Social Sanity Book Club Chapter 1: Understanding the Story of Social Media

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Sarah Zylstra
Hello, and welcome to our book club for social sanity in an instant world. This is our first installment of our video book club. My name is Sarah Zylstra. And I edited the book and I am here with Megan Hill, who is an editor at the gospel coalition and very wise and beautiful.

Megan Hill
Sara, it is so great to talk with you about this book, we have a TGC we’ve been working on this book for years, you’ve been working on it for ages. And it’s fun to get a chance to actually share it with all of you who are studying it in your book clubs. And so we’re so glad that you’re here. And I’m glad that I get the privilege of interviewing Sarah, Sarah is the one at TGC who does the interviews. So it’s a little intimidating to be the one that gets to interview her. Usually I’m behind the scenes fixing people’s commas not asking them questions.

Sarah Zylstra
Waiting for me to be interviewed, actually, because I’m usually the one asking the questions not having to come up with any of the answers.

Megan Hill
So let’s just start with an easy one. When did you first get social media? Tell me about? You know, when did you get on? And what what drew you to social media?

Sarah Zylstra
Yeah. So I was actually late. I wonder if you fell in this camp this camp to make an I was in I was in between, I left college. When social media really got hot. I was out of college, but I didn’t have my babies yet. I was in those very early 20s. Young married but no kids yet. And so all my friends weren’t on it. So it wasn’t a college thing. And I didn’t have babies or anything really cute to take a picture of to put on there or to make any announcements I was just living. And so I sort of fell into that little gap there. And so I actually was late Facebook came out I think in 2004. And I didn’t get until 2007 When my oldest was one. And it was interesting to for me to think back about the timing of that. So I taught my I taught for a year was my first year of teaching was his first year of life. And so I didn’t what didn’t get on during any of that it was super busy. But then that summer I got on. And I was thinking I bet that’s when things slowed down a little bit. And I had a minute to think like, what is this new thing? Let’s just hop over here and see what’s going on. So that was the beginning of my journey. And then I would say I was bad at it. At first I didn’t know what to put on. I think everybody was bad at first, like what are we doing on here? And and what are we putting up? And how do we make this work. And so probably my heyday of using it was between, like 2010 and 2015. And that was for a couple of reasons. I was a little more comfortable with it. But also, I was homeschooling during those years and primarily at home in my house. So I had access to my camera, and my kids and my computer. And then when I had a coffee break, or if they were taking a nap or playing or something I had a little bit of time. So all of those things worked out great. Also, it was really isolating to be a home with your kids and be homeschooling, those are two things that pull you into yourself. So to be able to reach out a little bit and almost feel like I was walking with colleagues, other homeschool moms, I could check in and say like what were they doing this morning? Oh, here’s a picture of what I was doing this morning. Or like, just it felt like you were reaching out to your friend during that time and your weren’t so alone. And then third, you know what homeschooling is really photogenic. Like, like everything about homeschooling. Look at this cute project that we did look at this funny thing that my kids said today, like it is just a fount of postable things. And so I think that’s I really leaned in during those years. How about you? When did you get your social media?

Megan Hill
So I started on social media, probably about 10 years ago, I was also pretty late to the game. I am not sure exactly why, but probably for similar reasons as you I was kind of didn’t have much to post and then I was super busy having kids, whatever. But I got on it for professional reasons, actually. And so I at the time, I was a regular contributor at Christianity today. And I was part of a site or platform that they had called hermeneutics, which was sort of women, about 15 women from different Christian traditions, kind of all writing opinion pieces regularly for Christianity today, and that that site operated basically behind the scenes on a Facebook group. And so in order to be a regular contributor to this site, you had to be in this Facebook group. So you knew what ideas we were talking about what pieces we were going to write, you know, we would work through article ideas and pitch them there and that kind of thing. So they Christianity invited me to become a regular contributor to hermeneutics and they said, hey, you’ve got to join this Facebook group because this is basically our professional platform. So I joined to be part of this group and it was super exciting. I mean, I was a mom with young kids. And here was this whole group of people who were like talking about theology and culture and like how and they, they, there was a really broad range of theological perspectives there. So we would argue stuff, and we were debated. And just like, in my days of like doing laundry and making peanut butter sandwiches, to, like, get on and have a whole group of women who were like talking about stuff that mattered. And that was interesting to me. And you know, it was really exciting. And so I started kind of just in this group of 15, women were going to like, discuss ideas. And then from there, then I was kind of like, oh, there’s like other people on Facebook, too.

