Social Media 02: When It Makes You Mad Transcript
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Laura Wifler: Hey friends, Laura Wifler here. Welcome back to another episode of Risen Motherhood.
In just a minute, my sister-in-law, Emily Jensen, will be joining me for the convo, but before we get to that, I just wanted to remind you guys about the social media
“Wake Up” workbook that we developed to go along with these episodes. So often, as you guys listen along with Emily and I, we are not going to answer all of your questions. In fact, we might even raise more questions than we answer and to help with that, we designed this “Wake Up” workbook because we really want you to be able to think for yourself—to really ask God what he has for you as you are on social media.
We encourage you to gather with a group of friends or just other wise people to talk about some of this content and to think through your own social media use because so much of it is really personal decisions and personal conscience. That workbook is designed to help give you some guided thinking and some Scripture verses as you consider what's going on when you interact with social media. Another quick ask we have of you guys before we get to the show is if you would take five minutes to give us a rating and review. As you guys know, it's really how other people find the podcast, how they decide to hit play. You can do that on Apple Podcasts, but you can also do that anywhere that you listen to your preferred podcast.
It does not have to be on Apple Podcasts at all. You can do that whatever your player is, whether that's Overcast or Stitcher or any of the other podcast players. If you guys would take a couple minutes just to rate and review the show, that would be so helpful and really help a lot more women be able to find our show and hopefully have them thinking more critically about social media too because we really believe the world would be a little bit of a better place if everyone started thinking more deeply on this topic. With that, let's get to the show.
Emily Jensen: Laura, I'm curious if you've ever experienced this: where you are scrolling through your social media feed and you see a post, and all of a sudden out of nowhere, even though your day has been going fine, you start feeling angry.
Laura: 100.
Emily: Or your heart starts palpitating.
Laura: Hands down.
Emily: Or, all of a sudden, you're feeling stressed and anxious, and you're like, "I don't know why."
Laura: For sure.
Emily: Or have you ever felt guilty all of a sudden about something you did or said with your kids?
Laura: Yes. Totally. Yes. Good question.
Emily: It sounds like you have a normal experience on social media. [Laughter]
Laura: I'm glad to hear it's normal, but I hate it. That feeling of getting onto social media when you expect—I'm going to be honest and say almost an escape. And then you end up coming away with feeling like—it will be like my day will be going great, and then the next second I'll be like, "Oh, I'm the worst ever." That's how it goes.
Emily: Exactly. Hopefully that gives you guys a little taste of what we're talking about today—our experience on social media, consuming the post, scrolling through the feeds, and just asking ourselves the question: "What were we coming here for? What were we expecting?" Then, how are we responding to the way that that post made us feel?
Laura: Why does social media cause the angst when I feel like I can do a lot of other things and not be provoked? What we've seen, just even from our own experience or observing others and even our own lives—we might be frustrated because of what someone did post. We're frustrated because they posted about their accomplishment that they had in business; their gorgeous home; their beautiful, happy family; a sweet mom skill they have. At least for me, I often feel like, "Well, I'm happy for them. I want that for them, but I want it for me too." And more than likely, it's this moment where you're just feeling bad for yourself.
Another one of the ways we react when people do post is that we disagree with what they posted. This is the whole "Hey, this swaddle is best." "No, I think my swaddle is best." "Hey, this food is what's healthy." "No, that food is what's healthy." "Hey, this is how I'm educating my kid, and it's awesome, and I love it." "No, actually, there's a lot of problems with that way of doing it and you shouldn't do it." "Oh, that lamp that you just posted, it's too expensive. You shouldn't have done that. It's not a good use of money." Or maybe it's even a Bible teacher we follow, and we're like, "I disagree with what you posted. I don't think that's what the Bible says." Or "I don't think that's how you should associate." There's a lot of feelings within that.
Emily: Yes, and on the flip side of that, I think we can become mad and discontent and frustrated with what people didn't post. Maybe the post didn't acknowledge our specific situation or experience. A lot of us have walked through pain and suffering. Maybe there's miscarriage, infertility, adoption, disability, the pain of losing a parent or a child. Maybe you're a military spouse, or you've just been through a big move or transition, or you have a struggling relationship with your parent. All of these things feel very big and important in our lives, so we get frustrated when those things are not acknowledged in the post that's out there.
