Knowing When to Unplug

Are you using social media, or is social media using you?

This past week, my husband and I had our first experience deleting an app that we didn’t feel was having a healthy effect on our children. So, if you felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in horror and then kept screaming, that was my kids bewailing the destruction of their Roblox worlds.

Now, this isn’t an anti-Roblox tirade. It’s not really even an anti-app or anti-social-media bit. But I am concerned that technology has developed at a rapid pace, and our ability to moderate ourselves has not. And I’m not just talking about our kids.

Every day, from television to Twitter, we’re inundated with disturbing scandals and heartbreaking tragedies that we can’t do anything about. Most of these events don’t affect our individual lives. In fact, we wouldn’t know they even happened had someone not posted about them online. And while it’s good to be aware of what’s happening in the world, I don’t think our brains are designed to take in and process this much information on a daily basis. I think we’re experiencing information overload.

We tend to get stressed when we’re overwhelmed, and we get scared when we’re confused. Both stress and fear are often expressed as anger. This is the root cause of much of the conflict we see tearing up society and trending on Twitter. We see people reacting in fear and frustration rather than patience and logic.

A good example of this is the debate over whether public schools are good or bad. For example, let’s say we have a friend named Betsy. Betsy sees on the news that a teacher in Pervyville ISD showed porn to her 3^rd Grade students. That’s a disturbing story. And it’s a news-worthy story. That teacher should be arrested and that school district investigated. But when Betsy sees this story, she panics. Despite the fact that she lives 783.4 miles away in Wholesomeville ISD where half the teachers are on par with Mary Poppins, she decides that all public schools are dangerous, that all teachers are groomers and abusers, and that all parents everywhere must homeschool immediately. She’s an intelligent woman, but she’s experiencing information overload, and she’s reacting in fear. She sees a problem she cannot fix, and her sense of helplessness has defined her beliefs.

Another example involves the scandals we see occurring in churches. Say we have a friend named Steve who has four kids. Steve reads about a youth pastor in another state who abused teenagers. Then he reads about an elder in another city who harmed a child. This is horrific. Abuse is a danger every church and every parent should be aware of and take measures to prevent. As a child abuse survivor and church abuse survivor I can tell you this from personal experience. But Steve decides that instead of working with his church and making sure a good safety policy is being implemented, that he’s leaving. He decides that all youth groups and all churches enable and cover up for sexual predators, because some on the news did. He keeps his kids home on Sundays and they no longer have any Christian friends. Steve is trying hard to be good dad and he loves his kids, but he’s reacting in fear.

Now, don’t hear me saying that you should stay in a school or a church where abuse has been enabled or covered up. By all means, leave. Sometimes following Jesus means following him out those double doors. I’ve left churches over abuse. In fact, I’ve left a church where there was no abuse (that I know of), but where the leadership didn’t think they had to report child abuse to law enforcement. That was an unsafe church with dangerous leaders. So, we left.

Also, don’t hear me saying that if you’ve been abused you have to go right back to church, or any church for that matter. You can take a break. You can give yourself space and time to heal. God isn’t holding a stopwatch over your recovery. In fact, it’s his Spirit in you that’s healing and making you whole again, and often the Spirit takes his sweet time. Jesus knows what it’s like to experience trauma.

What I am saying is, we must learn to view, understand, and process what we read online and see in the news in a healthy and productive way. If we are continually allowing our brains to be overloaded, we will constantly be reacting in fear and we will never make any progress. Worst of all, we’ll feel miserable and isolated.

We have to remember that while these stories often “hit close to home,” and while they may be important and can inform our behavior to a degree, they’re usually outside our control, and they’re usually outside our local sphere. Because I live in Texas, I cannot assume that what some fruitcake teacher does in New York is indicative of how my local school staff will behave. Because there was a pervert in the church down the road, doesn’t mean my own church is guilty by association. Because a criminal on TV has a certain skin color, doesn’t mean his entire ethnicity or gender is dangerous. Do you see how destructive reactionary thinking can be?

So, when I see another church scandal, or another school conflict on the news, I need to view it in perspective, and I need to maintain mental boundaries. Rather than react in fear, I need to take this information and use it to make my own family and community better and safer. I need to get to know my kid’s teachers and school administrators. I need to get active in my church and see what we’re doing to prevent child abuse. I need to avoid information overload, and when I feel myself getting overwhelmed and reacting in fear, I need to unplug. I need to turn off the TV, close Twitter, and take a break from the news. I cannot let events outside my control affect how I treat my kids, my husband, my friends, and my community. I have to remain stable, not allowing every wind and wave (especially the ones on the other side of the pond) to rock or topple me.

So, let’s remember to ask ourselves:

• Is this building me up or wearing me down?

• Is this making me wiser or making me worried?

• Does this information improve my life or distract me from my life?

• Am I using social media, or is social media using me?

As a parent, this challenge is extra complicated. Not only do I have to moderate my own intake of information, but I have to teach my kids to do the same. I have to teach them to unplug.

This past week, we deleted Roblox off their shared phone. Many feelings were felt, and there was weeping and gnashing of teeth. However, my husband and I had observed that they were spending more and more time on their phone, and less and less time playing dolls, reading books, coloring, and going outside. We tried to moderate how much time they spent on the phone, but that proved an impossible task. So, Roblox is gone. And you know what? They’ve already been reading, playing, and crafting more.

I think that as an adult I need to parent myself in this way too. We never entirely grow up, at least, not in the way I imagined when I was a child. I still need checks and balances, and someone to tell me when to stop or step back. I need to unplug from social media, the news, and all the overwhelming and all-consuming conflicts. I need to go outside and take a deep breath. I need to take a walk through my community and realize that there are not crimes happening on every street corner 24-7. No dumpsters are on fire. Nobody is rioting. The rudest person around is that guy who lets his dog poop in other people’s yards. I need to go to church and get to know people so that I can remember that not all Christians are fake and not all pastors are con artists. In fact, most of them aren’t. But if I were to base my perception of my local community on the scandals and conflicts I see in the news every day, I’d be stressed and afraid all of the time. I’d be afraid to drop my kids off at school. I’d be afraid to worship God on Sunday mornings. We cannot let fear rule over us. That’s actually exactly what abusers want.

The stories we see on the news are not the norm. That’s why they’re on the news. Journalists tend to pick out the weirdest, most disturbing, and most controversial stories, because that’s what grabs people’s attention. They’re not going to cover the husband who takes the trash out every Tuesday and Friday. They won’t tell you about the teacher who made sure her student had glasses after learning that their parents couldn’t afford them. They won’t cover the pastor who reported child abuse to police. They won’t talk about the cop who bought a homeless man a sandwich. Because that’s normal. Or at least, it should be.

So, when we read or watch the news, we need to remember that these stories made it onto the news exactly because they’re abnormal, shocking, unexpected, and inconsistent with most people’s experiences. They aren’t indicative of how everyone everywhere acts.

And the more we unplug, I suspect the more we’ll find that we have real friends, real allies, real neighbors, and real advocates, all within a short walk of our front door.

And on that note, I am going to go for a jog.

Much love,

Jenn