Megan Hill
And oh, and they’re on this thing called Twitter too. And, you know, eventually, it’s like, oh, now they’re all over on Instagram. And so anyway, so I kind of, you know, I’m still terrible at Instagram, Sarah, yesterday, somebody sent me a message, like, Hey, I saw your story, you know, you can actually link that story by doing so. I was like, Okay, thank you, I have no idea.

Sarah Zylstra
That is hilarious. I actually have never posted to Instagram, because I can’t figure out how to, I don’t think you can do it, I can’t figure out how to do it not on my phone. So I just did it on my laptop, like an old person. And I can’t, I can’t figure it out. So that’s why I have no Instagram posts.

Megan Hill
If any of you out there see me doing something stupid, please be sure to send me a message. So for me, social media was sort of a professional thing that kind of became a personal thing. But it I still sort of see it through a professional lens, because I’m editor is sort of what are people talking about? What are the issues, you know? And then I’m like, oh, probably the people in my church think I hate them, because I forget to like their baby pictures, because I sort of have my professional hat on when I go on there. So yeah, that makes sense. But for whatever reason, you’re on social media. There are problems with it, right? I mean, you know, you may think, Hey, I’m on there to post pictures of my kids homeschool projects, or you might think, Hey, I’m on there, because I have to be on there professionally. But either way, you’re on there. And it’s always great. So what I mean, you know, I know this book isn’t like dunking on social media. I know you’re not saying social media is horrible. But it probably is good for us up front to say like, there actually are some things that are not so great. So what are some of those things you notice for yourself? Sarah? Yeah,

Sarah Zylstra
I think I first had, I’m actually kind of envious that you first got on as a professional person, because I first had problems, when, well, probably not first. But I first started recognizing my problems, which is different than first having problems. It first started recognizing my problems when. So we both have outward sort of public jobs. And I think this is true for a lot of people. Like if you’re a teacher, or a pastor, or anybody who’s kind of in a position where you’re a little more public facing, people will start friending you that are actually you’re in real life, depend like friends, like not people, like would come over to your house and watch the Super Bowl level of friends. And so I kind of ran into a problem when my public when I started getting more friend requests. And then I didn’t know what to do, because I had all those years of homeschooling with cute pictures of my kids and a lot of pictures of my kids. And so then I didn’t I went through this whole like cycle of like I would I would find a lot of people or sources would I wouldn’t be friends with sources. And so we would become friends with them. And then I would be like, I actually kind of feel uncomfortable with these people. You know, they’re not I don’t, my sources don’t really come over to my house for the Superbowl. So then I would unfriend a lot of people. And then I would read like then other people would print and so it’s just this weird cycle of like, am I a private person on here? Or am I a public person, I’m here and I could never figure that out. And so I think that’s when it first started rubbing on me in a weird way of like, this is starting to feel uncomfortable. I don’t know what to do with this. I don’t know really who I am on this platform because I can be a public and private person in real life with you. But if I just have one face on social media, what face is it so that was probably like 2017 or 2018. When I first started, that sort of rubbed me the wrong way. And then I was always frustrated with how much time I spent on there. I always felt like I was leaking time. Like no matter what happened, I would always spend more time in there than I wanted, no matter what I told myself, I’m just going to go on and do this one thing. I would always get on and spend way longer and never do the one thing that I said I was going to do because I would scroll. And so then that constantly made me frustrated with the amount of time that I was losing and I tend a little bit more toward like my comparison of other people tends toward like I can be a little perfectionistic and so if I see other people’s lives it like digs in at me like Gosh, her life is so like The cocreator kids are and look cleaner houses and like so that that, you know, feeling of, you know, man I suck. And yeah, that started digging into so I don’t know, it’s probably been five years since I started feeling icky about it. What about you?

