Fast From Social Media This Lent - Fr. Andrew Reckers

The beginning of Lent is nearly upon us, with Ash Wednesday coming this week. Most Catholics are familiar with Lent as that liturgical season of spiritual “Spring cleaning” to remove the things in our lives that distract us from living effectively as disciples of Jesus Christ. It is a good opportunity for us to look for and uproot the things in our lives that serve as weeds which choke the Word of God in our hearts (see Matthew 13:22). To that end, the most effective things to give up for Lent are those things which are the biggest “weeds” in our hearts, those things that have the tightest grip on our time and focus, preventing the fruits of love and holiness from maturing. For most of us, social media is chief among the largest and most stifling of the weeds in our lives. A significant discussion of social media and its effects far exceed the scope of this short article. However, it is still worthwhile to reflect on why giving up social media for Lent this year would greatly free our hearts so we can more effectively and intentionally give ourselves and our time to those we love.

Can social media be used for good? Yes, it can, and it has. However, it can be good only if it is used in moderation, and for the vast majority of us, the problem is achieving true moderation in its use. As an analogy, food is good for us when consumed in moderation, but it becomes unhealthy when consumed in excess. Healthy foods are relatively easy for us to consume in moderation. However, some foods are extremely difficult for most people to eat in moderation—highly processed foods which are high in carbohydrates and/or fats are called “junk food” for a good reason. Yes, we can be nourished by junk food, and yes, it is possible to eat junk food in moderation. However, most of us become surprised or even laugh when we actually discover the serving sizes of junk foods—they are usually much smaller than expected. In order to be healthy, we need a steady diet of better food than junk food. Moreover, if we want our relationships to be healthy, we need better and healthier human interaction than the “junk food” of social media.

Social media is unbalanced as a form of human interaction for at least a couple reasons. First, it is a virtual interaction with others, mediated through electronic means. What we see on the screen is an electronic representation of the other person rather than a true face-to-face encounter with a real person. In addition, this virtual representation is significantly filtered—the virtual representation conveys only a small fraction of the actual person being represented. Moreover, this representation is typically biased such that the person chooses carefully to reveal only what he or she wants others to see. As we all know, anything electronic can be faked, but it is practically impossible to “deep fake” a real personal encounter with someone we know. Virtual experiences with people do not accurately and completely convey the fulness of the people being represented, and the unbalanced nature of these interactions lead to many problems.

Several vices resulting from excessive social media use include but are not limited to: Pride, envy, sloth, and anger. Pride results from the filtered and biased nature of the virtual representations, leading us to hide the flaws in ourselves as we portray only what we want others to see. Envy results from our seeing only the good things and good times that others convey, and being saddened by our real life looking bleak by comparison to a series of gilded virtual facades. Sloth results from the obvious habit of wasting time with social media—far more time than many of us are comfortable admitting. Finally, anger results from the ability to “hide behind the screen” when communicating hateful things that we would never dare to say to someone face-to-face. In fact, the connection between social media and anger is a particularly relevant problem in our time that deserves more attention, so I have included the URL to a Catholic Answers article on this topic written by Catholic apologist Joe Heschmeyer: https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/dont-let-this-vice-ruin-your-lent.

With all this said about the problem, let’s get to a solution: Fast from social media this Lent. Instead of using social media to communicate with friends and family, spend real time with them. The benefits of spending quality time with our loved ones face-to-face far outweigh any cost of awkwardness from not seeing them in a while. Real human encounters help us to grow in holiness and love, in large part because we were created for real face-to-face interactions rather than virtual ones. Let’s all remove the weed of social media from the garden of our hearts this Lent so that we can more effectively bear good and mature spiritual fruit in our lives.