to re-evaluate our habits and slowly make small changes with accountability and prayer and the Word of God to say, "How can we make the best use of the very little time we have on Earth?"
Laura: If you want more we're going to have a lot of stuff in our show notes but a few main books come to the surface for us:The Tech-Wise Family, 10 Ways Your Phone is Changing Y ou, Competing Spectacles, and How To Break Up With Your Phone. Of course, you can find our show notes over at risenmotherhood.com. Click on the podcast button and you'll find them there. In addition--
Emily: Follow us on social media. [laughter]
Laura: Find us on social media. [laughter] All right. We're at Risen Motherhood on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter but don't interact too much!! [laughter] We hope you guys have a great day. Thanks for joining us. Thanks, guys.