Megan Hill
For me, I think because I started the way that I did, one of the problems I started noticing immediately is that I felt like my interactions with people on social media were much more interesting than my interactions with people in my real life. So here on social media, I had all these people who are interested in like, the latest theological debate, or the latest cultural trend, or, you know, what the implications for this on the rest of life and how this piece over here fit with this piece, and we are discussing it and we are debating it and whatever. And then like, I would go to playgroup at my church, and it would be like, Oh, how’s your day? How’s the nap schedule going? How’s it, you know, and or I would just be like, you know, in talking to my own kids, or whatever, they’re little, and they’re like, telling me about their projects that they’re doing. And it’s a really long story. And it just didn’t feel like the people online felt like the people who were thinking and engaging and doing stuff. And there weren’t people in my real life that were doing that. And so it made me sort of dissatisfied with the real people in my life.

Sarah Zylstra
Yeah. Ooh, yeah, that’s not good. versus not a good feeling.

Megan Hill
Because I love them. I mean, I love those real people. So but you can’t I do think, you know, I think there’s a danger. You know, whatever your tendency is, because there’s a group of people who have your exact, you know, scenario, whether it’s, you know, a special needs kid, whether it’s a dietary restriction, whether it’s an interest in a hobby, whether it’s a professional thing, whatever, you know, on social media, you’re gonna find a group of people who are super deep into that one thing that you’re super interested in, which is, I mean, what a blessing right to be able to be connected to people who have those same interests. But then at the same time, like in your local church, most of those people are not super deep into that one thing that you’re interested in. And so there’s kind of a disconnect there.

Sarah Zylstra
Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. That’s good.

Megan Hill
So when you’ve written a book, or you’ve edited a book with all these fabulous contributors, and different women who are just sharing, you know, kind of their own work, their own issues with social media and the blessings of social media and how they’re working through that, and what made you think I want to write a book about social media? I mean, like, Is that Is that worth a book? Or is it?

Sarah Zylstra
I know, right? Well, I just want to start by saying, like, boy, it’s grown fast. So maybe where it’s interesting to me, I think it was maybe, oh, I can’t remember the year but there’s a year, maybe 2011, when you’re looking at the research, when everyone all of a sudden starts tracking how much time people are spending on it. So it’s interesting to me like before that the amount of time people were spending on it was so small that it didn’t even merit being tracked, like nobody was even bothered, like no one tracks how much time you spent washing dishes, it’s just like a negligible thing. So at some point in the lat, and we can point to specific things, certainly the advent of the smartphone, push this time, way, way up. But this just has grown to be a ubiquitous topic, almost 80% of American women are using at least one social media site. And Facebook, this is amazing to me, has about 3 billion monthly active users. So there’s 8 billion people in the planet and 3 billion of those I mean, these are people from all all the countries right? Like this is a tremendous amount of people have have a Facebook account account. It’s just crazy. It’s it’s everywhere. And as you’re probably aware, in the last five years or so the research has started coming out that’s been a lot more troubling. The connection to anxiety and depression and how much time we spend there. Like I said, when that’s when researchers kind of started tracking like how much time are we are we spending in here and that number just goes up and up. So think a lot of red flags were popping up. They weren’t popping up so much for me. But last April, when we were at the TGC women’s conference, I happen to be sitting at a table with Laura with Laura and Emily Jensen have risen motherhood and Ruth Simons was there and I think Gretchen Cephalus was there just this table of women. And Laura was holding forth on. She had also been she’d been already doing a whole bunch of research and she was just basically waving this red flag as hard as she could about you guys. There is something going on with social media. And then she said Sarah, you should write a book about it. And I said, No, Laura, you write a book about it. And we did the hot potato with the book idea like no you You write a book No you around the table for a little bit. And then, as we were thinking about it a little bit later, it seemed to me like it was a good topic for a multi author book. One reason you can write those a lot faster. And this is a topic that moves quickly. So to have a book that could come out in a year is a lot more appealing than one that takes a lot longer than that. And also, we just had all these different areas that we were addressing. And I thought it would just be good to have a bunch of different voices, everyone’s experience is unique. But we know a lot of really thoughtful women. So to have them speak into that was, I thought going to be great. Melissa Krueger helped a lot with so the structure of every chapter is we start with the positives, like what’s good about this? Where do we see God’s goodness and in social media? And then we move into the pitfalls like where it’s kind of where has been affected this? Where are we weak? And then we end each chapter with the principles like biblical principles, if we’re going to engage here, how do we do that really well, in a way that honors the Lord and Melissa was the one that came up with that structure. And then from there, it would just just went like crazy. So it’s been good.

