How do you feel after spending 30 minutes or more on social media? Do you feel more in the joy column or the depression column?
The secret to how social media works is comparison.
The dark secret of social media is comparison.
Photo by Eaters Collective on Unsplash
The name of the game is comparison. You see that person’s breakfast or children or seats at the Lakers game, almost always something fun and happy, and you wonder to yourself if you are like them or unlike them. You may feel you don’t stack up well to that person.
The bots know that. They’re watching. They’re out to hook you into what captures your eye movements and feelings. They know more than we know. Sometimes even about ourselves.
A life of comparison is a killer and those who spend more than thirty minutes per day “increases levels of anxiety, depression, and loneliness.” So Jay Kim in his new book, Analog Christian: Cultivating Commitment, Resilience, and Wisdom in a Digital Age.
The ramped up comparison working in social media dampens our joy.
After discussing Marie Kondo’s “spark of joy” as an inadequate understanding of joy – because joy is more than a momentary pleasure – Jay Kim turns to a dynamic idea that many of us have become aware of: the hedonic treadmill of chasing the next pleasure, which does not satisfy, and sends us back to the treadmill for another individualist run for the next moment of pleasure (which again is not joy). He also tags a pastor who spoke of a “when-then” cycle: “when I get this then I will be happy.”
Kim is right in this: social media is part of our hedonic treadmill.
Comparison is connected to “clout,” which is “one’s status in the social media hierarchy.” It is hard to know, isn’t it, but at times in looking through my FB or Twitter I wonder what some people get out of their constant updates. Do you remember the criticisms of these social media when they first appeared? Wasn’t it along this line: Do we really need to know this or that about you? And, why are you telling us this kind of stuff anyway? Those questions have not gone away.
We compare ourselves to others on social media. “We find ourselves envying upward and despising downward.” In another location he calls this “depressive hedonia,” a drive in life that seeks pleasure alone.
“Genuine joy is not found in clout or in winning the comparison game.”
It is found in God, in the Lord Jesus. As Jesus told his disciples: “I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing…. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete” (John 15:5, 11, NRSV). It is found not in some place but in some One.
Jesus was a man full of joy as he said in John 17:3: “But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves.”
Our God is a God full of joy:
Psa. 16:11 You show me the path of life.
In your presence there is fullness of joy;
in your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
Psa. 21:6 You bestow on him blessings forever;
you make him glad with the joy of your presence.
Anyone know what Dallas Willard said about God being full of joy?
The momentary pleasures of life, including those on social media, are a deceptive joy. True joy can be found in God, and genuine joy comes to us as well through and in community. The hedonic treadmill is an individualist’s pursuit. Kim cites Nehemiah 8:10 that the “joy of the Lord is “y’all’s” gift of “strength.” The “your” in that verse is plural.
One more observation about joy as presented in this chapter. To translate the beatitudes with the word “happy,” Kim observes (and I agree), short-changes the sense of the term makarios. Notice who is blessed and notice if we connect them to our senses of happiness: the poor, the persecuted, the mourners, the meek… etc.. No these are social groups without status and they are the ones upon whom Jesus says “God’s favor” rests, which is the theological theme at work in the term “blessed.” When we know God’s favor rests on us we can live in joy in spite of our circumstances (which does not mean we can’t work to change our circumstances). Joy is a term that pokes out of the ground when tension, persecution, and suffering are the topic of discussion.
I have a browser setting that immediately kicks me out of all social media domains precisely at the 30 minute mark each day. Despite the guardrails, I still sometimes feel worse after a brief session.
Thank you for pointing out the word translated in the Beatitudes as "happy" in many English Bibles, is a misnomer. It doesn't convey anything like what the text is getting at. It's a poor, shallow substitute for true joy, imparted by God's blessings on his people. Joy has depth and staying power; happiness is transitory at best.