Maybe they're talking about cats, but we're upset because it's not about dogs and there is a real pain there, but again, those are the types of things that make us frustrated. Another thing might be because somebody is not posting about our pet issue, our specific issue, the thing that we feel most passionate about. Maybe this is schooling, government policies, social justice, sewing your own clothes, homesteading. It can go on and on and on. I'm not picking on these things. I'm not trying to be snarky. We all have a thing that we are constantly looking for somebody to talk about and affirm online, and we can get frustrated when our favorite influencers don't post about that or don't speak out about that.
Laura: Yes, absolutely, and I think that all of these feelings where we're coming to social media with expectations, and we're coming and thinking, "Hey, this is what you should post. This is what you shouldn't post." These feelings of anger or envy or discouragement are really a post-fall reality. God created us to be known, to be loved, to be seen, to be cared for, but only Adam and Eve ever experienced that to its full effect. Now, because of the fall, the reality is, with the sin in our hearts, we do think the world is all about us.
We think we're these little gods. We are navel-gazers, and I think it's funny because I just heard somebody once say, "We don't even know how obsessed with ourselves we are," and I thought that was so helpful. How much do I think about myself? I am constantly thinking about me. Another thing is we don't like to feel offended. We don't like to feel disagreed with. We really do want to be coddled. We want to be cared for, we want to be catered to, and then when we're not, we become vindictive.
We want to hurt the people who hurt us and our identity begins to be found in things other than Christ. So, this is something that is really interesting to look into, because I think what we want to do is say, "Well, this is because of the photo. This is because of the comment. This is because of what we saw online." But the reality is it's that our identities weren't resting in Christ to begin with. That these things that people are posting is not the causation of what you're feeling. It's actually only stirring up and bringing to the surface what is probably already hidden in there.
Emily: Yes, and I think what you're talking about, Laura, is where we see the sin online. The mommy wars, the cancel culture, rude DMs or comments, feeling like we need to go to battle online when it's not our battle. That's where all this comes from. It's the sin in our hearts, and I think it's important for those of us who are lurkers, and I'm one of them.
Laura: Yes, I'm a lurker.
Emily: Speaking to all the lurkers out there, we're not immune to this. We are feeling these same things in our hearts. We just don't get our thumbs out and our thumbs involved, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't address those feelings or that we shouldn't ask the question, "Hey, where is this coming from? Why was I expecting this person to be a certain way to begin with?" It's really for all of us.
Laura: With that, we want to talk a little bit about online accountability. Some people like to call this cancel culture. It's been changed a little bit lately to accountability, but really, what is our role as people online, both with Christians and with non-believers? What does it look like to love people well on social media? That's really what we want to talk about because these feelings are innocent—like Emily is saying, a lot of us are lurkers. We're not going to say anything, but we're feeling these things inside. But also, if we have seen anything from social media, there is almost an epidemic among humans to be unkind, and so it's something that we feel like is important to talk about because we haven't really heard a lot of people talk about it in a really thoughtful way. We want to start with just saying, no matter what—no matter how you're feeling, all that kind of stuff—do you have the whole story?
Emily: Because when we are getting a peek into someone's lives, that's what it is. It's a tiny sliver of the iceberg. We can't actually see what's going on behind the scenes in their home. We don't know what happened before the video was taken and after the video was taken. We don't really understand the depth of what's going on in someone's heart. We may judge instantaneously and think, "Oh, they should have been wiser, they should have been smarter in the way they said that" or "They talked about this, but they didn't talk about that" or "They misspoke here" or "I think they're misrepresenting," and it's like—we just don't know, only God knows.
Social media has limits and only God examines the heart. I think another proverb that I always related to this is Proverbs 18:17: "The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him." Of course, that's talking a little bit more about a court setting, but the underlying principle behind that is, "Hey, whatever you see first seems right, but there's always more to the story." There's always another side to the story, and I think sometimes when we come to social media and we see the posts that make us frustrated because of what they did say or what they didn't say, we don't stop to consider what we don't know.
Laura: Yes. Then in that moment when we're deciding "But I do know, I do know," we have this tendency to want to play God. We have this expectation that, "Hey, it is my job to educate and enlighten people to my way of thinking." Oftentimes, we sincerely believe that this is the right way. We tell ourselves we are helping, we are showing them a better way, and it might truly be, but we want to encourage everyone that before we start typing and before we start correcting, are we first asking, "Is there any wicked way in me?" Maybe not, but maybe yes. We want to get back to the root issue of what is causing the fact that, like, I feel like I need to correct this, I feel like I need to step in, I feel like I need to say something.