Megan Hill
So we’re here, you know, in this book club, and we’ve got women who are watching this, who have signed up for this book club, and they bought the book, and maybe they’re kind of going, Oh, this is, you know, am I really going to commit all these weeks to reading this book? Like, what? What’s the end result? What are you hoping that women who commit to reading this book are going to get out of it in their book club or on their own?

Sarah Zylstra
Yeah, I hope so what it’s done for me is, gosh, I approach social media completely differently than I did a year ago. I, I feel so I have been kind of living in this. And I also there’s another recorded podcast, that by the time this comes out, we’ll already be out. And I talk to younger girls, the Gen Z girls, which is a totally different ballgame than if you came to social media fully formed like we did, you’re in a completely different spot than if you came as a teenager or a tween. And so talking to them, but some, some of those experiences are the same. And I could see myself in some of them. And so that scared me as well. So I just think I would, I would hope and pray is that this takes up a lot of time, this affects a lot of people. I think by walking through this book and this book club, you will have a clearer understanding of how to use this really well. And maybe even should I be using this at all. And I think those are questions that we need to take seriously. And that we should be talking about seriously. If you’re spending an hour or more a day, which you probably are even if you don’t realize it on your social media, then that’s something that needs to be have some serious consideration.

Megan Hill
So do you think that book is kind of a downer?

Sarah Zylstra
I don’t think it’s a downer. I think I personally am more of a downer than the book. I think the book is affirming. There are good things and you’re talking about them to Like, legitimately, there are good things about social media. I do not think and and this is kind of interesting, because Megyn we’re recording this last, where I have already kind of worked through all these chapters. And this and we’re coming back to record the introduction. And so I’m in a different place now than then you’ll see me in the in the videos as we walk through. But at this point, I do not think social media is a healthy place for me to be. It reminds me a lot of Vanity Fair actually, in the Pilgrims Progress. Like it seems like so great and fun. And there are some great and fun things. But underneath, there’s a lot of decay. And it’s addicting. So it’s hard. I can’t believe how hard it is to get off. And so I think for a lot of women, a lot of most women honestly shouldn’t be there at all. But I do think for the ones who are on there, I think there’s a good and right way to approach it. And I think this book is pointing in that direction, like asking the right questions, bringing up the right ideas. And so I think, if you are going to stay on this book will give you a beautiful way to do it. In a way that honors God.

Megan Hill
Yeah, I think that’s great. I mean, I read through the book, read through it twice now I think. And yeah, I wasn’t left thinking like, Oh, this is really depressing. I was left thinking, Okay, now I’m engaging social media in a more thoughtful way. And not just assuming that it’s fine and fun. I’m thinking there are dangerous here and I can navigate them, you know? And, and that’s okay. I mean, it’s like, you know, driving a car or something like that. You may decide, you know, what is kind of dangerous to drive a car, but I, I need to do it professionally or I do get some enjoyment out of going for a drive. And so but I just need to understand how the rules of the road work and what the dangers are. And that’s kind of how I was left after reading the book, just kind of like, okay, I’m just gonna be a little bit more mindful and how I engage this now, because I understand a little bit how dangerous it can be. But then it, it maybe makes me appreciate the good things I can get out of it more to because I just want to like I’m a little more

Sarah Zylstra
understanding, a couple people have compared it to a mission field, like we’re on here as a as a mission, which I think is really good and super helpful way to think about it. But you don’t just wander into a mission field, you got to like to get to do the best work and to be the best that you can be there, you do a little preparation, and you do some praying, and you do some thinking and you read some books, right? You don’t just like show up in Peru one day, like, here I am. And so I think that’s a good analogy to have, like, if you’re, if Honestly, we’re going to connect with friends and family, and we our goal is to point everybody to the Lord, then let’s just do a little bit of thinking before we hop in there.

