Living Quietly In A Noisy Digital Age
Photo by ROBIN WORRALL on Unsplash
Social media gives everyone a platform. To those of us of a certain age, this isn’t as obvious a statement as it seems. There was a time before social media when people had to earn their platform by the quality of their content. If you had an idea for a book, a product, or content of some kind, you went through agents and publishers to see if your idea was “good enough” to be put in front of an audience.
The idea behind this model was that only quality content rose to the top. Yet the old way was not necessarily better. With few gatekeepers, it was easy for underrepresented groups like women and minorities to be overlooked. And who’s to say what a “good enough” idea is anyway? In many ways, social media has leveled the playing field. It has allowed anyone with an internet connection the ability to share their ideas.
We are, in theory, better off. If only it were that simple.
True, social media gives everyone a platform, but more and more, the platform feeds the chaotic whirlwind of information (and misinformation) that fills our lives with so much noise, both literal and figurative. We are inundated with opinions and facts, and it’s sometimes hard to discern between the two. And we all have the over-sharers in our lives, those people who flood our timelines with the irrelevant and the mundane.
Who knows, maybe you are the over-sharer. For that matter, maybe I am.
The Bible is God’s Word. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, God used His Word to shape us in Christ-likeness. But can we still look to the Bible and find guidance for our posture toward our social media interactions? The answer is, wonderfully, yes.
Near the end of his first letter to the Thessalonians, Paul passes along a command that almost leaps off the page, especially to our modern ears. It's an instruction that was no doubt given to address a specific issue in the church, but one that is as relevant and timely for us today as any in Scripture.
In 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12, Paul says to the Thessalonians:
“Aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.”
Paul says that if we are interested in “walking properly before outsiders,” i.e., living a life that publicly lines up with our identities as Christ-followers, we should live quietly, mind our own affairs, and work hard.
Can you imagine even for a second what the world, especially the digital one we spend so much of our lives in, would be like if every Christ-follower obeyed this command?
When Paul urges the Thessalonians to live quietly, he’s not being literal; he’s not telling them not to speak. He’s certainly not telling them to be silent about their faith, which would go against so much of his instruction in his other letters. Paul is encouraging the Thessalonians to watch where, why, and how they express their opinions. He’s challenging them to measure their words. And Paul gives us one example in the next phrase of what this practically looks like.
How much of our voice do we spend on social media sounding off on “affairs,” to use Paul’s language, that are not ours to mind? What if, before you and I added our voices to the overwhelming torrent of voices already offered on any given subject, we paused and asked ourselves, “Is this an issue that truly concerns me? Is it my business?” And if the answer was “no,” we kept quiet?
If you’ll allow me to get personal for a moment, how much does your engagement with social media, and trivial issues in general, keep you from “working hard,” as Paul says? If we’re honest, many of us would admit that our preoccupation with the “noisy” aspects of social media keeps our hearts and minds distracted and divided.
Social media is neither good nor bad. It’s merely a tool. When used rightly (i.e., keeping up with friends, sharing life with family members, watching videos of cute animals and babies, etc.), it can bring us great joy. It can also inform and educate, which is especially beneficial in countries with repressive governments. Social media can be a platform for so much good, but like any other space we do life in, we must be mindful of how we conduct ourselves.
Isn’t it profoundly encouraging that we can find meaningful, Gospel-centered instruction for our lives today in a letter written nearly 2,000 years ago?
This article originally appeared in the Good For You Newsletter, Vol: 4.
To subscribe, CLICK HERE.