Ask yourself, "Is there something that I need to repent of? Do I need to confess to God about how this photo makes me feel?" Even if you offer kind feedback, but inside you're fuming and steaming. I know I've had some moments where I am very frustrated that this person did this or said this, or I don't like the way that they handled that. I may not say anything or maybe I'll even be really kind in my response, but inside I am feeling pride, or envy, or bitterness. Take time to see if there is a deeper issue at play.
Emily: I think it's worth pausing right there, Laura, to talk a little bit more about pride because I think that's something that might be lurking in a lot of our hearts, and we don't even realize it. It can be sneaky. It can disguise itself sometimes as "But I'm just being a crusader for truth." Certainly, there is a type of pride where we're just ignoring or defying God. We talk about that—unbelievers are prideful because they don't want to acknowledge God—but pride can also be haughtiness. Essentially, that's thinking better about ourselves than we actually are and thinking of others as worse than us or thinking that others need us and need our help in order to be better. That's also a subtle form of pride. The truth is, though we know people don't ultimately need our help, they need God's help.
They need to the supernatural transformation of the Holy Spirit to change. We are just a vessel for God to use. We are not the actual mechanism for change, and we should conduct ourselves accordingly—as a humble servant, not the master who is in charge of everything. Even if we are delivering feedback or we are saying, "I do have a truth to share," we can do that in a way that doesn't come from a posture of "You need me to tell you this. I'm going to change you if I just say it a certain way," but to say, "No, I'm leaving this in the hands of the Lord to do the work. I am just sharing the truth."
Laura: I think a really good gut check question for people to ask, building off what you're saying, Emily, is: if I feel the need to respond to this and to offer some sort of a corrective comment, why? Why am I offering it? If it is to genuinely help someone to learn and grow—just take it from two people who do receive comments like this. If your heart is truly to help, is there a way that you can do this privately? Oftentimes, a corrective comment can come off as publicly shaming, and we may not hear it that way as we are typing. I think there's a whole other series we could do on how to type in a friendly way. [Laughter]
We are at a loss for—it sounds right to us in our ears as we type, but how it's read is very different. But consider that if you're feeling the need to post it publicly, it's probably more that you feel pride of looking wise in others' eyes. Is there a way that you can offer that DM in a DM?
Emily: I wanted to share this first before we move on, and I'm going to add in different words for emphasis, so this is not the exact quote of the original verse, but Proverbs 26:12: "Do you see a mom who is wise in her own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for her." I think we just all have to be cautious when we're being wise in our own eyes.
Laura: Yes. That's good. Okay, another thing to ask yourself, as we build here on whether or not you should comment, is ask yourself: is this a mountain or a molehill? Often, in our sin and pain, we start to make things way too big of a deal. I know I have done this. It's the whole concept of "Hurt people hurt people." Sometimes we cannot step back enough, outside of our sorrow and pain, to see the reality. We start to lose discernment on what is worth our time and what is worth our energy. We begin making third, fourth, fifth—I don't know how far out the circles go, but the orders of importance. If the first order of importance is the gospel, and we start making all of these other things a matter of first importance, we start to confuse them with the gospel.
If we feel like, "Hey, I'm not sure—I want to respond to this" or "I feel like I'm really frustrated about this"—is there someone that you can talk to in real life about it? Or someone that you can quick text to get a second opinion? How can you err on the side of guarding your tongue? Emily, that verse she just read—and I want to add another: Proverbs 13:3: "Whoever guards his mouth preserves his life; he who opens wide his lips comes to ruin." That's some conviction. Ask God, "Is this my quarrel? Is this really something that God is calling me to correct and fix?"
Emily: To kind of piggyback on the quarreling thing, there's another proverb. Man, Proverbs is just rich with social media wisdom—
Laura: —Seriously. Can we pause for a hot second and say—I think if people read Proverbs and Psalms and applied those two books—the wisdom, particularly in Proverbs—applied that to social media, it would be a vastly different landscape. Even if just the Christians did it. It is unbelievable how we just think, "Oh, it's disconnected." Okay, go ahead.