Megan Hill
Yeah, I think that’s great. And as you said earlier, I think it’s gonna be helpful for us to engage people of all generations to the young women in our churches, and the younger women that were discipling and mentoring, and some of us have children in the home. And you know, just as we’re, as we’re helping younger people think through this to give us tools for that as well. So. So you wrote the first chapter, in addition to editing the book and curating all these great voices and all that you actually wrote a whole chapter yourself. And in the first chapter, you kind of give a lot of the history and sort of you do some kind of investigation into how social media came to be. And then what it’s doing to people just sort of what the research shows what it’s doing to people. And you talk a lot in the first chapter about how social media changed. And when it first came out. It was very, it was what you made of it. I mean, it was very sort of user directed, the person who logged in had a lot of control over what they saw and what they did. And now, of course, it’s very different experience. And it’s, you know, we talk a lot about the algorithm behind social media. And it’s become very much more of kind of an entertainment platform where you’re sort of at the mercy of what’s being given to you. So can you talk a little bit about that kind of evolution? And what are some of the kind of the problems that came up through that?

Sarah Zylstra
Yeah. It’s just a fascinating story, Megan, I think especially because it came so fast, like we can remember when, you know, there wasn’t any of this stuff. And so it just the movement of it is just unbelievably fast. I was listening to Jonathan Hite on a podcast the other day talk about how and he’s his third solution would be sort of like, those early days of Facebook were like the golden era. You could connect with people but nobody would. There wasn’t a news feed, there wasn’t a Like button, it was just like, and and if we could get back to that we could save our democracy, essentially, he just feels like the polarization on social media is, is tearing down. It’s like social media is great for tearing things down. So he’s looking at it through a political lens of like, Oh, we’re tearing down all our institutions. And now we don’t trust anything, how can we run a democracy if we don’t trust anything like our government or our schools or our churches? And so I think that’s a really interesting perspective. I do think, first of all, that the change was inevitable. And that’s because we live in a capitalist society. And I don’t say that in a negative way. I think capitalism is a gift from God, I think economic trading is a gift from God, I really do. And yet in his in a society like that, where the monetary, there’s always going to be someone looking for a way to make money off of it. And so I don’t know that social media could have evolved in any other way than it did, which is to seek after more and more money, it’s like a river, right? And always runs toward the sea. But this like, Facebook will always run toward the money. Like, that’s just every you know, that’s how our society works. So if that is true, then there then it always would have figured out a way to exploit the people who are using it. We are We are the they’re selling our attention. And so I don’t know that it could have done anything else. That said, certainly, if we could get back to those earlier times, we would solve a lot of our problems. Certainly the news feed, like 24 hour news, honestly, there’s a lot of similarities there. They are giving us too much information and that’s causes us to feel anxious and overwhelmed. We are just holding more information in our minds, even on your Facebook feed to scroll through there and see what 100 Different people are doing today is really more than we’re meant to care about in one day. So that is one thing. Another thing is the like button, of course, where you don’t know how many likes you’re gonna get every time you see those likes, that gives you a hit of dopamine in your brain. So there’s brain chemistry working did want you to go back and get more and more and also, then shifts the way that you put things up. Because no longer are you putting things up that you like, but you’re putting up things that you think other people will like. So they will literally like it. And so that you’ll get that hit of dopamine. So it literally changes what the way that you interact with it, those those two things did. And so yes, if we could move back, if we could rewind social media back to those first early simple days, I think that would solve a lot of problems. Now, I want to give this giant caveat. The problems that social media brings out in us the envy, the depression, the anxiety, the comparison. Clearly, those aren’t Facebook problems, those are sin problems. And I can waste my time on Facebook, but I can also waste my time on email. And I can also waste my time on about 100 Other things I don’t I don’t need Facebook to make me waste my time. And so there are certain problems that it feels like there’s a stronger connection to social media, then there really is those are just straight up heart problems. So yes and no. So

Megan Hill
So what would you say to somebody who’s sitting here in this Facebook group going, Man, I have really messed up like, Oh, I am addicted to this, or I am really every time I get on I’m coveting somebody else’s life. Or I am just in there for you know, I crave those likes, and then my identities really depending on that, and now I’m feeling like, super guilty, because I realized 10 years of my life, I have just been enslaved to the sin. What What would you say?

