A brilliant acquaintance wrote a piece for CiRCE Institute that encapsulated much of what I think on the topic of children/teens and social media. I want to echo the same sentiment through pastoral eyes. You see, I make observations very often here based on more than anecdotes, but on patterns that I’ve seen through the last 11 years of pastoral ministry. In my estimation, it lends more credibility to my words. I am, after all, a student of human sinful rhythms.
The scenario can be easily summarized thusly:
A father/mother gives a child/teen a smartphone or some device with the capability of installing a social media platform like Snapchat, FB, Instagram, etc. This gift–and it is a gift–may be given out of ignorance, educational purposes, or some noble intention. In most cases, parents over the age of 45 are largely ignorant of the capabilities of smartphones these days, or the kinds of loopholes intelligent children can find to get to the place they want on-line.
The end result of this process is abysmal. Before I develop a bit of this, I am speaking as a connoisseur of social media. I have some presence in the major platforms and find it useful. I subscribe to a form of technofullness, that Doug Wilson speaks of in his book “ploductivity.” The internet (social media, in particular) is a matter of stewardship and we are to treat it with gratitude in our hearts and use it as an instrument of blessing.
But when you put this rich platform, one which opens an individual to untold patterns of human virtues and vices, it is almost impossible to see good fruit coming from the keyboard of someone between the ages of 8-16. The dangers are at least two-fold:
First, to give your child/teen access to a social media platform immerses him/her in a world from which there is no return. For instance, while mature adults struggle greatly with issues of lust, coveting, greed, jealousy, and other vices, imagine when all these elements are introduced to a child or young teen whose sole preoccupation at this stage is with what he will make for his lunch tomorrow or what her homework is when she gets home at night. Now, he/she is introduced to a world where *likes are the currency and what one wears the de facto fashion statement.
Suddenly, a 12-year old is now confronted with questions of what to wear? what to eat? am I too thin? should my skirt be that tight? should I want an apple watch? should I watch that episode on Netflix? do I want more from my parents? should I talk this way? should I like this person? I venture to say these questions do not accentuate positively one’s priorities at this stage of life but confuse the hierarchy.
The point is that putting these questions to our children too soon hinders them from properly developing social and rhetorical abilities that come from experiencing life at a particular rhythm, rather than a full immersion into them. At the moment your child has an Instagram account, he/she is thrown into a world that he/she is not prepared with all its traps, enticements, neediness and likes.
But secondly, the danger also comes from the formation your child will receive once introduced to this world prematurely. Of course, a parent may say that he will keep close accounts, monitor his child’s page, and talk about it often, but honestly, can anyone do this consistently? Can a parent demand such accountability from a child who is yet untrained in life to assume such responsibilities?
To the point of formation, I have seen too many of these same kids form worldviews that are thousands and thousands of miles away from anything resembling Christianity. How did they go this far away? The answer is one worldly picture and ideology at a time.
If a parent says, “My child is an exception,” I’d simply have to respond: “My pastoral experience and statistics show otherwise.” What is more likely is that children become early ideological victims of an environment not fit for little priests.
And if a parent says, “My child will never engage himself in any social media.” My response will be: “You are missing the point. They will inevitably, but the question is, ‘Will you allow them to take the wheels now or will you train them well for a time when they will in some capacity?'”
There is much to be said, and I offer no magical or thorough recipe, except a few ingredients that can negatively form your child. We all want our children to flourish in the nurture of the Lord. Let us not throw them to the lions until they are prepared to tame them.