Emily: Okay. There is this verse, and actually I read this in my quiet time and I wrote it down on a post-it because it just jumped out at me. Proverbs 26:17 says, "Whoever meddles in a quarrel not his own is like one who takes a passing dog by the ears." Now, remember back in the day they did not have necessarily domesticated dogs the same way. They were wild dogs. What do you think happens when you grab a wild dog by the ears? They bite your arm off or they attack you. It's like, "Hey, if you want to get injured or killed, get involved in a quarrel that's not your own."
Of course, this is all figurative language, but I think sometimes we insert ourselves in fights and quarrels and controversies that have nothing to do with us, that no one asked our opinion on, that have nothing to do with our real life or our real family or our real community. Then we’re like, "I'm so stressed out. I'm so anxious. I'm up all night, I'm fighting these battles," and we're going to get to this again in another show, but all of that internet exertion affects us for how we are faithful in our real life. Okay. Whoa, we're going to—I'm getting off my soapbox.
Laura: No, that’s good. We're getting into our own things, but if it still feels like, "Hey, a corrective comment would be important to share here," a big question to ask is: how are you modeling the fruit of the Spirit online? This is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. That's a lot of things. That's a lot of qualifiers of how we would need to walk in love as we try to offer correction online. I think the first question is, if someone is consistently bothersome to you, or if you're consistently feeling like "That's frustrating, they didn't get this right. I'm up at night thinking about this" or "They're causing anxiety and frustration in my life"—can you just unfollow?
It is powerful, and so as consumers, we need to be thinking about who we're following and editing that list consistently. We'll talk about that more, but essentially, you have all the power in the world to not be frustrated and provoked by somebody, especially if they are consistently doing that in your life.
Emily: Absolutely. I think, even in terms of offering some kind of correction or change for an influencer, consider a thoughtful email or DM that comes from a truly kind place. Pray about this beforehand. Pray for the influencer, the ministry, or the person on the other end who's going to be receiving this. Pray for their heart, pray for your heart, pray for your words. I think you're going to type something different probably if you have prayed about it than if you haven't. Then give feedback from a kind place that is on their team, that admits, "I don't know it all either. I may not have the whole story. I may not understand your decision-making process. I realize I don't know all the facts, but here's something I'm observing."
I think we all love a compliment sandwich, and I think truth and clarity is kindness. I know one of our board members, Ruth, says that a lot, and I always really appreciate that clarity is kindness. We want to be clear. I don't think you have to beat around the bush, but certainly, coming from a place of humility goes a long, long way.
Laura: And this is, to be honest, like the biggest way to see change, if that's something that you are really feeling convicted to help someone see.
We have genuinely made changes at Risen Motherhood because someone has come from a place of loving our community, and someone has been invested in our community and has seen our track record and watched how the ministry has changed and grown and taken the whole ministry in context. We have genuinely had really good feedback from people. Usually, it comes in a DM or in an email. A longer form, softer, private form of communication that has really—for us, while it's been hard at times, we thought, "Oh, this is a really great point, and this person is right and they came to us with a humble attitude and humble heart and we definitely want to make that change." I think that if you really cared about changing what you see online, even you taking a little bit more time to craft a response would probably be far more effective than a "well, actually…" comment online.
Emily: I don't even remember when we were going to talk about this, but I'm hitting Laura's computer and my arms are flying. I want to say—
Laura: —We're completely off of our outline. We're just talking about everything about it right now, but I think this is good—
Emily: —about revenge.
Laura: Yes.
Emily: I think sometimes, when we're offering feedback, we're coming from a place of—again, going back to the beginning of our show, "You said something that I didn't like or didn't agree with, or you didn't say something that I felt like you should say and I'm hurt, and now I want to get revenge." We take matters into our own hands, and we try to harm somebody's reputation or shame them or take business away from them or whatever as like our way of causing pain on them because they cause pain on us, and we know that scripturally, that is not okay. Romans 12:17—we talk about this verse literally all the time in our house—repaying no one evil for evil.
There's another one—only repay evil with good, but "give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.' To the contrary, 'if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head. '" Oh, it's at the end here: "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." What if we took that mindset into social media?
Laura: 100 and that we were—we erred on the side of being generous and charitable? I think so often we react in fear that we are going to lose this person, that this person has stepped a toe outside of having the same beliefs as I do or acting in a way that I expect and that I want, and again, it's like coming to social media with certain expectations and we come to Christians with certain expectations or even our friends online. "They shouldn't have done that. That was weird," and we start to put ourselves in the seat of judge and jury, saying, "Well, I am God, I have decided what is the first importance, second importance, and third," and it's all these extrabiblical things that we're imposing on people.