Sarah Zylstra
Well, I would say girl I’m with Yeah, I totally hear Yeah. And then I would say, we have to run from that. Like, if you are in a position where that’s really what you’re feeling, you have to get off, I was talking to a psychologist the other day, and she kind of scared me because she was like, you know, research shows there’s not a there’s not a safe amount of time to be on social media, you can get rekt down there in five minutes. You know, you can get rekt down there in 30 minutes. It’s not, there’s not a safe, it’s the condition of your heart. So if you’re if you’re not coming prepared, and you know, firming your identity, and knowing what you’re going to do on there and recognizing all the dangers of it. It’s easy to be susceptible. So I would counsel that girl, if at all possible to take a break. My favorite would be as if she could get off altogether for a while until she could kind of like find her balance again, and then think about going back on. But I’ll say this as someone who is walking that path, it is so hard to delete your own Facebook account. And that’s not or your Instagram account. And there’s two reasons one they make it really hard is like actually just physically difficult to find where it is hidden deep inside the menu to get rid of your account. And to even going on there to do it. It’s like well, I’m just gonna scroll one more time, or there’s, you’re constantly telling yourself reasons why you should stay on. So I had my husband, delete my Facebook account the other day and my Twitter account, because I couldn’t even I was like, I know once I even log on, I’ll just be scrolling. And I’ll be telling myself like, oh, yeah, that person, how will I possibly know about their life unless I stay on this thing. Like, I’m telling myself these things. And so I would have somebody else either for a while Adam blocked me out. So either have somebody else, maybe lock you out for a little while or somebody else, delete or deactivate your account for a while until you can kind of start repairing, honestly, repairing your soul. Maybe that’s kind of melodramatic.

Megan Hill
And that seems like one of the great things about doing this book in a book club is that you’re now exploring these things with real people in your real life. And not not that the people on social media aren’t real. I sort of objects in times that we talked about in real life, friends, when those people actually are a real people, they’re just, you know, far away from you on the other side of the screen, but they are real, too. That’s probably part of our problem. We don’t treat them as real people. But you know, but in this book club setting, right, you’re reading this book, we’re exploring these issues, and we have, hopefully a group of people, maybe one other person, maybe it’s with your family, maybe with a group of church, you know, maybe a couple other women that you’re like, hey, let’s do this book together. And, and we’re talking about these things and processing them together. How do you think that that can be super helpful? I mean, you mentioned how you needed Adam to push finally push the button. But what are some other ways that you think it’s good to be processing this with people who are physically right? Next?

Sarah Zylstra
Oh, that’s such a good question. That’s huge. I think the people who are next to you, oh, this is gonna sound weird, like fill in the gap. So when you take out from your life, like, Hey, I’m going to limit my social media, or hey, I’m just going to try and put these, I’m going to try and think of it more thoughtfully, that’s hard to do on your own, it’s hard to do any, it’s hard to do anything that requires a lot of self control on your own, because we run out of self control. And you can certainly be in prayer and ask the Lord for it. But there’s also, when you take something out, you got to put something back in. So okay, instead of scrolling Instagram, while I’m standing in line at the grocery store, maybe I’m planning in my head for the rest of my day. Or instead of spending an afternoon scrolling, I am going to even like watch a movie with my family, like we’re still on a screen, but we’re sharing an experience. Or I am going to, you know, I always like to do, I don’t know, cross stitching or something with your hands, right, or I’m going to write a book or whatever it is, that is what else you wanted to do with your time to pull that into there. And I think having those women to a remind you of it, and then be some of that time, you can fill in with friendships, right? So you can be texting these women in your group or calling them or just like, faxing them send them a little voice message like, Hey, how’s it going? You know, just fill in those little gaps with with those in person relationships, which are full bodied, holistic relationships, I think. I think your friendships will just will grow like God gives us good gifts and each other.

