I’ve wanted to write a post for a while now about why and when my husband and I decide to take breaks from social media.

Sometimes, we step out off silently, and sometimes, we announce it, and sometimes, we are met with resistance. I’ve found that hard to understand, but perhaps our reasons are also hard to understand. So I want to pose a reminder that social media (ex. Facebook, Instagram, etc.) are not reliable mediums for deep relationship with others.

So why do we (as individuals and as family) step away for periods of time?

First of all, we often find ourselves restless with time devoted to mindless scrolling through information. When we find ourselves being restless, Donovan and I often make the decision to step away temporarily to reorder our priorities and make sure we are handling our time wisely.

I wanted to share a scripture that I have been dwelling on recently.

Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways. (Psalm 119:37)

This can be applied to so many different things, but in this context, it convicts me of the way I spend my time. Is my time spent on things I consider valuable or things that I consider worthless and insignificant? A quote that has always stuck with me since I heard it is from John Piper:

One of the great uses of Twitter and Facebook will be to prove at the Last Day that prayerlessness was not from lack of time.

I am often frustrated with the fact that I will choose to spend time on things I consider insignificant rather than things that give me life. The prayer in Psalm 119 is that I would turn my eyes from these worthless things and find life and life to the full (John 10:10).

I also often choose to step away from social media when I find myself battling with loneliness. It’s strange, really, because when you look in to my life from the outside, you would probably think my life is full of people and full of joy in those relationships. But I can still find myself often feeling lonely. And most often, this is in direct correlation with that amount of time I am spending on social media. Donovan often reminds me of the time that I told him how lonely I was feeling as we were driving to spend time with friends. Social media has a way of inundating my life with hundreds of shallow relationships in a way that leaves me feeling like I lack depth with any of them. And deep, loyal friendships have always been extremely valuable to me.

I also believe that social media exposes us to much more than our hearts can bare. In our own personal lives and the lives of those close to us, there is enough tragedy. However, social media exposes us to the tragedies of hundreds of other people. And that can be overwhelming. Without this kind of technology, we would not be so aware of deaths in the families of friends we went to middle school with. But it keeps us that connected and exposed to much more sadness – and for me, it’s hard to bear the weight of all the tragedy that I see.

And lastly, I need the reminder that social media keeps people connected, but it rarely offers any depth. Is it so helpful to have, so I can keep in touch with my family on the other side of the world? Definitely. But does it allow them to really know me? Definitely not.

If you rely on my Facebook feed, you may see something I’m eating, something funny that Ellie is doing, a few snaps with silly filters, and a couple meaningful thoughts sprinkled in there. What you don’t see is when our weeks are turned upside down by illness, and we’re spending sleepless nights trying to keep fever under control. You don’t see the sleepless and helpless hours as our hearts ache with a sick kiddo once again. You don’t see our deepest hurts, our deepest fears, or our deepest joys. You see a very shallow perception of our lives, but it doesn’t allow you to truly know us. And my hope is that if you love us and our family, that you want more than a few posts and photos on a social media account.

Last year, I realized I was reading a lot – it was just that I was reading random status updates from people I haven’t seen in decades. So I redirected a lot of that energy to reading books instead. I received a lot of feedback about how I read a lot, but honestly, if you consider how much you may actually be reading throughout the day, you may not be so surprised to see how you might be able to redirect both that time and energy. It really wasn’t too much of a change or challenge.

I’d be remiss not to mention that one of my best friends, Kort Marley, wrote a book about how to utilize social media in intentional and healthy ways. Here’s the link if you want to grab it and give it a read: Navigating the Digital Sea. I found it extremely helpful.

Do you ever have to step away from social media? If so, what are your reasons for doing so? I’d love to hear your thoughts.