Participating in Social Media to Reach Teens
What are we teaching implicitly as we do so?
Recently Anthony Bradley made a thought-provoking post about the use of social media to reach teens. In it, he compares this to using cigarettes to reach teens:
“Using social media to ‘reach’ youth under 16 is like handing out packs of cigarettes with a gospel tract and church info from 1940-1992. Social media addiction explains teen screen time, and enabling this addiction to ‘reach’ them is morally irresponsible, especially for girls.”
Given the data we have, we know that 1) social media is designed to addict and exploit teens, and 2) social media addiction plays a powerful role in teen mental health issues, particularly for girls. Therefore, Bradley asks, why are churches “using these same addictive and exploitive applications to ‘reach’ youth, and why aren’t parents outraged that their churches are inviting teens back to their phones to see their church accounts?”
When I’ve heard arguments for using social media to reach teens, they mostly center around the idea that teens are already using social media and therefore we’re just trying to get our announcements/content in front of them where they already are. Bradley highlights that the reason teens are on social media so much is due to addiction! They wouldn’t be there so much if it weren’t due to the apps’ addictive designs. Bringing them back to the apps, therefore, is like supporting this addiction.
I like that Bradley has picked up on the addiction aspect of social media as we consider whether to use it for youth ministries. As I reflected on his argument, I realized that I also wanted a second analogy, one that would capture the fact that by using social media to reach teens, we are also participating in it ourselves.
I suppose in some ways, one could argue that the cigarette analogy isn’t far off from this. By handing someone cigarettes, you are supporting the tobacco industry and encouraging others to do so as well. However, to capture what I’m talking about in the analogy, you’d also have to be smoking a cigarette as you hand packs to the students. Your actions would need to communicate not only “This is okay for you to do and for me to support you doing,” but also “I do this, too, so feel free to follow my example here.”
If you wanted to pick a more modern analogy, however, you could move away from the cigarettes. Maybe it’d be something like showing up at parties (not a birthday party, but the kind depicted in shows and movies with alcohol, drugs, and promiscuity) or playing online video games with questionable content with students. It needs to be an analogy that captures that we are choosing to show up and participate in an environment where one is bombarded with harmful material1 and that is ripe for addiction.
When we use social media to reach students, as Bradley highlights, it can draw students back to social media in order to find our posts, drawing them back into the harmful, exploitive, addictive content.2 This is actually an environment that they want to spend less time on, but they often just don’t know how (because they’re so addicted!). They know it’s harming them, and they want less of it.3
What I also want to highlight is that, when we use social media to reach students, we are also participating in social media ourselves. The means that we use to reach students matter. Students notice our example. When they see us in questionable environments, it communicates something to them. They know that social media is a questionable and harmful environment, so what does it say to them that we participate in it, too?
Now, to be sure, social media is not evil. It can be used for good. That’s where this analogy gets murky. But I still think we ought think through the example we are demonstrating for students when we use social media for our ministries. If we’re talking with students about spending less time on social media, yet we also draw them back to social media, what are we actually teaching them? It seems contradictory to advise them to use it less while simultaneously pushing them toward it in order to engage with our ministry.
There are ways to demonstrate a healthier use of social media and technology as well. We should talk with students about what that could look like. But what if, for the sake of the weak, it would be helpful for us to not use it for our ministries (Romans 14, 1 Corinthians 8)?
We discussed some of the harmful content and effects in Episode 419 of The Local Youth Worker podcast. The show notes also link to the Surgeon General’s recent advisory and an infographic summary.
I’m saying “it can” here because I’m not sure how often students go on social media just to find youth ministry posts (if they forgot what time the youth group event is and it’s posted on there, for instance), versus how often they’re already on social media and just happen across the youth ministry’s posts. I’d guess it’s a mix of both, but that the second one happens more often.
For instance, check out this lawsuit that teens are bringing against Meta: Teenager sues Meta over ‘addictive’ Instagram features.