Megan Hill
Yeah, that’s so great. So, um, you know, we’ve talked a little bit about how social media affects our souls in the sense of like, it kind of pulls us into different sins, envy or whatever, you know, wasting time laziness, you know, whatever. So we’ve gone through some of those sins. But I imagine that there’s other ways that social media sort of affects our souls, too. I was just yesterday, I was having a conversation with some people who are doing youth ministry. And they were saying that one thing that they’re seeing among among teenagers is sort of this, that, that they’ve kind of lost the ability to, you know, study the text of Scripture deeply, that they’re so you know, that social media and other you know, sort of online platforms have contributed to sort of a sense of instant gratification that, you know, you can Google it, and then two seconds, you can have an answer. And then also sort of this just restless scrolling, and always looking for something new, and spending two seconds on each thing. And you know, that both of those things are sort of eroding our ability to sit down with the Bible, meditate on it really, you know, figure out what exactly is going on here. So, what are some other things just besides kind of sin habits that you think are detrimental to our souls, when we’re talking about social media?

Sarah Zylstra
You know, if you’ve read the book, you know this about me, I think identity is huge. I think, Boy, you know, I mentioned a little bit like when you’re putting up something, not because you like it, but because you are hoping that other people will like it. So that is just a sort of a constant dripping way that social media shapes that and shapes the way you think about yourself. Some of these young girls that I’m talking to are so perceptive, and I was just talking to one girl and she was kind of explaining that she’s like, you kind of don’t know who you are anymore. Because you’re trying to guess what those who the people out there think you are, and then be that person so that they’ll like who you are. Certainly, you know, when we use words like discovering your brand, or what what’s your brand right if you’re if you ask a girl in college, who is on social media, they’ll they can articulate their brand to you like this is who I am in like five words. Well, that’s not God didn’t create you five words long. God gave you a an enormous personality, and you’re very complex. And so I think even understanding who you are, and I also think this is another danger. On social media, you create your identity, you pick your brand, you you form yourself, that’s what we love about it. Right? You get to be the smart girl or the funny girl or the beautiful girl or the girl with everything put together you get to create who you are. And you create a utopia for yourself. Basically, you’re creating for yourself a false heaven of like, this is a world where everything is perfect or perfectly imperfect. Even my my candid pictures are of course edited. I’m not going to put up an ugly picture. So you’re kind of creating a false utopia with a false self instead of and that world making can never be as complex and beautiful. And both ugly and amazing and hard and, and big as the world that God made, right God already made us, he already made us way better than we could make ourselves. He already gave us a world to live in, that’s far better than the one that we can make for ourselves. So I think we started get lost in living in a plastic Barbie world.

Megan Hill
And maybe two, there’s sort of fear as well, you know, sort of that, if I go off brand, I might be canceled, you know, people might not like me anymore. People might not, you know, if I say something that’s slightly less than curated, I might, you know, yeah, it might be canceled. And that brings a lot of fear,

Sarah Zylstra
right? Oh, yeah. A huge amount of fear. Because the, if you’re on there, you’re watching it happen to other people, right. And every time it happens to somebody else is like, Oh, I for sure never, ever want that to happen to me. So that is definitely true. I also think it really affects our ability to have friendships and relationships with each other, which of course, form our form ourselves and our soul, we’re meant to do that, right? We’re meant to be in relationship with people, we’re meant to spur each other on toward good works, we’re meant to model Christ’s love to each other, we’re supposed to be doing that. But when I’m putting up a fake image, very one sided image of myself, and you’re putting up a fake, very one sided image of yourself, we are not forming each we are deforming each other, we are not forming each other. Well, we are cutting each other with the hard edges of our one sided portrayal. So that’s another problem.

Megan Hill
And, and that’s, you know, that too, is where sort of a book group a book discussion can be super helpful, right? Because you’re now sitting in somebody’s living room or in the church, fellowship hall, or whatever, with other women who they know that you’re not that person that you are on Instagram. I mean, it’s okay. And guess what they love you enough to join the book club with. And so, you know, in these book clubs, not only is an opportunity to examine social media, but it’s an opportunity for us to practice sort of relationships that are not that one sided way. Yeah. So I have two more questions for you. One is you alluded to this a little bit. But you’ve done all this research, you edited this whole book, you’ve done a deep dive into the mire of social media. And now, now what now now, how, how has your life changed?

