Simon Cox Blog: Reflecting on Social Media: Some Tips to Navigate this Medium

Tuesday, 8 January 2019

Reflecting on Social Media: Some Tips to Navigate this Medium

Social media has changed, and we must change with it, especially if we are seeing that it has any negative implications in our lives.

It’s 2019.

I figure since it’s a new year, I want to start it off right—by making a confession and some changes.

Here it goes: I am on social media too much.

One of the ways God has called me to serve the church today is by engaging the culture and helping churches and leaders think critically about the world around us. This is good.

What’s not good is what has happened as a result of my desire to be connected and up-to-date on current news and information. Simply put, I have found that my engagement in social media has caused me to become less effective as a leader and mentor to others.

This is not to say social media is bad. It’s not. But I am going to be making some changes, and my hope is that as you read this, if you sense God is calling you to tailor back on your social media usage, then you would heed that call as well.

Social media has changed, and we must change with it, especially if we are seeing that it has any negative implications in our lives.

We must begin with this simple assertion: social media can take over your life. It can become a distraction that takes the best out of you. In my book Christians in the Age of Outrage, I write about this. Social media is decreasing the leadership capacity of some leaders because it has become all-encompassing. It’s time all leaders look at their own usage and assess whether it’s healthy, life-giving, and Kingdom-building. For me, I’ve decided it’s not.

So I am going to be pulling back on social media so I can spend more time writing a new book on evangelicalism and spending more time with my leaders.

I want to quickly share some specific changes I’m going to make, and why.

Twitter

For me, Twitter is a great tool to communicate ...