We can step back and just say, "Is this really important?" It might have made me sad to see that picture or it might have disappointed me to see that person comment in that way, and I think that that's okay to feel. I think it comes from a genuine place of us saying like, "I really do believe this, I really do think that this is true," but have we really ordered what is important? What is the salvific issue? And even what our place is to hold that person accountable?
Emily: Well, we can have in-person conversations. I think that's just another aspect to this that we didn't really get into, that if there's something concerning online—for instance, maybe you lead women's ministry at your church or you lead a Bible study or you lead a neighborhood book discussion and you hear moms and women coming to these groups and they're talking about people they're following online who are sharing false ideas about motherhood, false ideas about what to buy. That is a great, great place to have the conversation about doctrine, about what that person is teaching and whether or not it's biblical. To have that in the context of that relationship.
Because my guess is you are going to have an impact on your friend and on what your friend is consuming and believing because you know her in real life, you're walking through that conversation—more so than you're going to have an impact on a stranger with your comment. Now, we don't know how God uses all things, but I just want to encourage that action if you are concerned about the way that an influencer or a big name online is affecting moms in your real-life. That's a great place to talk about that. Then, another thing you said that I liked was just this idea of expectation. Are we expecting people to be perfect as Christ is perfect? We may not say that out loud, but it's that old adage of "you hold other people”—
Laura: To a different standard than you do, than yours?
Emily: Yes, it's like you judge them by their action versus their intent, and you judge yourself by your intent instead of your action.
Laura: That’s a whole other conversation.
Emily: On social media, how often do we judge people or do we expect them to be perfect, and then as soon as they fall or as soon as they messed up, it's like, "I can't believe that." It's like I actually shouldn't be shocked when people are sinners. I shouldn't be shocked to find out they have a double life. I shouldn't be shocked if they're teaching something not true. Guess what? That is what we learn in Scripture that sinners, this side of heaven, do. Instead, I should be expecting those things, looking for those things, and then not necessarily being rattled as much by them.
Laura: Well, and I think that we are not offering them the same grace that we expect for ourselves. We look at their life and yes, because you're an influencer, or because you have this many followers, or even just like because you posted it online, because it's there—I don't care how many followers you have—you better curate that perfectly, even though there's the whole side conversation of "It can't be perfect, can't be too perfect." Just this idea that I think we do not offer grace for the sanctification process, and even in cancel culture how we're bringing up tweets from 10 years ago, and we're bringing up videos and all these things that people said from 10, 12 years ago. We're not offering the same grace that we expect.
Even just taking 10 minutes to put ourselves in those shoes and to say, "I would really want someone to say I'm not the same person I was 10 years ago." How can we honor another human being by saying, "We're on the same path, we're both growing towards glory?"
And with that, to kind of close this up here, I think that, though, there are times where it is important to have some true accountability. Emily mentioned people leading double lives, and there are some really big things that happen online that do deserve—perhaps not from the person per se—but that we need to say, "I can't support this person anymore" out of love for other believers and out of love for helping other people get the best of what's out there.
I'm not going to share about their books anymore or I'm not going to follow them. I'm not going to retweet their tweets anymore. I think there are other things that we can do as well that do hold someone accountable, but it's done not in this malicious, vile way of "I'm going to get back at you and I'm going to publicly decry you." There probably are some good spots for that still—like I can think of long-form articles that someone might write that are thoughtful, or I can think of some things—but in general, I think that it is okay to say there are times when someone does deserve big changes in the way that you interact and share their content, and it can still be done from a loving manner and viewpoint. Does that make sense?
Emily: Yes, definitely. Final word here. I think what I hear you saying is Jesus Christ is the only perfect person who ever lived and he is a firm foundation. He's never changing. He is never going to or has misspoken or done something to hurt us or done something wrong or misrepresented himself or not led us or influenced us in the right direction. Jesus Christ is it, and he should be the biggest one in our lives and in our hearts and the one who we place all that weight and all that expectation on. Then everybody else is human and, you know, think accordingly.
Laura: That's a great place to end, Emily. At the end of the day, we all need to understand what our expectations are for when we interact with social media, and we need to be honest about what our tolerance levels are for other people's opinions or beliefs and lifestyles and recognize exactly what Emily's saying—that we can only expect Christ to be perfect. At the end of the day, all of us—everyone on the internet—we're all accountable to God.