Sarah Zylstra
I know and I kind of touched on this a little bit earlier. But I have just learned it is really, really hard to interact with social media. Well, and I’m not saying it can’t be done. But I am, I am, I don’t think I am called to be on social media. And I know that sounds like maybe I’m giving it more gravitas than it deserves. But I think it’s true. And so I feel like almost nobody on social media approaches it with the caution that it needs to have certainly not me. I also, you know, I told myself, the same thing I think a lot of women do is that I’m on here to connect with friends and family. We did a survey, this is so interesting, we did it a very unscientific survey of women who go to TGC events, we just threw out an email maybe a year ago, maybe somebody listening to this. Got one. And it was so good and so interesting. And these are women who love the Lord. And we were so encouraged by so many things. And of course, you know, like nine out of 10 of them said, the reason we were on here is to connect with other people, which of course is true, I love it. And yet later on, we asked how do you? How do you most often connect with your friends and family and only 2% said they most often connect over social media, right? Because you have them over to your house or you call them up on the phone or you go for a walk like that’s the way that you’re building a friendship. So I just saw a really big gap there between why we think we’re on and then one of those perceptive college girls said to me, I tell people I’m on here to connect with friends and family, but I’m really on here because I want people to think I’m cool. And I was like, Oh crap, me too. That’s why I’m on here too. And so I am off of Facebook altogether right now. I hope I never have to go back on. Because I’m just kind of looking at Cal Newport. I don’t know if anybody knows Cal Newport, but he does all kinds of great stuff. And he’s not on social media. And so I’m thinking I do have a public facing career, but I think I can still do it without having my own Vanity Fair. And so I’m off of a Facebook altogether. I’m off of Twitter altogether, probably by the time this airs, I’ll be off of Instagram. And I can’t think of any other like LinkedIn. I’ll probably keep my LinkedIn.

Unknown Speaker
Okay, so we’re at the end of this book club session, everybody’s going to close their book, they’re gonna go back to their life for the next week or the next month, you know, whenever book club meets again. So can you give us sort of one kind of cautionary thing to be processing practically over this next week or month until we get on to the next chapter? And can you give us one sort of hopeful or positive thing to be processing? As we go through the next week?

Sarah Zylstra
I’m gonna go a tiny bit of a different direction. And I’m gonna say,

Megan Hill
When you interview an interviewer, she’s like, I don’t like that question.

Sarah Zylstra
Here’s what maybe here’s what what I’m thinking right now. If you can, first of all, just pray about it, bring it to the Lord, and pray about it, and try and be really honest with yourself. And then if you can do it in a spirit that is humble and quiet, I would ask your husband, what he sees in you, I’d ask your mom, I’d ask your sister, I’d ask anybody who lives with you, or works with you, not anybody. I’m not saying I don’t mean really ask all the people. If you’re married as your husband, if you’re single, ask someone who’s really close enough to that they kind of have a sense of your habits, your mom or your colleague or your friend, find a person you can trust and who you love. And, and be able to like pray through it. That’s gonna take a lot of prayer, because boy, it’s hard to hear this. But I think they’ll be able to reflect to you better than you can ever see yourself your own social media habits. I would try taking a little bit more of a step back. Or even just asking, you don’t even have to do that. Just ask yourself the question. What would it feel like? If I took a was took Sundays off? What would it feel like? If I took one afternoon off? What would it feel like? If I took a week off? What does my heart feel like? My heart when I asked that question was like, screaming and rebellion, right? It was just like, that feels that sounds terrible. Don’t do that. And so that’s it’s a chance to dig into that. Don’t ignore that. But take that as an opportunity to dig into that and just just start asking the questions of what would what would it be like? Or what would my ideally, you know, what would I like, my social media interaction to even be? Is there a, you know, what would feel good to me? What would look good?

Megan Hill
Yeah, that’s super helpful. Sarah, thanks so much for talking to me about your chapter and social sanity and about how this book came to be. And we’re so excited for all of you who are joining in your groups, and we just have been praying for this book. TGC we’ve been praying for it for a long time now that the Lord would just help us all to use it as a mission field if we use it to step away if that’s good for our souls and to glorify God in this. So thank you so much for talking to me, Sarah.

Sarah Zylstra
Oh, Megan, you are a wonderful interviewer. Anytime you want to be a journalist, come on over and we’ll get you set up.