How to Break Free from Digital Overload: A Christian Guide to Healthy Social Media Use – Episode 354

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Episode Summary:

In a world where constant notifications, curated feeds, and digital pressure shape how we see ourselves, many are left feeling more anxious, isolated, and distracted than ever. We long for a life that is full of deep connection with God, ourselves, and others. And yet we’ve become programmed to seek peace, contentment, and happiness from our phones. Deep down, we know this isn’t how we were created to live. As endless scrolling leaves us feeling anxious, depressed, distracted, and alone, we realize our true needs can’t be met by turning to social media in every slow, mundane moment. If you feel like your digital life could use a reset, this episode is for you.

Quotables from the episode:

  • Social media can so easily steal our peace, distort our identity, and drain the joy God intends for us, especially when we are already struggling with anxiety, insecurity, or loneliness. That is why I am delighted to welcome Allie Marie Smith, author of Social Media Reset: A 30-Day Guided Journey to Unplug, Reconnect with God, and Reclaim Your Joy. Allie has spent years helping women cultivate mental, emotional, and spiritual wellness, and her newest book offers a practical and faith-filled path to break free from digital overwhelm and rediscover God’s voice above the noise.
  • In a world where constant notifications, curated feeds, and digital pressure shape how we see ourselves, many are left feeling anxious, isolated, and distracted than ever. We long for a life that is full of deep connection with God, ourselves, and others.
  • And yet, we become programmed to seek peace, contentment, and happiness in our phones. Deep down, we know that this isn’t how we were created to live. As endless scrolling leaves us feeling anxious, depressed, distracted, and alone, we realize our true needs can’t be met by turning to digital media in every slow, mundane moment. If you feel like your digital life could use a reset, this is the episode for you.
  • Social media can so easily steal our peace, distort our identity, and drain the joy God intends for us, especially when we’re already struggling with things like anxiety, insecurity, or loneliness.
  • Romans 12. 2 summarizes what we’re talking about today: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
  • I got my first social media account, Facebook, right when it came out in 2004. I used it for a while. It was fun. And then fast forward, Instagram came out. It was fun. You would just post pictures. You didn’t really think about who was following you, how many likes you got. But as the algorithms changed and they designed it to be addictive, I really did become addicted. And it impacted my daily life. It really negatively impacted my well-being. I was constantly refreshing my screen. How many likes did I get? You know, it was stiff-necked. I wasn’t looking outside the car window as much. I was picking up my phone hundreds of times a day.
  • I realized it was making me bummed out. It was making me anxious. It was making me awake to other people’s lives, even strangers’ lives. But I was feeling asleep to my own precious life. And all the work I do from starting the ministry Wonderfully Made at the age of 20 was born out of my own story. I had struggled with severe depression and nearly lost my life to suicide attempt at the ages of 18 and 21. God saved my life and he didn’t have to. So, I see every second of my life as sacred. And I don’t want to waste a single second.
  • I realized I was on track to spend over five years of my life scrolling in a virtual world I wasn’t created to live in. I put my phone down. I apologized. And I took all the apps off my phone. And I’ve learned to use them with boundaries. Social media with boundaries.
  • I’ve worked with girls from the age of 18. And today’s mental health crisis that is facing teen girls today is directly caused from social media. The suicide rate went up around from 2010 to 2020, over like 151%. And today, one in three teen girls seriously contemplate attempting suicide.
  • So that’s a whole other reason. I want to see girls unplug. I want to see them get their joy back, return to the kind of life we were created for. Isn’t that just how the enemy works? You know, so many things come about as advances in society. And they can be used for good.
  • When I was in my full-on social media addiction, the anxiety I was experiencing was heightened. My mood was lower. I was very self-focused. I was constantly concerned with the curiosity of, I wonder what people think about me. I wonder when I post this photo what they’re going to think about me. Oh, if I didn’t get enough likes, I better take it down.
  • It kept me self-focused. I was ruminating on things that I was insecure about. You know, picking up my phone, like I said, hundreds of times. I wasn’t present in my own life. I wasn’t even present for my husband and for my friends. And I just got sick of it. My soul felt unwell. It felt full of angst. So I took a long break. And that broke my dependency on it. And then I did one thing, which is pretty radical that a lot of people don’t think about, is I just deleted all the apps off my phone. And I haven’t had them on my phone for over 12 years.
  • It impacts each one of us on such a profound level, on a soul level, on a spiritual level, an emotional level, even in our brains and in our bodies. And so today, outside of my social media addiction, I feel present. I feel grateful. I feel wide awake to my own life. And I use it in a very countercultural way. I hardly even look at friends’ updates or photos. I just want to be awake to my life. And it allows me to do better work. And there’s just more of a peace in my day-to-day life and my soul that I did not have when I was consumed by all those notifications and the endless scrolling.
  • When we fix our gaze on watching other people’s lives unfold on a screen as our own lives go neglected, it kills us spiritually. We’re catapulted into a spiritual slumber. And it is truly devastating. And there’s a lot of talk about what it does to our mental health. But there’s a lack of conversation about what it does to our souls. And so I love exploring that.
  • **I love thinking of John 15. You know, Jesus is a vine, and we are the branches. And we are made to remain in him, to abide in him. And I found it’s really difficult to abide in Christ when we have this handheld slot machine as our fifth appendage. It goes everywhere we go. And it’s constantly giving you notifications. And in those precious in-between moments of our lives, we look at our phone, we look at our screen, we look at strangers’ lives, we look at celebrities’ lives, we look at glimpses of wars and devastation. We look at our own. And we look around. And there’s that monastic practice of stashio: the in-between moments of our lives, where we have the opportunity within those in-between moments, say, from doing dishes to going to your car to recognize God, to honor God, to thank God, to praise him, to meditate on a verse.
  • *But what we’re doing instead, every mundane moment, we’re picking up that phone. The average adult has over 100 phone pickups a day, check their phones an average of every 10 minutes. We’re missing those opportunities to have a direct messaging with God, right? We have all these DMs, right? We’re DM’ing all these people. But are we direct messaging to God? And that was one thing that just transformed when I took those apps off my phone and I put social media in place: I’m constantly talking to God. I’m constantly praising him and thanking him.
  • *Research shows, after one day, two days, three days a week off social media, anxiety levels instantly go down. Happiness goes up. And our brain’s neural pathways are able to be reset. And in regards to our identity in Christ, when we take a break, we’re no longer concerned with the lives of other people. We are present for our own lives. And we’re more able to believe who God says we are rather than to be deceived.
  • Because we give the enemy, the evil one, a foothold when we are exposed to the daily ins and outs of the most beautiful, richest people who have things that you want or you’re comparing your life to them. That gives the enemy an opportunity to really come in. What it does to our brain is activates the default mode network in our brain, which actually causes rumination, which can cause, you know, self-doubt and insecurity. And so once again, it reconnects us with God. It draws us close to God, to the beauty and the miracle of our own lives.
  • **It’s an opportunity to show up for your own life with a new level of excitement and intentionality and joy. It’s filled with truth about our identity in Christ. So, a social media reset allows us to quiet all the outside noise and all the voices and get in the word of God. And God tells us who we are. And he invites us into a better, though, and popular way of life and shows us who we are and who we can be more fully alive versions of ourselves who are truly living the kind of life we were created for. Because we’re so far removed from it. And social media is a world we were not designed to live in. And it’s making us unwell in body, mind, spirit, and in our soul.
  • I love encouraging people to look at your screen time, go to your settings, because awareness is really important. Because we can come so used to it that we lose sight of really how much time we’re actually spending on these apps. When it is a compulsion, where it’s just like a habit, you’re just constantly reaching for it. You know, you’re bored where you go. You go to your phone. It’s something you think about even when you’re not on it.
  • There’s the idea of being forever elsewhere. Like we can be in the present moment, but because of the chaos of social media, which is so overwhelming, we’re in a virtual world, even in our head. We’re forever elsewhere. And so that’s another thing. You find yourself thinking about whose pictures you saw, what’s going on online, and am I missing out on anything? So those are just a few of many, many signs.
  • It made me more in awe of God because I’m not looking down. I’m looking up at his beauty, at his creation. And I just have so much more wonder and a life of whimsy.
  • I more firmly planted my identity in Christ because I’m no longer concerned with imaginary thoughts I think people are having about me or judging what I post. Because when we post online, we can actually feel very, very self-conscious and exposed.
  • From my own story, dealing with depression, insecurity, the more that I focus on myself, the more unwell I become. But when I forget myself and I fix my eyes upon God and focus on loving other people and living out the passion, that’s when I begin to become free.
  • I really encourage people to take a break, especially if you’ve been using social media for a long time. This isn’t a mandate. It’s an invitation. You know, God invites us into a better, though, unpopular way of life. And I like to encourage people to think about not so much what they’re leaving behind or what they can’t do. It’s more about what you’re getting in exchange. It is so much better. It’s not about what you’re going to be missing out on offline, but it’s about the peace and the joy and the contentment you are going to get online.
  • Taking a break, a 30-day break, really resets your brain’s neural pathways. It helps you break that addiction, which is so ingrained in most people. About 30% of people say that they are full-on addicted to social media. So that will allow enough to your nervous system to calm down, your brain’s neural pathways. …. We’ll have less anxiety, more joy.
  • We weren’t created for this disembodied digital world. We were created for an embodied life of true in-person connection and community we are never going to find offline. From more extreme boundaries like me, I don’t have any apps on my phone. To using time limits, you can check your screen time. We do have a spirit of discipline. So even though it’s addictive, we can still have control over social media. We can control it so it doesn’t control us. Share your boundaries with friends for accountability.
  • What do I want my legacy to be? Because when we look at social media from a broader spiritual perspective, it’s really going to motivate us to put it in its place. Because one hour a day on social media, on your phone, across the lifespan can come out, will come out to three years of your life. Two to four hours a day will come out to four to six years of your life. Four or more hours a day on your phone will come out up to 11 or more years on your life. And today, 15% of girls are spending 40 or more hours a week. And there’s so much I can go into about how we, too, can now die. We’re on track of dying with more memories of other people’s lives than our own. And that should terrify us. One day we’re going to stand before God. And we’re going to have to give an account for how we lived our lives, how we exhausted every borrowed breath he gave us. We are going to have to take an account for how we spent our time, for the words we said, for our motivations.
  • We do not have to conform to the patterns of this world. God has a better life in store for us than the life the world offers us. And even though you might feel stuck in a cycle of scrolling or comparison, you can overcome it. You can find freedom. You can put social media in its place.
  • Try it. Grab a friend. Unplug. Show up to your life with a new level of excitement and joy. And return to God. Unfollow the ways of the world. And follow Christ that, you know, he’ll lead us into a life of peace and joy and the fullness of joy in his presence.
  • But when our lives are so busy and cluttered by spending time in this digital microcosm, it’s hard to be quiet. It’s hard to be at rest. And it’s really putting our trust in something or someone other than God.

Scripture References:

  • Romans 12:2 – “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind…”
  • Isaiah 30:15 – “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength…”

Recommended Resources: (If there are affiliate links in this post, meaning, if you click through and make a purchase, I may receive a commission (at no extra cost to you)).

 

So many of us reach for our phones in every quiet moment, yet our souls are longing for something deeper. Silence can be sacred when we make room for God again. Share on X Social media was never meant to disciple our minds. Renewing the mind requires intention, boundaries, and choosing God’s voice over constant noise. Share on X

 

Social Media Links for Host:

Connect with Allie Marie Smith:

Website / Facebook / Instagram

For more hope, stay connected with Dr. Bengtson at:

Order Book Sacred Scars / Order book The Hem of His Garment / Order book Today is Going to be a Good Day / Order Book Breaking Anxiety’s Grip / Order Book Hope Prevails  / Order Book Hope Prevails Bible Study /  Website  /  Blog  /  Facebook / Twitter (@DrMBengtson)  /  LinkedIn  /  Instagram / Pinterest / YouTube / Podcast on Apple

About Allie Marie Smith:

Allie Marie Smith is an award-winning author, speaker, and life coach. She is also the founder and CEO of Wonderfully Made, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to helping girls and women know their God-given value and lead flourishing lives. She lives in Santa Barbara County, where she loves writing, playing with horses, surfing, and adventuring up and down the California coast.

Hosted By: Dr. Michelle Bengtson
Audio Technical Support: Ashton Bengtson

 

If social media is draining your peace or pulling your focus away from God, it may be time for a social media reset. In this conversation, Allie Marie Smith and I talk about faith-filled boundaries that can quiet the noise, renew the mind, and restore clarity, peace, and joy. Read more on the website.

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